August 28, 2021 — Half a loaf is better than none, wrote John Heywood in his 1546 book of proverbs. So should we be thrilled that the USPSTF is making a “huge” change to diabetes screening for people with overweight and obesity? Or is this only a half-measure that will do nothing if people don’t have access to care […]
June 12, 2021 — Would it be too strong to call this one of the biggest public health failures of the 21st century? We ask this about diabetes control because it appears to be out of control. After a decade of better control at the turn of the century, key markers of health in people living with diabetes have […]
June 10, 2021 — New data on deaths for 2020 from CDC present a stark picture. The rate of deaths due to heart disease rose by more than three percent in 2020. This has happened only one other time in the last 20 years. In 2015, the death rated rose by less than a percent. Even more dramatically, the […]
April 13, 2021 — In all of the work we do with nutrition, obesity, and metabolic health, nothing is more irritating than a false choice between prevention and treatment. More than a century old, the parable of The Ambulance Down in the Valley is a perfect expression of it. Shall we spend all of our money on an ambulance […]
March 18, 2021 — This week, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) published a new draft recommendation on screening for diabetes and pre-diabetes for people with a high BMI. Until now, the recommendation has been to screen everyone with a BMI over 25 at age 40 and up. But the new recommendation, if it becomes final, would expand […]
March 16, 2021 — Bias and stigma are not confined to obesity. And in fact, a considerable body of research tells us that far too many people with diabetes experience it and it is greatest in people who require insulin, have more difficulty controlling the disease, and have a higher BMI. Though stigma can be a problem for people […]
February 24, 2021 — Good news seems a bit rare these days. So reading that a robust new analysis says type 2 diabetes incidence is dropping in high-income countries prompts more questions. Is this trend real? Or is it an artifact of this one, very large dataset? Does this represent progress? Or merely a shift in the global patterns […]
February 19, 2021 — The lifespan expected for a baby born in America during the first half of 2020 dropped by a year, compared to what it was in 2019. But for a Black child, the drop in life expectancy (2.7 years) was more than three times worse than for a White child (0.8 years). Life expectancy for a […]
February 2, 2021 — It is now becoming apparent that the connection between diabetes and COVID-19 is a two-way street. On one hand, people with diabetes are at risk for more severe cases with COVID-19. On the other hand, it seems that COVID-19 is at work in new cases of diabetes. In fact, diabetes may come to about 14 […]
September 18, 2020 — More experience with COVID-19 tells us that the relationship between COVID-19 and cardiometabolic health is more than a passing thing. It starts with the risk that obesity confers for worse outcomes with COVID-19. That was the first clue. But that’s not the end of it. Because people are learning that the effects of COVID-19 can […]
