Archive for September, 2022

Value, Volume, and Health in Food Systems

September 20, 2022 — Global food systems are putting more food – and more nutritious food – within within the reach of more people than ever before. But what are the outcomes for human and environmental health? For nutrition and equity? Frankly it’s a mixed picture. Food systems have evolved all over the world to crank out sufficient calories […]

Eat Breakfast Like a King?

September 19, 2022 — Will we ever tire of debating the value of eating breakfast for keeping our weight in check? So far, it seems not. In fact, people seem to be rehashing the same old arguments yet again, based on the results from a new study in Cell Metabolism. Is it a good idea to eat breakfast like […]

Looking for Real Plants in a Plant-Based Diet

September 18, 2022 — One of the hottest concepts right now in dietary fashion is plant-based diets. It’s on the way to surpassing the dominant theme of the last two decades – low-carb diets. Thus, some really exceptional claims for the benefits of plant-based diets are popping up in scientific literature. Apart from the fanciful nature of some of […]

Missing the Human Dimension of Obesity

September 17, 2022 — Yesterday, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review conducted an impressive public hearing on the effectiveness and value of obesity medicines. ICER deserves credit for developing a complex and remarkably transparent model for objectively evaluating this. However, caution is necessary. This model is sufficiently complex to obscure two important facts about obesity and its treatment. […]

Treating Obesity to Prevent Diabetes

September 16, 2022 — Twenty years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Diabetes Prevention Program showed that intensive lifestyle coaching for weight control can cut the risk of diabetes for people with prediabetes by 58 percent over a period of three years. At the upcoming EASD meeting, Tim Garvey and colleagues will present an analysis 10-year […]

Locked into the Wrong Debate About Obesity

September 15, 2022 — Public discourse about obesity is often locked into the wrong debate. On one hand, a common view holds that this is a problem for which prevention is the only real answer. People must have good nutrition and active lives by default so that children will not grow into adulthood with obesity. On the other hand, […]

Exploring the Human Dimension of Obesity

September 14, 2022 — A diverse group of folks with unusual expertise gathered in Charlotte last night with a small audience of about a hundred people. They brought questions and curiosity about the chronic disease of obesity. They also brought lifetimes of experience with this disease – either in themselves or through loved ones. It was an evening for […]

The Reality of Living with Obesity

September 13, 2022 — Today we are grateful to Sarah Le Brocq for offering her personal story of the reality of living with obesity. Originally appearing in Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine here under a Creative Commons license, we thank Le Brocq for making it possible for us to share it on ConscienHealth. I grew up on a little Island in the […]

The Allure of Targeting Ultra-Processed Foods

September 12, 2022 — In popular culture right now, it seems that ultra-processed foods are the bad boys. “Ultra-processed foods linked to heart disease, cancer, and death, studies show,” says one recent headline. Scary stuff, eh? Targeting ultra-processed foods for scorn wins approving nods. But even if it supports a favored narrative, looking closely at research on ultra-processed foods […]

Changing the Subject on Obesity Prevention

September 11, 2022 — Candid conversations about obesity prevention can be difficult. Longstanding prevention strategies are not really working too well. “It’s so hard to change BMI at the population level,” said Marlene Schwartz of Yale’s Rudd Center recently at the National Academy of Sciences. She’s right. We know that many factors all around us are driving more obesity […]