October 12, 2024 — Amid a great deal of excitement about the value of GLP-1 medicines like semaglutide and tirzepatide for obesity, there is also a buzz of concern about muscle loss. Is it a reason to think twice about these new treatments? Or is it merely a reason for caution? Not Unique to GLP-1s Carla Prado, Stuart Phillips, […]
July 6, 2024 — We’ve been hearing quite a lot about this on many levels. For years now, obesity thought leaders and even the public have had an increasingly sour relationship with BMI. It’s been misused, abused, detested, and even accused of racism. Yes, the love is gone. On Friday, the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) […]
July 20, 2023 — Obesity care is suffering from a blinding distraction – BMI and weight loss. It’s not hard to find critiques of this. The American Medical Association recently cautioned physicians against the misuse of BMI as a surrogate for health and obesity. PLOS One has a new paper telling us BMI may not necessarily increase mortality independently […]
July 15, 2023 — Four years ago, bimagrumab was a castoff from Novartis. That company had originally developed this monoclonal antibody for treating a rare muscle disease. But it failed spectacularly with disappointing results from a phase 2b study in 2016. That was a big disappointment, so it’s little wonder that Novartis walked away. Three years later, a glimmer […]
January 6, 2023 — Intermittent fasting has some enthusiastic fans. While some studies have shown impressive benefits, others have found little benefit. On top of that, virtually all of the research on this type of dietary intervention has been of a short duration. Compliance with intermittent fasting can be a challenge over time. So the fan base will surely […]
November 11, 2022 — Are college sports having an issue with body image and health? Mental health of elite athletes received a great deal of attention during the Tokyo Olympics. Simone Biles captured public attention as she struggled with the subject. New reporting, though, points to more specific problems with body image and health in college sports, especially among […]
May 18, 2022 — One of the important complications of obesity is NAFLD – non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Quite simply, this is a condition where unhealthy fat accumulates in the liver. It leads to inflammation and fibrosis, progressing to cirrhosis, liver cancer, or liver failure in severe cases. Often, it goes undetected until these more severe problems emerge. Because […]
September 27, 2021 — It was an exciting possibility. At ObesityWeek 2019, Novartis scientist Laura Coleman presented fascinating results for an experimental drug, bimagumide, in obesity. In a phase 2 study, it yielded impressive improvements in body composition for people with obesity. It wasn’t just making people lose body fat. It helped them also gain muscle mass. Then, it […]
July 29, 2021 — Two years ago, intermittent fasting was a hot concept. The idea was that periods of fasting could have metabolic benefits and help with weight loss – better than simply restricting calories. Popular interest peaked in early 2020 and has since been declining. Now, a new RCT of intermittent fasting – small, but well controlled – […]
June 11, 2021 — One of the simplistic models of obesity relies on the notion of a balance between calories a person consumes in foods and drinks and those burned in physical activity. Some people even go so far as suggesting food labels should tell us how much we’ll have to exercise to burn off the calories in that […]
