Posts Tagged ‘scientific curiosity’

The Overwhelming Appeal of Simplistic Obesity Thinking

August 24, 2023 — Simplistic thinking about obesity has an overwhelming appeal. Sadly, though, it has a dismal history of letting us down. “Yes, calories in/calories out really is the key to weight loss,” writes Tamar Haspel in the Washington Post. To insure we don’t miss the point, she closes by saying: “It’s the calories, people. It’s the calories.” […]

Life Experiences, Evidence, Theories, and Conjectures on Obesity

July 27, 2023 — Five years ago, Faith Ann Heeren brought her life experiences to YWM2018 in Denver. Now, as a PhD candidate at the University of Florida College of Medicine, she is the lead author on one in a collection of papers from last summer’s outstanding program on causes of obesity at the Royal Society in London. Life […]

Life with Microplastics, Maybe Not Fantastic

July 18, 2023 — Barbie Girl (the song) told us life in plastic is fantastic, but the knowledge that we’re swimming in microplastics gives us reason for second thoughts. These tiny particles of plastic are accumulating in the oceans (even the Arctic), in the air, in the soil, in our food, and even in our bodies. This is an emerging […]

EDIT Collaboration: Curiosity Instead of Gaslighting

July 12, 2023 — Another milestone came this week for the EDIT Collaboration. We published our protocol for a systematic review of behavioral weight management with a meta analysis of the risk factors for disordered eating behaviors in individual participants. Yes, that’s a mouthful. But the point of the EDIT Collaboration is to muster some serious curiosity about the […]

Humility to Know What We Don’t Know About Obesity

July 9, 2023 — This is a heady time for people pursuing scientific insights into obesity. Better knowledge of the physiology that regulates healthy weight and adiposity has brought breakthroughs in medicine for obesity. Some people living with great harms from obesity are finding profound benefits because of these advances. Further advances are on the way. Yet all this […]

Digging Deeply in Genetics to Grasp Obesity

June 16, 2023 — At the Boston Course in Obesity Medicine, Sadaf Farooqi received the George L. Blackburn Foundation Award and delivered a masterclass of digging deeply into genetics to fully understand obesity. Simultaneously, she co-authored striking new observations about one dimension of this in the New England Journal of Medicine. All in a day’s work for someone intent […]

What? Obesity Is a Disease of the Brain?

June 13, 2023 — We are in the midst of a great deal of cognitive dissonance about obesity. Part of the boilerplate description is that it is simply a dietary disease. But recent scientific and therapeutic advances tell a different story – that obesity is just as much a disease of altered brain function as it is a dietary […]

The Irresistible Attraction of One Size Fits All

June 9, 2023 — We say it over and over again. Obesity is a heterogeneous disease. But it seems never to sink in. Perhaps this is because of the irresistible attraction of the idea that one size fits all – or at least it ought to. To make matters worse, the one-size thinking coming at us right now for […]

ECO2023: Seeking the Determinants of Obesity

May 19, 2023 — One question that holds us captive in obesity is the question of its origins. Why has its prevalence been rising so relentlessly now for decades? At ECO2023, this question inserted itself into one of the major themes of the meeting – a pursuit of the determinants of obesity. Commercial Determinants Emma Boyland and Aileen McGloin […]

Natural Killer Cells in Obesity and Its Treatment

May 11, 2023 — The natural killers of our immune system – lymphocytes known as natural killer cells – increasingly seem to have a role in the pathophysiology of obesity and in the response to its treatment. Just this week, researchers from Ireland published a study showing that semaglutide for obesity may restore more normal function of these cells. […]