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Weight Loss: The “Horserace” Between Low-Carb And Low-Fat

Journalist Andrew Holtz, one of our expert reviewers on HealthNewsReview.org, has some fun with a horserace-style look at low-carb versus low-fat diet research on his MDiTV.com site:

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Physical Activity For Weight Loss? Not For Most Middle-Aged Women

Talk about a cruel trick of nature! A study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that physical activity prevents weight gain in middle-aged and older women ONLY IF THEY ARE ALREADY AT IDEAL WEIGHT. Did you read that? It means that the recommended guidelines advocating 150 minutes of exercise a week isn’t sufficient to prevent weight gain in most middle-aged women.

The Harvard-associated researchers assessed weight changes associated with various levels of physical activity on 34,079 women who had been followed since 1992 in the Women’s Health Study. They stratified women as “inactive” (less than 150 minutes a week of moderate level physical activity), “intermediately active,” or “highly active” if they performed a high, strenuous level of activity. All three groups showed similar weight gain over a mean of 13 years of follow up. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Weight Loss: Scolded By Wii

I finished a post-abdominoplasty check, with drains and sutures removed. I then began to tell the patient how to slowly increase her activities and exercise.

She smiled and said: “I have to tell you. I got back on the Wii just to walk yesterday. It told me I had lost weight too quickly and that I need to slow down.”

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Can The Chin Be Slimmed?

Here’s a gimmick “As Seen On TV,” on which you should save your hard-earned money.

The neckline slimmer claims to reverse the effects of aging without cosmetic surgery. Simply hold this gadget to the chin area and it will exercise your neck muscles to reduce those jowls or sagging fat under your chin. Just two minutes a day should do the trick, according to the commercial.

Unfortunately the effects of aging and loose skin cannot be reversed by jiggling the head or pressing the fat upward. Weight loss can slim the face, but sagging jowls probably need cosmetic surgery.

Personally, I prefer candlelight and light dimmers.

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Secondhand Carbs

From the medical cartoons of Randy Glasbergen:

Secondhand carbs

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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