Tag: obesity

Big Success for Anti-obesity Drug

Will an expensive, new, injectable, untested medication help people lose weight? Maybe! But right now, we don't know if it's safety and efficacy profiles make it worth the price.

/ May 24, 2022

Artificial Sweeteners – A Free Lunch, or an Obesogenic Carcinogen? What 80+ Studies Say (part 1 of 2).

In this two part series, I explore the impact of artificial sweeteners on obesity, diabetes, the gut microbiome, and cancer. Part one of two!

/ May 21, 2021

A New Medication to Combat Obesity

New study in The New England Journal of Medicine finds impressive evidence that weekly semaglutide injections produce clinically significant weight loss as well as many other benefits, approaching the improvements seen with weight loss surgery. Not a definitive answer to obesity, but a very encouraging step in the right direction. Science works.

/ April 6, 2021

Can “optimizing your metabolism” through diet prevent or cure COVID-19?

A favorite claim by those favoring "holistic" therapies is that using diet to "optimize metabolism" can prevent or treat COVID-19. These claims are of a piece with similar claims for many other diseases and are just as exaggerated.

/ August 31, 2020

Quoth RFK Jr.: Vaccines and glyphosate are responsible for the obesity epidemic!

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. published an article claiming that vaccines and glyphosate are responsible for the obesity epidemic. Too bad he cited the work of two longtime antivaccine cranks to support his bogus claim. He's really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

/ February 24, 2020

Fat Shaming Is Counterproductive

Fat shaming not only doesn't work, it is counterproductive. So what might help fight obesity?

/ September 25, 2019

Update on the Obesity Epidemic

The obesity epidemic continues, and even accelerates, among continued debate about its causes and solutions.

/ September 4, 2019

Lessons in confounding epidemiology: Household cleaning products, the microbiome and childhood obesity

Do eco-friendly cleaning products prevent obesity? Probably not, and you shouldn't be eating them anyway.

/ March 14, 2019

Human Flaws Demonstrate Evolution, Not Intelligent Design

The human body is clearly not the product of an intelligent designer. Its many flaws tell the fascinating story of evolution's accidents and constraints.

/ November 6, 2018

New Review of Artificial Sweeteners

A new review of research finds a modest but inconsistent benefit from consuming artificial sweeteners over sugar. Their conclusion of a possible backfire effect, however, does not seem to be supported by the studies they review.

/ July 19, 2017