News Archive for March, 2022

This is the kind of change that flies under the radar and makes a big difference. This week, Novo Nordisk received FDA approval of a 2 mg dose of semaglutide (Ozempic®) for better control of type 2 diabetes. This higher dose option provides a means for maintaining better glycemic control in patients as their disease […]

Objectivity about the risks of drinking alcohol is not easy to find. Just like sweet beverages, alcohol has been part of human culture and a source of pleasure for thousands of years. An awareness of its health risks also has a very long history. Because humans can rationalize just about anything, we embrace assurances from […]

For decades now, health policy advocates have been pursuing a solution to the growing effects of obesity on public health. The banners shift over time, but the goal is pretty consistent. It’s better diets and more physical activity across the population to reverse the trend in obesity prevalence. Low fat everything! Let’s Move! Tax and […]

A new study in Health Economics reminds us we’re still looking for evidence for the health effect of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes. It hasn’t shown up yet. But we’re still waiting hopefully. This latest study comes from John Cawley, Michael Daly, and Rebecca Thornton. They estimated the effect of an SSB Tax in Mauritius on […]

Weight bias is a moving target. It is moving from a shout to a quiet murmur, from explicit shaming to implicit insults. In 2015, a peer-reviewed medical journal would publish advice to tell patients bluntly that obesity is their fault. With an AJM editorial then, Robert Doroghazi wrote that he thought it best to confront […]

Not every study in PLOS Medicine is thoroughly impressive, but this one is pure genius. Researchers at the University of Oxford have discovered that if grocers don’t promote Easter candy, they will sell less of it. But wait, there’s more. Those same researchers showed that promoting “healthy items” – like low fat potato chips – […]

Sweet drinks never cease to activate controversies. For millennia, people have enjoyed them. But that enjoyment has also long sparked a reaction from folks who find fault with enjoying them. So often, people turn to science to justify their beliefs that these sweet beverages are either a good source of refreshment or a hazard to […]

The economy of shame and pride is at work in human cultures everywhere. Public shaming can take aim at whole countries and companies or at random individuals. In The Shame Machine, Cathy O’Neil describes shame as the foundation for an industry that can destroy people: “Humiliation lingers in the mind, the heart, the veins, the […]

New research keeps popping up to remind us that ultra-processed food is a slippery boogeyman. Headlines about their addictive and toxic properties confront us everywhere. They’re “the worst” for your heart, say headlines quoting cardiologists. But the problem with this boogeyman classification is that it’s slippery. A new paper this week reveals that even experts […]

Very early in the pandemic, it was clear that diabetes and COVID had a deep relationship. Along with obesity, diabetes was a key risk factor for a rough ride with COVID. But as the pandemic unfolded, data started suggesting this was a two-way street. COVID could give patients a higher chance of developing diabetes. A […]