February 15, 2023 — We can hear the rumble. The UK media sensation machine is gearing up for an onslaught of weight loss headlines that will misdirect millions of people about an important medical advance. If you have any doubt, sample the headlines from mainstream UK news sources. The Independent captures the spirit of British press on this subject […]
February 11, 2023 — “Calorie restriction slows pace of aging in healthy adults.” This headline for a press release from Columbia University sounds pretty impressive. Until you stop and read the paper – which comes to no such conclusion. It appears that the headline writers were referring not to the pace of aging, but to P.A.C.E. – the Pace […]
January 11, 2023 — Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper. These immortal words date back almost 70 years to a pop nutrition icon of the early and mid 20th century – Adelle Davis. Unfortunately, the health benefits of this advice are more presumption than fact. But the legends persist. This week, […]
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 […]
January 3, 2023 — Every Friday, we get a little bundle of joy in our inbox from the Obesity and Energetics Offerings. It’s a thought-provoking compilation of a week’s worth of new publications related to obesity and biological energy regulation. One feature of it that seldom fails to bring a smile is the Headline vs Study. This week was […]
January 2, 2023 — On 60 Minutes last night, Lesley Stahl reported in vivid detail just how hard it is to get good obesity care in our broken system for healthcare. She had help. Two of the world’s top obesity medicine physicians – Fatima Cody Stanford and Caroline Apovian – took viewers into their clinics. Two of Apovian’s patients […]
December 30, 2022 — CNN, we’re looking at you. Your story claiming that “people with diabetes pay the price” for semaglutide use in obesity is problematic. The story falsely describes the demand for semaglutide as “a hot new weight loss fad.” That is simply wrong. Providing medical care for people who are trying to deal with the complex chronic […]
December 29, 2022 — Very quietly, just before Christmas, FDA approved a major step forward for treating obesity in teens. The agency issued an approval for Wegovy brand of semaglutide to treat obesity in teens. There was no press release at FDA, none on the corporate website for Novo Nordisk. As late as yesterday, the news of this approval […]
November 16, 2022 — It’s a fact. Media needs your attention. Thus, journalistic standards live in in tension with the temptation for sensational headlines that trivialize a subject like obesity. We’ve seen it before. Yet the current crop of sensational headlines offering a twisted understanding of serious new obesity treatments is especially disappointing. Here’s an example from the supposedly […]
October 2, 2022 — From the Annals of Sad but True: “It is not only predatory journals that publish bullshit,” said Guillaume Cabanac. He was commenting of the news last year of hundreds of retractions from special issues in journals published by Springer Nature and Elsevier. This and other recent news suggests that scientific fraud is hardly negligible. But […]
