October 28, 2025 — A new study in JAMA suggests that AI can lead a fully automated diabetes prevention program and deliver outcomes that are just as good as programs with human coaches. Shall we view this as a threat? Or, more optimistically, as a tool to help with the challenge of delivering obesity care at scale? A Mobile […]
October 19, 2025 — FDA and the MAHA Commission seem to be making health labels for food and beverage products a priority. But it looks like the front-of-pack label in the current proposal is relatively ineffective. At least that’s what we’re seeing in a new randomized controlled study by Anna Grummon et al in JAMA Network Open. It was […]
October 8, 2025 — As an article of faith, many people, even some who should know better, dispense advice that sweeteners are bad for metabolic health and weight management. They rely on observational evidence and theories about how they might have subtle effects to undermine health. But no direct evidence. Now, in Nature Metabolism comes a randomized controlled study to […]
August 29, 2025 — We are on a steady diet of studies with a seemingly singular aim: to persuade us ultra-processed foods are really, really bad for us. We get the point. But the nourishment for our brains from this unbalanced research diet seems deficient. The latest is an RCT that shows us oatmeal made from scratch is a […]
June 2, 2025 — This is stunningly positive news. While many of us are debating the nuances and evidence for lifestyle therapy in obesity, a clever group of cancer researchers have gone out and proven its value for extending life in people with colon cancer. A well-controlled clinical trial of personal coaching for exercise showed that it reduced cancer […]
April 26, 2025 — An enduring and versatile mainstay of therapy for type 2 diabetes, metformin never ceases to earn our respect. On Thursday in JAMA, researchers showed this humble drug delivers improvements in knee pain for persons with overweight or obesity and osteoarthritis. In this six-month study of 107 persons randomized to either placebo or up to 2,000 […]
February 13, 2025 — Early on after semaglutide captured public attention, people started noticing that the drug was not only helping people reduce excessive weight, it seemed to reduce the desire for drinking alcohol. But until now, all we’ve had to support this idea were anecdotes and retrospective observational studies. Yesterday, JAMA Psychiatry published an RCT offering stronger evidence […]
December 27, 2023 — Food as medicine programs can yield a fantastic medical benefit, say the promoters of this currently trendy concept in nutrition policy. If implemented broadly, they “would save lives and billions of dollars.” That’s the word from Tufts, where Dariush Mozaffarian is selling this concept with great enthusiasm. The whole idea behind these claims is that […]
July 31, 2023 — The subject of sweeteners stirs emotions almost constantly. The World Health organization has been on a tear lately, suggesting the the sweetener aspartame might be carcinogenic and that non-sugar sweeteners have “deadly long-term consequences.” Some experts will even suggest non-nutritive sweeteners can cause weight gain. So we welcome the appearance of a more balanced view, […]
July 19, 2023 — New research today in the New England Journal of Medicine offers an important lesson – for anyone with an open mind. Finding an association of a dietary pattern with a better health outcome is not the same as showing that a dietary pattern has that effect. Eight years ago, Martha Clare Morris and colleagues told […]
