August 23, 2024 — A new paper this week reminds us of the enduring fascination with causal pathways for obesity. Why has the prevalence grown so relentlessly? How can we reverse it? This preoccupation has been the source of controversy and mistakes in dealing with obesity. One of the more memorable controversies is the back-and-forth debates between David Ludwig […]
May 17, 2024 — “Give a boy a hammer and everything he meets has to be pounded.” Though this hammer-nail-pounding metaphor started half a century ago, it still works well today. For example, folks armed with the carbohydrate insulin model (CIM) of obesity see opportunities everywhere to pound away, bringing truth and light. Whatever the question, carbs and insulin […]
February 25, 2024 — Are we cynical? We can surely find excuses to be. Examples of cynicism pop up at every glance. Certainly we see it in politics and public policy. Closer to home at ConscienHealth, people routinely find reasons for cynicism about all kinds of medical research and advice – especially nutrition and obesity. This is a real […]
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.” […]
June 15, 2023 — BMI seems to be everyone’s favorite target for abuse these days. Depending on whom you listen to, it’s racist, sexist, useless, or useful. Nobody really stands up for it, except as an simple, objective measure of weight for height. Now, the AMA decided to caution doctors about the misuse of BMI as a surrogate for […]
January 20, 2023 — USDA yesterday appointed 20 nationally recognized nutrition and public health experts to serve on the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. We find good reason for cheers about these appointments – not just because these are some brilliant people – but also because we see them bringing diverse thinking on dietary guidance to this process. Diverse […]
October 19, 2022 — The second day of the epic meeting on obesity causes at the Royal Society in London came round to the subject that preoccupies almost everyone – food and physical activity. One thing is certain. This is a pair of subjects that evokes strong passions, but the strength of the data often does not match the […]
September 19, 2022 — Will we ever tire of debating the value of eating breakfast for keeping our weight in check? So far, it seems not. In fact, people seem to be rehashing the same old arguments yet again, based on the results from a new study in Cell Metabolism. Is it a good idea to eat breakfast like […]
July 29, 2022 — Genuinely, we admire the persistence of David Ludwig. Today in the Washington Post, he has an opinion piece about his opinion piece in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Once again he wants to sell the world on his concept that carbs and insulin are more important for understanding obesity than simply thinking about energy […]
June 19, 2022 — All models are wrong, but some are useful. Quite a distinguished collection of obesity researchers are working hard to prove that these words of a great statistician – George Box – were precisely correct. One group, led by David Ludwig, suggests that their carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM) for obesity “better reflects knowledge on the biology of […]
