November 13, 2024 — Standing desks arrived with high hopes of countering the health risks of a sedentary office lifestyle, promising to reduce heart disease and improve circulation. However, recent research in the International Journal of Epidemiology casts doubt on whether simply swapping sitting for standing delivers these benefits. Cardiovascular Risk Benefit? In a study of over 83,000 adults, […]
October 22, 2024 — Adolescence is hard. With respect to mental health, especially of late, the environment is especially harsh. Even harsher if an adolescent is living with obesity. So a recent study in JAMA Pediatrics showing teens with obesity are having fewer suicidal thoughts when they get a GLP-1 is welcome news. Authors Liya Kerem and Joshua Stokar […]
October 21, 2024 — “We conclude that exercise and video gaming have differential effects on the brain, which may help individuals tailor their lifestyle choices to promote mental and cognitive health, respectively, across the lifespan.” This conclusion comes from a preprint published on PsyArXiv. Science, health, and lifestyle reporters got even more bold with their conclusions. For instance, the […]
October 19, 2024 — New observational research in Addiction suggests that the rates of drug and alcohol use might be lower by as much as half when people are taking GLP-1s. Specifically, half as many people with alcohol use disorder had episodes of intoxication if they were taking a GLP-1. Among people with opioid use disorder, the rate of […]
August 28, 2024 — Type 2 diabetes prevalence is up and the Lancet Regional Health has a simple way to reduce it. Daniel Windred and colleagues write: “Advising people to turn off their lights at night, or use lights that reduce the circadian impact (dim and “warm” light), is a simple, cost-effective, and easily-implementable recommendation that may promote cardiometabolic […]
July 10, 2024 — The headline is compelling. “Zepbound outperforms Ozempic and Wegovy in head-to-head weight loss study.” It certainly confirms the bias of a lot of people in the field. But is it true? Did tirzepatide (Zepbound) really beat semaglutide (Wegovy) in a head-to-head comparative study for obesity? In a word, no. Uncontrolled, Observational, and Inequivalent Dosing The […]
July 8, 2024 — Cancer might not be top of mind when most people think about the complications of obesity. But at least 13 different cancers have a clear association with obesity. A new study published Friday in JAMA Network Open examines the risk of these cancers in patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity. The primary objective was […]
July 5, 2024 — Dietary supplements generated U.S. sales of $177 billion in 2023 and multivitamins are the single most common dietary supplement that people actually take. According to NIH, about one in three of us take one. The use of them goes up with age, perhaps as a response as mortality comes into sharper view. But a new […]
July 1, 2024 — Two presentations of research about ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and health at Nutrition 2024 offer associations and puzzles that should make us think twice about sweeping generalizations on this subject. Increased Death On one hand, Erikka Loftfield presented data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study in which she found an association of consuming ultra-processed foods […]
June 11, 2024 — Keeping up with virtues and vices in food just keeps getting harder. Planetary health is a virtue to pursue, but ultra-processed food is a vice, and plant-based foods are virtuous unless they are ultra-processed. Then perhaps they become virtuous vices. So confusing. A series of publications this week adds to the confusion. In the American […]
