August 10, 2019 — Velveeta ain’t what it used to be. That’s because consumers now don’t want ultra-processed food. Thus, 474 million dollars just disappeared from the balance sheet of Kraft Heinz. It’s all about the fading, intangible goodwill value of processed food brands. Serious Financial Pressure for “Big Food” Food marketing is all about building goodwill for brands […]
July 4, 2019 — What will you be grilling for your summer holiday feasts? Hot dogs are a traditional favorite. Why not substitute some fake meat made of pea protein? Hot dogs – despite a beloved cultural image – have never been an especially wholesome food. For more on this, we refer you to Upton Sinclair’s expose on the […]
June 14, 2019 — It was odd. Lilly had a promising new drug for diabetes that delivered unusually good weight outcomes. But they weren’t sure about developing it for obesity. That was last October. Now, though, they seem to have decided to move ahead with their dual GIP/GLP-1 agonist, tirzepatide, for obesity. Pivotal phase 3 trials will begin this […]
June 11, 2019 — It was quite a splash. Near simultaneous presentations in Baltimore and San Francisco. For the last two days, Tim Spector and colleagues have been busy presenting data from an ambitious study of personalized nutrition. They had a late breaking poster at the American Diabetes Association meeting. Also, they made two presentations at American Society of […]
June 9, 2019 — Some of the most discussed news coming from the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions in San Francisco is all about the PIONEER studies of oral semaglutide. This drug is presently under review at FDA for type 2 diabetes. Interest is keen because it will be the first of its class that doesn’t require an injection. […]
May 13, 2019 — While gastric sleeve procedures became the most common form of bariatric surgery in the U.S., a new and less invasive approach has been coming along. An “Accordion” sleeve procedure shrinks a person’s stomach through an advanced suturing process – no surgical incision required. Later this week, researchers will present the first data on longer term […]
May 4, 2019 — My, how things have changed. Barely more than a decade ago, the dominant drugs for type 2 diabetes caused weight gain. Most big pharma companies were cutting obesity research. Eli Lilly and Sanofi were riding high in diabetes care and turning up their noses at obesity. But now the tables have turned. Sanofi’s diabetes business […]
April 30, 2019 — You might think that childhood obesity is a subject that draws a lot of sympathy from the public. You would be wrong. Today at the 26th European Congress on Obesity, we presented new data on a huge gap in the public understanding of severe obesity in young children. Even in young children, our data shows […]
April 17, 2019 — Noom is an app and a program that climbed into the top trends for diet and nutrition searches on Google in 2018. So now it’s putting considerable pressure on the old guard of the diet industry at a time when consumers have very mixed feelings about that business. Weight Watchers is now WW – Wellness […]
April 12, 2019 — It’s been a long road for Intercept Pharmaceuticals to develop an important advance for treating NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis). Five years ago this little startup company shocked the world when a monitoring board stopped a placebo-controlled study because their drug (obeticholic acid or OCA) had worked so well. A final round of 64 liver biopsies were […]
