December 29, 2024 — In recent years, a troubling trend has emerged – a growing distrust in health science, particularly in fields like nutrition and obesity. This skepticism isn’t just about healthy debate or constructive criticism. It’s about an erosion of confidence in scientific expertise. In the age of social media and viral misinformation, unreasonable doubts have real consequences […]
December 26, 2024 — This has been quite a year. We’ve seen endless death and destruction in Ukraine and the Middle East. People expressed discontent with the status quo in elections all over the world. But most notably for our readers – more than 100,000 of you this year – the progress on obesity and health has been nothing […]
December 2, 2024 — The drumbeat is growing louder. “Public health policies to reduce ultra-processed food intake cannot wait.” These words from Mathilde Touvier summed up her presentation of evidence on these foods from epidemiologic and public health studies at Imperial College London last week. She opened six hours of scholars, politicians, and advocates presenting a compelling case. Clearly, […]
November 30, 2024 — Spirulina is a dietary supplement with a history that keeps rolling over us in waves. Back in the 1970s, it captured the popular imagination with its use on moon missions by NASA. Its hard to imagine a better way to conjure hype for a dietary supplement. But now this venerable supplement is making its way […]
November 23, 2024 — The claim is both straightforward and absurd. “An additional hour’s walk could add 376.3 min of life expectancy.” This is a near perfect reduction of “Exercise Is Medicine” to absurdity. Yes exercise is an excellent tonic and the benefits of physical activity for health are well documented. As a metaphor, exercise is medicine is not […]
November 11, 2024 — It turns out that obesity researchers may be wasting their time. Business professors have discovered a simple explanation for the rise of obesity. High speed internet is fattening. Pouring over the physiology of obesity and data on potential contributors to its prevalence may be unnecessary. A new economic analysis by Lin, Churchill, and Ackermann constructs […]
October 21, 2024 — “We conclude that exercise and video gaming have differential effects on the brain, which may help individuals tailor their lifestyle choices to promote mental and cognitive health, respectively, across the lifespan.” This conclusion comes from a preprint published on PsyArXiv. Science, health, and lifestyle reporters got even more bold with their conclusions. For instance, the […]
September 29, 2024 — Evidence is mounting linking ultra-processed foods (UPF) to risk of chronic disease. Typically, UPF are foods that are energy-dense, high in fat, sugar, and salt, low in fibre, and with a long shelf life. Examples include biscuits, chips, candy, instant noodles, mass-produced bread, sweetened breakfast cereals, ready-to-eat meals, and reconstituted meats. Dietary recommendations encourage people […]
September 16, 2024 — From the swimming habits of dead trout to the revelation that some mammals can breathe through their backsides, a group of leading leftfield scientists have been taking their bows at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the 34th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Not to be confused with an actual Nobel prize, the Ig Nobel […]
September 14, 2024 — For reasons that escape us, it has become fashionable to preach that food is medicine. So food marketers are looking for snippets of research they can use to persuade people to buy their latest formulations of food-like and ultra-processed products, Standing in unflinching opposition are food policy advocates who (though they favor the food-is-medicine catchphrase) […]
