July 14, 2021 — We’re traveling again. For business, for pleasure, or simply for sanity. People are getting out and around because getting the vaccine means it’s safe again. Confinement brought many people some extra weight. But a new study is telling us that more business travel means more risk of obesity. How can it be that this seems […]
July 7, 2021 — The best thing to demonize is sugar-sweetened beverages, says Harvard’s Mary Bassett. She pointed this out at the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions last month. Thus, yet another paper from Harvard about yet another danger of drinking something sweet is no surprise. This time, it’s about a link between SSBs and colon cancer. In fact, to […]
June 16, 2021 — Diets that exclude meat and fish (vegetarian) or all animal products including dairy and eggs (vegan) are becoming increasingly popular for health, environmental, and ethical reasons. Past research in adults has linked vegetarian and vegan diets with a reduced risk of heart disease but a greater risk of fractures, caused by low calcium intakes. But […]
May 29, 2021 — Is it still true that seeing is believing? Or in this age of truth decay, is it more likely that people see what they’ve already chosen to believe? We see a lot of this in politics and religion. But it also seems to creep into nutrition research. A case in point would be highly polarized […]
February 28, 2021 — Is there a political hot button any hotter right now than cancel culture? The BBC aptly suggests these words have become potent weapons in political culture wars. A former president, voted out of office, defends himself a victim of cancel culture. The list is long for people who feel like aggrieved victims. So perhaps this […]
November 16, 2020 — The term of art for this is an expression of concern. It sounds very restrained, but it is quite serious. Four papers about the effects of Vitamin D in the Journal of Nutrition recently earned this dubious distinction. Add that to a paper in PLOS ONE that is getting the same sort of scrutiny. In […]
October 31, 2020 — Lifestyle Medicine is a new open access journal from John Wiley & Sons. The journal claims to set a high standard, with rigorous peer review. But we are not so sure about its ethical standards. Because the journal is promoting a stereotype about people with obesity. A low IQ is a risk factor for obesity, […]
October 30, 2020 — One of the biggest surprises in this COVID-19 pandemic has been intense interest in vitamin D. Earlier this month, readers swarmed around an item we wrote about it. Now, a month later, the interest persists. Some people seem to be looking for magic for COVID from vitamin D. Others are finding issues. We advise sensible […]
August 25, 2020 — Having obesity is not a lifestyle. Obesity is a chronic disease. But not having obesity is a lifestyle. In fact, it’s a lifestyle that sets a person free from years of having major chronic diseases. Like obesity. This is the logic Solja Nyberg, Archana Singh-Manoux, and Mika Kivimäki offer us in JAMA Internal Medicine this […]
January 25, 2020 — Some people call it the macronutrient wars. We call it a relentless pursuit of macronutrient magic. Consumers want to eat healthy, whatever that is. In the 1980s and 90s, it was low fat. In this millennium, that’s shifted to low-carb and keto approaches. But a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine offers a clue that […]
