March 13, 2019 — Precision nutrition is a concept with an almost irresistible allure. It borrows on the cachet of precision medicine. On top of that, frustration with the presently imprecise nature of nutrition science makes the promise of precision personalized diets especially appealing. So in pursuit of this idea, a new study in Nutrients offers some tantalizing clues. […]
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 […]
February 14, 2019 — Last year, the New England Journal of Medicine retracted and then published a revised analysis of the landmark PREDIMED study. With that action, it shook the world of nutrition science. Even now, there’s still a whole lot of shakin going on. What About 267 Secondary Publications? Just last week in the BMJ, Arnav Agarwal and John […]
February 13, 2019 — Our president just had his annual medical exam and that ritual is providing us an important reminder. Self-reports – especially about obesity, nutrition, and physical activity – are not very reliable. That’s because most people misremember or shade the truth. We’re all lighter, taller, eating healthier, and more active when we do the reporting ourselves. A Long […]
February 10, 2019 — Sometimes things are not what they seem. That’s a problem when something slips into scientific literature that’s not exactly true. We offer a prime example today. Here we have two papers where an RCT – a randomized controlled study – is not properly randomized. Apparently, the investigators, reviewers, and editors for these papers weren’t too fussy about […]
January 29, 2019 — In obesity research, we have a bit of a cluster fuss on our hands. It’s all about a type of randomized study where the randomization is between clusters. This randomization method is important because it’s very useful for obesity prevention studies. For example, you might have children in different schools or different classrooms participating in […]
January 25, 2019 — JAMA grabbed some headlines this week on a popular subject – cutting sugar consumption for kids. Fatty liver disease is a serious problem and the headlines point to a simple solution. “To fight fatty liver, avoid sugary foods and drinks,” said the New York Times. How did researchers prove that? All it took was a randomized […]
January 21, 2019 — New research published last week in Cell offers a glimpse of how a critical part of the brain gets wired for obesity very early in life. Sebastien Bouret, a senior author, explains: We know that the brain, in particular an area called the hypothalamus, has a very important role in the regulation of food intake […]
December 26, 2018 — Sitting for Too Long Could Increase Your Risk of Dying – Even If You Exercise Are you sitting down? Then you may want to stand up to read this, as research from the U.S. has found that sitting for too long could increase your risk of dying – even if you exercise. The study found […]
December 21, 2018 — As we’ve noted, 2018 was a year of toxic misinformation. Scholars from the Rand Corporation warned us about Truth Decay, because misinformation is creeping into every corner of our lives. So let’s take a minute to review some of the biggest whoppers of 2018. One by one, maybe they seemed trivial. But add them all […]
