May 19, 2021 — It’s tough to get people to let go of weight and body size as the defining feature of obesity. But indeed, weight does not define obesity. Nor does BMI. What defines obesity is abnormal or excess fat (adipose) tissue that harms health. Most often, this occurs when someone’s weight is high. Not always, though. In […]
March 24, 2021 — If you had any doubt about prior reports that semaglutide is likely to be a “game changer” for obesity care, perhaps you should look at JAMA today. Just one month after another paper in JAMA, semaglutide is back in the journal. This time, it is a 68-week study that shows the value of maintaining therapy […]
February 10, 2021 — High intensity interval training (HIIT) is hot right now. It mixes short periods of very intense exercise with less intense recovery. Even before the pandemic, interest in HIIT had grown dramatically. Then it spiked when pandemic lockdowns began. But a new RCT published yesterday in JAMA suggests that it might not be a panacea for […]
January 30, 2021 — Nevermind. As far as we can tell, that’s the bottom line on a convoluted story about data thugs, pajamas, and a provocative study of ultra-processed food. It starts with the study by Kevin Hall et al that found ultra-processed food can cause people to eat more and gain weight. All by itself, that finding was […]
January 26, 2021 — Innovation in obesity care has come a long way. Back in 2010, Sanofi was smarting from the spectacular failure of rimonabant and big pharma was closing down research programs in obesity. But Novo Nordisk forged ahead with an ambitious program and now has a successful portfolio in obesity care to show for it. Nonetheless, we […]
January 13, 2021 — Mistakes can be hard to admit. We see vivid examples. Someone makes a grievous error and yet claims their actions were “totally appropriate.” Even though they’re obviously wrong. Likewise, when a journal makes a mistake by publishing a flawed paper, a retraction can be quite difficult. But that’s precisely what Scientific Reports did yesterday. The […]
December 16, 2020 — Right now, if you search Google for COVID vaccine obesity, the top result will be a story from Nature that says the vaccine might not work well for people with obesity. But the truth is quite different. Because yesterday, FDA released data on the Moderna vaccine, and it works quite well, even in people with […]
December 2, 2020 — Let’s call it a flood – an overwhelming flood of information and misinformation about Vitamin D and COVID-19. But the volume is so great that distinguishing truth from fiction can be difficult. Furthermore, our knowledge is incomplete. So we have lots of speculation and relatively fewer solid facts. Meanwhile, researchers continue flooding the zone with […]
November 22, 2020 — This month has brought considerable progress on NASH treatments. Yet it’s hard to know when we will have real progress in medical care for this silent epidemic. Getting FDA to yes on new treatments seems to be a challenge. Nonetheless, we have news of two new studies that suggest promise for new NASH treatments. One […]
November 3, 2020 — Oddly enough, obesity can be a bit of an abstraction. Everybody thinks they know all about it. But in truth, the smartest people who study know how little we know. At the opening of ObesityWeek 2020, though, all that abstract science came face to face with humanity. Perhaps more than we’ve ever seen before, the […]
