March 23, 2019 — It’s great to have new options for obesity meds. Since 2010, FDA has approved four of them. But the fact is that the mainstay of obesity meds is still something that’s older than dirt – phentermine. And new data suggests that it can work safely and effectively when used as a chronic med for this […]
March 19, 2019 — Here’s a jolt of reality from research at the NYU School of Medicine. Among the students who are ready to go into the clinic for their clerkships, most of them believe that controllable factors are very important causes of obesity. But most of them think that biological and genetic factors are not very important. This […]
March 18, 2019 — A hot catchphrase in popular culture is mindfulness. But for effective, evidence-based obesity care, we need more than buzzy phrases. Thus we have the emergence of acceptance-based therapy (ABT) as a way to enhance well-established techniques for intensive behavioral therapy. New study results in Obesity add to the evidence that acceptance therapy can help deliver […]
March 12, 2019 — Crisis. It’s a time of intense difficulty. Or it’s a time when a difficult, important decision must be made. And finally, it can be a turning point toward either failure or recovery. For decades now, all the talk about childhood obesity has been about crisis. That crisis talk is spreading around the world as childhood […]
March 7, 2019 — Professor Roy Taylor has a passion for shaking diabetes into remission. Two year results are in for the DiRECT trial of an intensive weight management program using meal replacement shakes. The goal is to put type 2 diabetes into remission. The program met the goal in 36 percent of patients after two years. Thus, we […]
March 6, 2019 — United Behavioral Health is systematically “ignoring the effective treatment of members’ underlying conditions,” says U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero. In an ongoing case, the judge issued a scathing decision against this division of United Healthcare. This case is all about access to care for mental health and addiction. But it perfectly illustrates the playbook for […]
March 4, 2019 — It sounded like she was thinking about scrambling eggs. “I don’t want to crack open Medicare Part D for obesity meds,” said this bright young Senate health staffer last week. “Don’t you think a lot of this is coming from depression?” she asked. Such are the questions we hear from some policymakers about obesity care. […]
March 1, 2019 — “I just worry about opening the floodgates.” These are the kinds of things you might hear when you talk to folks who’ve never lived with obesity about access to care. But undaunted by such implicit bias, 35 volunteers made more than 100 visits with their elected representatives to ask for real action now on obesity. […]
February 25, 2019 — “Is the most effective weight-loss strategy really that hard?” Shucks, no, says the University of Vermont in a press release on a new study in Obesity. All it takes is just 15 minutes per day. “Write it when you bite it.” “Would-be weight-losers can’t muster the willpower to do it,” says this sunny bulletin. Suddenly, […]
February 7, 2019 — Why does bariatric surgery have such a profound effect on diabetes? It’s more than you might expect simply from the effects on weight. A large portion of patients with diabetes and obesity have remissions after surgery. Even before they lose much weight. New research in Cell Reports this week points to GLP-1 secretion as a […]
