January 27, 2020 — While the planet warms up, our bodies are cooling down. That’s right. Declining human body temperatures are a fact of the last 200 years. A new study in eLife tells us that average body temperatures have cooled by 1.6% over the last 200 birth years. If you thought that 37°C or 98.6°F is the norm […]
January 23, 2020 — People with a cause like to hook it up with childhood obesity. Breastfeeding is good for both mother and child. But it doesn’t magically prevent childhood obesity – no matter how many times advocates try to suggest it does. Likewise, overusing antibiotics is a huge problem – mainly because it leads to huge problems with […]
January 9, 2020 — We ought to be the masters of our own fate. Pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. Get up and do what needs to be done. And you know what? Most people do their best. However, this little inspirational talk is no substitute for medical facts. And the fact is that obesity is a highly heritable, […]
January 8, 2020 — What could it be that explains racial and ethnic disparities in obesity? The most common thought is that it’s all about differences in health behaviors, along with social and economic status. The thinking is that poverty and educational disadvantages make it hard to eat healthy and stay fit. But a new study in Obesity tells […]
November 27, 2019 — We’ve only just begun. That was once a hopeful refrain. But now, it applies to a worrisome trend. Working age people in the U.S. are dying at rates that are unprecedented among wealthy countries. This finding comes from a stunning, comprehensive study of a reversal in U.S. life expectancy. Because it’s now in its third […]
November 25, 2019 — The assumption is everywhere. Obesity is simply the result of “eating too much and moving too little…poor diet and lifestyle choices.” So says the UK’s National Health Service. But in fact, it’s not so simple. And it’s worth considering the impact of drugs and other chemicals that nudge us to a higher weight. These are […]
November 24, 2019 — Who dunnit? That was the essence of the debate between Sadaf Farooqi and John Wilding at the Society for Endocrinology BES Conference in Brighton, UK. Some very smart people have a tough time wrapping their brains around nature, nurture, and obesity. So Farooqi and Wilding took opposite sides of a simple proposition: This house believes […]
November 23, 2019 — Sleep, stress, and obesity are clearly related. But the relationship is complicated and causality is tough to unravel. Stress interferes with sleep. So does obesity. And then, too, both stress and too little sleep can contribute to obesity. So if you sleep more, will you weight less? A natural experiment in Korea tells us for […]
November 15, 2019 — Toddler diets can’t seem to fall in line with dietary guidelines. About 98 percent of toddlers are eating added sugar! That’s the headline in the New York Times today on a study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. In that same article, the Times buried the fact that added sugar consumption […]
November 11, 2019 — Once you pop, you can’t stop! This tagline for the launch of Pringles chips captures the essence of dietary fears about hyper-palatable foods. Does hyper-palatability drive the risk of obesity linked to ultra-processed foods? Sometimes policy makers give this supposition, though unproven, the status of a fact. But it needs more study. And if we’re […]
