Category: Obesity
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No, It's Not the Sugar – Bittman and MotherJones have overinterpreted another study
Diet seems to be all over the New York Times this week, with an oversell of the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, and now Mark Bittman, everyone’s favorite food scold, declaring sugar is the culprit for rising diabetes. His article is based on this interesting new article in PLoS One and begins with this wildly-inaccurate…
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Two great obesity articles from the NYT and what they mean for you
A few weeks ago Tara Parker Pope wrote The Fat Trap for the NYT and once I read it I started sending it to other doctors I know. It is a great summary on the current knowledge of why we get fat, and more importantly for those of us that already are tipping the scales,…
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Obesity – A new study and what it means to be a “healthy weight”
In response to the conversation on “Obesity, Evolution and Delayed Gratification” on the main page and Razib’s coverage of a fascinating new study on the relationship to the lactase gene and obesity, I thought now would be a good time to write about an important new study that helps define the boundaries of what normal…
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Obesity and health—a quick primer
Still coughing and tired, so here’s another one I’m migrating from the old blog. –PalMD There has been much talk in the media over the last few years about the “obesity epidemic” in the U.S. This has led to a bit of a backlash among a small but vocal group of critics who don’t believe…
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Obesity Crankery in the Washington Post
Why the Washington Post decided to devote space to libertarian crankery from the Pacific Research Institute, I’ll never know, but today’s op-ed from Sally Pipes on the evils of governmental interference in diet is a bit much. The way I see it, obesity cranks recycle 3 arguments over and over. It usually goes: (1) BMIs…
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Obesity Crankery Part II
Orac alerted me, based on my recent obesity writings, of a new crank obesity attack on science. This latest is in the form of a rebuttal to Morgan Spurlock’s excellent film Supersize me. Comedian Tom Naughton, who has all the charisma of a wet sponge, is making his own documentary Fathead: You’ve been fed a…
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Obesity Crankery – A growing problem
Recently, it seems there has been a backlash against medicine and the current knowledge of the relationship between diet, weight and overall health. I don’t actually believe this is directly the fault of scientists or doctors, who react to the trashy mainstream reporting of science with little more than the occasional raised eyebrow. However, many…
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Obesity and Overweight – what do these new studies really mean?
Multiple news sources have been covering this recent article in JAMA (1) which provides epidemiological evidence that being overweight (but not obese) may decrease the risk of some illnesses, while not increasing one’s overall mortality from cardiovascular disease. Given that we’ve talked about overweight and obesity recently on the blog, I think it’s worthwhile to…
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Obesity – Primary vs. Secondary prevention
I will never forget the very first patient history I ever took. Part of medical school training is they send you onto the wards to gather patient histories and physicals so you learn to gather information effectively as a clinician. My first patient history was on a woman about 35 years old on the orthopedics…