NEWS

The attention that goes daily to the subject of preserving muscle and its importance is off the chart. Just this week a call to action about muscle loss in diabetes and a new systematic review on the effects of resistance exercise on cognitive function are demanding our attention. It is clear that preserving muscle as […]

We kid you not. Olive oil shots are a hot thing on social media and in the milieu of lifestyle health influencers. Writing in Glamour, Catharine Malzahn declares “I tried olive oil shots for a week – and the effects were immediate.” If you read carefully, though, it seems that the immediate effect was on […]

As the world is coming around to the understanding that public health policy cannot neglect the need for obesity treatment, a question hangs in the air. What does this mean for obesity prevention strategies? This question – together with fast-changing market realities – begs another question. Will prevention policy or market dynamics reduce obesity more? […]

This is huge news and we’ve been waiting for it a very long time. For the first time ever, the World Health Organization (WHO) is embracing obesity treatment in a new global guidance issued yesterday. From the head of WHO, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, came words we wondered if we would ever hear: “Our new […]

Soybean oil is the most common cooking oil in the American food supply. By far. If you are consuming a lot of ultra-processed foods, you are consuming a lot of soybean oil. Now, the University of California at Riverside says that a new study links soybean oil to obesity. Specifically, scientists at the university have […]

Thanks to the power of exposure bias, a chorus of studies that correlate ultra-processed foods consumption with obesity and chronic diseases has convinced many policy advocates that these foods are a scourge to be eradicated. “Higher taxes on UPFs” are a “priority action,” says The Lancet, to “put health before profit.” But this well-intentioned impulse […]

“Basically, all the scientific leadership has been wiped out at the CDC. They’re all political people now who are running the CDC and determining what the public health message is going to be,” says Julie Rovner. She has been reporting on the CDC for four decades now and has never seen anything like this. Leadership […]

A new research letter in JAMA tells us that more new mothers are using GLP-1s for weight management. The rise of use in this context is dramatic – roughly 500% between 2022 and 2024. Note that these data come from Denmark. There, we estimate the per capita use of GLP-1s for obesity is somewhat less […]

In the New York Times, science writer Amanda Schupak wants us to know that we can rationalize our Thanksgiving feast today as a good thing because it’s healthy: “If there’s one day of the year to slip on something elastic-waisted and ignore your typical eating habits, it’s Thanksgiving. The sides! The pies! The leftovers! The […]

It seems like some good news is overdue for Novo Nordisk. So the topline report of a phase two study with amycretin that looks like a plausible win is especially welcome. The results at hand come from a 36-week placebo controlled study with a wide range of oral and injection doses in persons with type […]