Follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health policy and obesity
March 19, 2019 — Here’s a jolt of reality from research at the NYU School of Medicine. Among the students who are ready to go into the clinic for their clerkships, most of them believe that controllable factors are very important causes of obesity. But most of them think that biological and genetic factors are not very important. This […]
March 18, 2019 — A hot catchphrase in popular culture is mindfulness. But for effective, evidence-based obesity care, we need more than buzzy phrases. Thus we have the emergence of acceptance-based therapy (ABT) as a way to enhance well-established techniques for intensive behavioral therapy. New study results in Obesity add to the evidence that acceptance therapy can help deliver […]
March 17, 2019 — Prescription drug prices are under the microscope again and the intense scrutiny is unlikely to fade anytime soon. That’s because those prices are hurting people who need the drugs. The prime example of unaffordable drugs is insulin. In the short time between 2012 and 2016 alone, costs of insulin almost doubled. Some patients who need […]
March 16, 2019 — Really? We’re going to do this again? In JAMA, a new pooled analysis of six observational studies found an association between eating more eggs and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and death. This finding comes just four years after scientific experts reached a consensus that “cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” […]
March 15, 2019 — Living large in a world designed for much smaller people presents daily challenges. On top of that, coping with everybody’s bias makes it even harder. Sometimes it’s just implicit. Restaurants and offices might not have any place for you to sit. Public transportation is a hostile environment. But then there’s the explicit stuff. Some strangers […]
March 14, 2019 — What you eat and drink can affects sleep more than you might realize. You probably know that consuming caffeine too late in the day is bad news for getting to bed on time, but did you know that some foods can help you sleep better at night? Foods That Can Help You Sleep Eating a […]
March 13, 2019 — Precision nutrition is a concept with an almost irresistible allure. It borrows on the cachet of precision medicine. On top of that, frustration with the presently imprecise nature of nutrition science makes the promise of precision personalized diets especially appealing. So in pursuit of this idea, a new study in Nutrients offers some tantalizing clues. […]
March 12, 2019 — Crisis. It’s a time of intense difficulty. Or it’s a time when a difficult, important decision must be made. And finally, it can be a turning point toward either failure or recovery. For decades now, all the talk about childhood obesity has been about crisis. That crisis talk is spreading around the world as childhood […]
March 11, 2019 — An old and reliable bit of clickbait has just surfaced from a rather obscure journal. In SSM – Population Health, Emla Fitzsimons and Benedetta Pongiglione claim to have “causal evidence” that a mother’s employment effects a child’s BMI. Naturally, British headline writers went nuts. So now we have another round of the obesity blame game […]
March 10, 2019 — Questioning an article of faith invariably gets people into trouble. In matters of religion, some questions might make you guilty of heresy. You might find yourself isolated or expelled from your community. History holds stories of some gruesome deaths for heretics. On the subject of obesity, nutrition, and health, uncomfortable questions are often unwelcome. Especially […]
