November 16, 2025 — “Studies show food is medicine” says WBUR, with Allison Aubrey quoting studies that suggest a benefit from prescribing healthy food to people at risk for metabolic and diet-related diseases. Under the Food Is Medicine banner, hyperbole is easy to find. The people who have taken up this cause are selling hard. So the headlines that […]
November 10, 2025 — At a press event last week, announcing a deal to make obesity medicines more affordable, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz told us “Americans will lose 135 billion pounds by the midterms” because of this. Comedian Stephen Colbert pointed out a problem with the numbers. They imply that every single American will be losing 393 pounds. It […]
October 26, 2025 — Slogans are great. They serve as a tool for selling products, ideas, and, yes, even policies, because they stick with people and can attract support. But they don’t always hold up well under scrutiny and over time. As slogans go, Food as Medicine is having a good run. But it is wearing a little thin […]
October 20, 2025 — Starbucks denies it. The official word from the dominant force behind pumpkin spice season is that the launch of its fall menu – featuring the much loved and hated latte – sparked the “best ever sales week” for Starbucks. Nonetheless, we can’t help wondering if pumpkin spice is wearing thin. Call us cynical, but there’s […]
September 12, 2025 — Honestly, we share the underlying concern. Rising global temperature are a threat to our health and welfare. But twisting a scientific paper to make the point doesn’t help. It actually hurts the cause. New research in Nature Climate Change documents an association between added sugar consumption and rising temperatures. That’s a fair question to study. […]
September 2, 2025 — It is eye-popping really. Novo Nordisk issued a press release from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress over the weekend, with extravagant claims for Wegovy versus tirzepatide. Specifically, the claim was that “Wegovy cuts risk of heart attack, stroke or death by 57% compared to tirzepatide.” This is quite an amazing claim to make. […]
December 6, 2024 — The market for precision nutrition advice is more than six billion dollars today and estimated to double by the end of this decade. Sales of continuous glucose monitoring devices are on their way to $20 billion within three years. But a new study this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that the […]
October 20, 2024 — Headlines and health plans depict the demand for advanced obesity medicines in terms of mania or a stampede. “The Ozempic craze is booming in the United States,” says the University of Kentucky healthcare system. But is it reasonable to describe the people seeking these medicines as crazed? Or is this really an expression of false […]
July 5, 2023 — IARC, the agency of the World Health Organization (WHO) responsible for research on causes of cancer, is preparing to issue a determination that aspartame is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” It will have lots of company on their lists of definite, probable, or possible carcinogens. Cell phones, sunlight, red meat, and hot dogs all enjoy this […]
June 9, 2023 — We say it over and over again. Obesity is a heterogeneous disease. But it seems never to sink in. Perhaps this is because of the irresistible attraction of the idea that one size fits all – or at least it ought to. To make matters worse, the one-size thinking coming at us right now for […]
