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Latest Posts

Eating Meat And Gaining Weight

A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is reporting an association with eating meat and weight gain. This is a fairly robust epidemiological study, but at the same time is a good example of how such information is poorly reported in the media, leading to public confusion.

The data is taken from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition–Physical Activity, Nutrition, Alcohol, Cessation of Smoking, Eating Out of Home and Obesity (EPIC-PANACEA) project. This is a long-term epidemiological study involving hundreds of thousands of individuals, and is therefore a great source of data. We are likely to see many publications from from it. This one looked at the association of meat eating –- poultry, red meat, and processed meat -– with total weight. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

19th Century “Cure” For Obesity

Fat People Ad

I really want to know what the treatment is that this “regular practicing physician” sent to the patient to reduce the surplus flesh. “Eat as much and as often as you please” and “no bandaging nor tightlacing.” Bring it on!

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

How To Lower Your Cholesterol

Your doctor has just informed you that you have “hyperlipidemia” – or high cholesterol. She’s mentioning lipid-lowering drugs (statins), but you said you want to try some things on your own first. She agrees and will recheck your blood levels in three months. What are you going to do?

The advice is all over the map and your Google searches come up with various supplements and diets that are confusing and overwhelming. Here are some specific recommendations, based on evidence, that can help you lower your cholesterol. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

A Robot To Talk You Through Your Diet

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is reporting that a new robot, designed to help people lose the pounds, will soon be available on the U.S. market.

The Autom from Intuitive Automata was designed to act like a personal coach, talking you through a personalized diet and helping you to stick with it. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

What Can Diet And Exercise Actually Help Do?

First, an article in the New York Times talks about whether exercise can actually help you lose weight. Short answer: Probably not, but it may help you keep the pounds off. Click here to read the article.

Second, I’ve done a podcast about my post on whether diet can be used to control blood pressure long term. Each week Razib Khan, Kevin Zelnio and I discuss an article we’ve covered on one of our blogs, and it was my turn. Click here to listen to the podcast online, or click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast. You can also visit iTunes and search on “ResearchBlogCast.”

*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*

The State Of U.S. Health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues an annual report on the state of health in the United States. The 33rd edition is out and has some surprising findings, especially about the use of procedures, tests and medical technology.

The life expectancy in the United States is now 77.9 years. Are you over that age? If so, congratulations — you beat the odds. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Can High Blood Pressure Be Controlled With Diet?

Do a search on the Internet for “high blood pressure” or “hypertension” and you’ll find that nearly every health website recommends the DASH diet to control blood pressure. It makes some sense: If sodium and saturated fat cause high blood pressure, then removing them from your diet should make it come back down.

But changing your eating habits is easier said than done. It’s easy to say you want to cut down on fat and sodium, but it’s hard to resist a hot slice of Chicago-style pizza piled high with sausage and cheese. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*

Where Quackademic Medicine Is Taught

One advantage of having a blog is that I can sometimes tap into the knowledge of my readers to help me out.

As many readers know, a few of the SBM bloggers (myself included) will be appearing at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS) today (Saturday, April 17). Since the topic of our panel discussion is going to be the infiltration of quackademic medicine into medical academia, I thought that now would be a very good time for me to update my list of medical schools and academic medical centers in the U.S. and Canada that have embraced (or at least decided to tolerate) quackademic medicine in their midst. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

How To Reach Your Fitness Goals Wirelessly

I recently come across BodyTrace, a nice way to combine a bathroom scale that wirelessly uploads and displays your weight and BMI and a website where you can track all the changes with visualized solutions. An excerpt from the description:

We are using the GSM network to transmit your weight to our website. We use these measurements to create weight and BMI charts and by combining this information with additional data that we collect (from food tracker, for example) we can better evaluate your progress and give you feedback on how to reach your goals.

They also have a collaboration with DailyBurn. You can read the whole story from the first idea on the blog.

See more examples of how Web 2.0 or social media can be used in fitness here.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Kids Who Eat School Lunch Are Less Healthy In General

Research from the University of Michigan suggests that say one in three middle school youth who regularly eat school lunches are obese or overweight. They are also more likely to have higher cholesterol levels than kids who bring lunches from home.

The study included 1,076 middle school students who completed questionnaires about what they ate and how much physical activity they got as well as how many screen hours they logged each day.

Compared with kids who ate school lunches, kids who brought lunches from home were:

- Less likely to be overweight or obese (25% vs 38%)

- Less likely to eat two or more servings of fatty meats like fried chicken or hot dogs daily (2% vs. 6%)

- Less likely to drink two or more sugary drinks a day (7% vs. 19%)

- More likely to eat at least two servings a day of fruit (49% vs. 33%)

- More likely to eat at least two servings a day of vegetables (50% vs. 40%)

- Had lower levels of LDL (the bad cholesterol) Read more »

This post, Kids Who Eat School Lunch Are Less Healthy In General, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown Ph.D..

Latest Interviews

Health Tips For Back-To-School

I was lucky enough to be asked by one of the local TV stations to talk about some back-to-school issues when it comes to health. I don t know about where you re at but most of the local schools around here started yesterday August rd Keeping up-to-date on immunizations…

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“Medical Self-Care” And The Doc Tom Interview

Next in our series of posts about our founder Doc Tom. Previous time capsules and Come ye economics buffs and algebra fans Get out your pencils and solve for x n and XX Whatever else the year XX is remembered for it will without a doubt go down in history…

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Latest Cartoon

cardiaccath

Here’s a cartoon I created a few years back. Enjoy!

- Dr. Val

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

A Biomedical Look At Spaceflight

Book review by Dan Buckland Dan Buckland is an editor at Medgadget and an MD PhD student at Harvard Med MIT whose thesis deals with diagnosing back injury in spaceflight using ultrasound. Mary Roach author of previous entertaining books Bonk a history of sex research and Stiff a history of…

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UTI and “Eat, Pray, Love”

I really didn t expect to like Eat Pray Love. In fact since its publication in I’d been avoiding it like the plague. Typical new-agey Oprah-y girly-book I thought. Nothing in it to speak to me. Then I saw the trailer for the movie and I was hooked probably because…

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Will Science Succeed With An Anti-Aging Revolution?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a way to prolong our lives and to keep us healthy right up to the end Ponce de León never found that Fountain of Youth but science is still looking. What are the chances science will succeed How’s it doing so far…

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