March 21, 2025 — The new administration in Washington says it wants to Make America Healthy Again by bringing an intense focus on chronic disease. This is a concept we endorse without reservation. But talk is turning into balk when it comes down to following through on the scientific research essential for reducing the burden of chronic disease. A […]
February 19, 2025 — A new cancel culture is sweeping through science and research, censoring mentions of bad words under the new administration. The bad words relate to things like equity, bias, and diversity. Openness? Probably not a good thing to talk about if you don’t want your research funding flagged. This is a problem. Three researchers in pulmonary […]
February 2, 2024 — Motivational interviewing is a respected tool for helping people who are seeking care for obesity. It’s all about listening to and supporting a person’s motivations wanting medical obesity care. But yet again, we are learning that motivation is not the magic answer for overcoming obesity. This time, in Pediatrics, Ken Resnicow and colleagues have published […]
January 13, 2024 — A new study this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science tells us that every bottle of water we’re drinking has hundreds of thousands of nanoplastics. Should we care? A Blank Slate, Tough to Study This study is important simply because it fills a void in knowledge about how much these nanoplastics are […]
October 26, 2023 — It’s like some kind of holy grail. Obesity prevalence keeps rising and everyone (including ourselves) wants to know why. So headlines saying “major study claims to identify the root cause of obesity” really do grab our attention. News reports are pelting us with headlines saying fructose drives obesity. The only trouble is, the headlines are […]
February 26, 2023 — Quietly and systematically, Tera Fazzino has been working with colleagues to define a concept of hyper-palatable foods that might explain the apparent effect of ultra-processed foods on body composition and thus, obesity. The latest chapter in this quest appeared recently in Nature Food. In short, a narrative is taking shape that we may have a […]
December 24, 2022 — For some of us, gaining weight (especially at this time of year) is a metabolic curse. But there are individuals for whom gaining weight is a metabolic gift and, in fact, essential for surviving in good health. In this case, we are thinking about grizzly bears. These animals gain tremendous amounts of weight every year […]
December 22, 2022 — More 50 years ago, John Cleese ran the Ministry of Silly Walks for a skit on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. He interviewed a grant applicant who had a silly walk and told Cleese that “with government backing I could make it very silly.” Now this little exercise has made it from the Ministry of Silly […]
January 30, 2022 — You may have noticed. Evidence of skepticism, disagreement, and polarization is all around us. These phenomena are notably – sometimes disturbingly – present in dialogue about public health. We suppose that a pandemic puts stresses on people that explain some of this behavior. Healthy skepticism indeed is a good thing. Its roots lie in objectivity […]
December 1, 2021 — Let’s start with a disclosure of vested interests. It’s entirely possible that we hold strong biases about grandparenting and physical activity, since we engage in both with enthusiasm. Nonetheless, it is also objectively true that the active grandparent hypothesis is receiving considerable attention. A new article in PNAS by Daniel Lieberman and colleagues is prompting […]
