January 4, 2023 — If it slipped past you, that may be just as well. It’s diet season and even the Washington Post is serving up “simple swaps” for easy weight loss. They’re not exactly peddling hogwash. The simple swaps that Anahad O’Connor recommends is to replace highly processed carbohydrates with higher quality carbohydrates. The problem comes from overpromising […]
December 17, 2022 — Do angels dancing on the head of a pin get good exercise? We’ll have to get back to you on that one. But we can say that thinking about the value of exercise for overcoming obesity is worthwhile. In the International Journal of Obesity over the last few weeks an excellent conversation about this has […]
December 14, 2022 — Decades have passed with medical experts talking about an “obesity epidemic.” Meanwhile the prevalence of this condition rose without a pause. A new study in Family Practice offers some insight into how this plays out in primary care. Madeleine Tremblett, Annabel Poon, Paul Aveyard, and Charlotte Albury analyzed 159 recordings of advice from GPs to […]
December 12, 2022 — Hoops are fine tools for play and entertainment. But the hoops which health insurers put people with obesity through serve only to delay and discourage obesity care. The implicit message is clear enough: “You probably don’t deserve this, so you have to prove yourself first.” A recent study demonstrates once again that these insurance mandates […]
December 9, 2022 — We have four levels in our home – three sets of stairs to climb. So this new study in Nature Medicine yesterday definitely has our attention. Digging into observational activity monitor data from the UK Biobank, Emmanuel Stamatakis and colleagues from all over the world found that short bursts of vigorous activity – like quickly […]
December 6, 2022 — The fix is in press this week for our terrible eating habits. In Nature Medicine, Pao-Hwa Lin and Crystal Tyson review a new RCT of interventions in food stores that they believe point the way to “fixing America’s eating habits.” They write: “Today, more than half of all adults in the USA have one or […]
December 2, 2022 — It doesn’t take a genius to understand the futility of sprinting in a marathon. But it does seem to take some knowledge and insight to differentiate between the sprint of short-term weight loss and the marathon of obesity treatment. Right now that distinction matters because of a short supply of drugs that are medically necessary […]
November 27, 2022 — A new systematic review prompts us to wonder once again, what is the point of public health interventions targeting obesity? Is it to nudge people toward desired behavior or is it health improvement? Sandrine Lioret and colleagues recently published a systematic review of efforts to improve behaviors or prevent obesity in children during their first […]
November 26, 2022 — Step right up and hear all about an amazing vegan diet study. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) churned out quite a PR masterpiece of hype recently. They randomized 244 people to either go on a diet or not. The diet was a ad libitum vegan diet and people cut 355 calories from their […]
November 17, 2022 — Can bariatric surgery cut the risk of a heart attack in half? The answer, of course, depends upon the population of patients and their risk profile. And we must remember that risk is a tricky thing to measure. But a recent study in JAMA Network Open found half the risk of a wide range of […]
