Posts Tagged ‘evidence based medicine’

Back in July, we told you about a landmark cardiovascular outcomes study with lorcaserin. We only had topline results at that point, but we knew that this would be big. Today, we have a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, an editorial, and lots of hyperbolic buzz in headlines all over the world. […]

Professor Karin Michels is presenting us with a dilemma today. On one hand, we’ve written before about the absurdity of the coconut oil fad. People have been swallowing tablespoonfuls of this fat, chasing bogus health claims they’ve been reading in social media feeds. Cures everything from obesity to Alzheimer’s. Gwyneth Paltrow recommends swishing it in […]

Wishful thinking is not the foundation for sustainable health strategies. But when the subject is obesity, it’s abundant. In the bioethics journal Sound Decisions, we find an author telling us this month that skyrocketing happiness will result when obesity declines. Thus, more happiness per person justifies government regulation of food portions, writes Shelby Kantner. Wishing […]

The common presumption is that losing weight and then regaining it will slowly, but surely cost you in terms of health. Reading, writing, and responding to your thoughts yesterday about Cass Elliot provided a stark reminder of this. Elliot – just like many other people who live with obesity – could lose large amounts of weight […]

It’s hard to sugarcoat this. New research makes it very clear. Most primary care providers lack an adequate knowledge of obesity care. They simply don’t know basic facts of what works and what doesn’t for treating obesity. Recently, researchers from the George Washington University checked the knowledge of 1,506 primary care providers. The sample included […]

Recently, we wrote of deep concern about teens with severe obesity who are denied effective obesity care. For insight into why this matters so much, consider the experiences of Maria Caprigno, a proud OAC member and brilliant patient advocate. Her story is one of incredible persistence for health at a very young age. I first […]

Some call it a crisis of reproducibility. More than a decade ago, John Ioannidis famously told the world that most published research findings are false. His analysis quickly became the most widely read paper ever published by PLOS. You’ll find a more generous view in a new, special issue of PNAS. Attending to the rigor, […]

This story is profoundly sad. We were reading about a recent decision by the USPSTF to affirm a broad recommendation for intensive lifestyle programs for obesity. The decision is a good one. Reporting on it by the American Academy of Family Practice (AAFP) unfortunately is not so good. AAFP presents the views of someone they […]

It’s odd when you think about it. Roughly 40 percent of Americans are living with obesity, but only about two million of them ever get any real medical care for it. We don’t mean bogus diets or advice from Aunt Sara. We mean real, evidence-based obesity care that can improve a person’s health and life. […]

Five supplements that claim to speed up weight loss – and what the science says When you google “weight loss” the challenge to sort fact from fiction begins. These five supplements claim to speed up weight loss, but let’s see what the evidence says. 1. Raspberry ketones Raspberry ketones, sold as weight loss tablets, are […]