September 24, 2023 — A good friend often reminds us about the importance of kindness, and of course, she is right. The world offers us too little kindness too often and we make it better when we add the warmth of kindness to the corner of the world we share. But our friend Gary Foster took it a bit […]
September 10, 2023 — The impulse to do it yourself is strong – even in healthcare. Self-care can be essential for good health, but because it has its limits, it can easily feed into self-shame. In an essay for the New York Times, pediatrician Aaron Carroll shares his own experience with this: “Despite all the advances in science, we […]
August 28, 2023 — On Friday, NEJM published impressive results in an RCT of semaglutide for treating patients who have obesity and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The treatment enabled these people to function better, feel better, and suffer half as many serious adverse events. These are important benefits for people with a very difficult condition. But […]
December 25, 2022 — We’re well on our way to closing out one more in a string of extraordinary years. These have been times of remarkable challenges, changes, and, perhaps surprisingly, great generosity. Through three years with a pandemic in the foreground and now the background, people of all ages have suffered – all in different ways. The losses […]
July 19, 2022 — We’ve all spent well more than two years in a weird state of being intensely connected through technology, yet feeling disconnected from people. Zoom is a great tool, but it has its limits. Research on mental health and technology can support just about any bias you bring to the subject. Maybe it’s connecting us while […]
January 10, 2022 — Many of us are on an anxious journey right now. We know that being older, or living with a condition like obesity, means added risks for COVID. So we’ve been careful. But now the Omicron variant adds a bit of uncertainty because it is so contagious and so many people are getting the infection. Yet, […]
December 19, 2021 — Our roller coaster ride is not over. Not by a long shot. Back in July, optimism about putting the COVID pandemic behind us was high. A record number of people told Gallup they felt they were thriving. The swing from a 12-year low was remarkable. But now it seems a more truthful assessment is that […]
July 2, 2021 — Federal oversight of dietary supplements is modest and insufficient. This gentle understatement summarizes a new perspective from the Obesity Society on dietary supplements and alternative therapies for obesity. It comes with a systematic review of the evidence – or lack of it – for these products. Nonetheless, people keep selling this bunk for weight loss […]
May 18, 2021 — There’s both good news and bad news in a new study of physician attitudes about obesity in Europe. The good news is that, by and large, most physicians in this sample get it. Obesity is a disease they should be treating. The bad news? They’re not really doing it. Dig into the results and what […]
September 19, 2020 — It’s hard to doubt that we’re living in challenging times. If you need evidence, take a look at data on happiness. Since 1972, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago has been tracking the happiness of Americans. This year, in the midst of a pandemic, we’ve hit an all-time low. In […]
