The keto diet has recently garnered much fame for its apparent ability to improve diabetes and obesity – results so impressive the Journal of the American Medical Association recently highlighted the diet and thereby christened it as something more than a low-carb craze. However, not all the evidence supports such a positive outlook, leading the diet to straddle the increasingly blurred lines between faddist snake …
A physician’s warning on the keto diet
Why are there vending machines in hospitals? This seems like an odd question to ponder, and it certainly would seem to have nothing to do with the current state of medicine and health care in our country. But it is a question that I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around. Certainly, most hospitals do have vending machines that sell snacks and soda, and they are by no …
Why are there vending machines in hospitals?
Most people reading this would love to lose weight, feel better and live longer. Doctors are a smart and motivated group of people. Unfortunately, that intellect and drive has not prevented us from avoiding an increasing incidence of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension identical to the general population.
While this article may have started out sounding like an infomercial, I promise it will not end like one. …
Doctors: You’re just as unhealthy as your patients. Here’s why.
My nurse practitioner was pleased to see me at my annual physical this year. “So how does it feel to be 20 pounds lighter?”
“It feels terrible,” I replied.
Allow me to explain.
Weight has been an issue my entire life. Raised on a standard Midwest diet of complex carbohydrates and the best processed delicacies that government assistance could buy, I spent most of my childhood socially segregated by my peer group due …
Overweight patients are not necessarily lazy
Empathy is the cornerstone of quality patient care. It is no surprise that the fundamental moral code that has facilitated human kindness for thousands of years is what drives physicians to commit to their oath today: Treat others as you would have yourself treated.
When it comes to the disease that is obesity, I can empathize. I’ve struggled with obesity for as long a time as I can remember. There are …
Obesity and empathy: A physician’s New Year’s resolution
Several years ago, I was meeting a young woman in my clinic for the first time. She was healthy but had been obese most of her adult life, even though she had tried many methods of losing weight. We spoke for a few minutes about diet and exercise, and she agreed to see the nutritionist.
A few months later, she came back to check her progress. She had lost weight, about …
This doctor stopped telling patients to lose weight. Here’s why.
A patient of mine brought donuts in yesterday for the staff, and I confess! I had the one with sprinkles.
But with the study published in JAMA reporting that 35 percent of U.S. men and 40 percent of U.S. women are obese, I felt the need to talk a little about obesity and reproduction.
The endocrine system is tightly regulated by hormones which provide feedback to the brain to control their …
Obesity changes the way our endocrine system functions
No matter how early I rise with the intention of getting my workout done before my children wake up, I’m rarely able to do it alone. Most days my 3-year-old daughter climbs out of bed and comes straight down to our home gym and watches me do my workout.
Often times she’ll sit quietly in the corner, but sometimes she’ll join in and follow the trainer on my workout DVD and …
How to talk with your kids about exercise
Have you ever eaten a healthy meal, maybe some brown rice and stir-fried veggies, and found yourself ready for another meal just a short while later? Or, more often couldn’t overcome a hankering for a satisfying dessert to top off (and undermine the healthiness of) that meal?
As it turns out, this lack of satiety is not merely a function of the …
You could get fat from eating healthy foods. Here’s how.
There is, of course, stuff we can chew and swallow that isn’t food. Play-Doh comes to mind. As does Silly Putty.
My thoughts turned to those substances, among others, when my friends at Time magazine asked me recently to opine on the suggestion that junk foods should carry warning labels. My first inclination was: No, that’s too much. But then it dawned on me: Is anything that …
Should junk foods carry warning labels?
Stephanie wrote in about a very common problem:
My daughter is 4 years old. She isn’t the tallest cat in town (she is about the 15th-25th percentile for height), and her BMI always ends up being in the high range (like over 85%). I worry about it. I am very health conscious for myself and my family. We live by all of the “rules.” And yet.
The family doctor doesn’t worry — …
Should BMI be used to measure obesity in children?
The recent concentration of misleading media hooey about health has been excruciating, but the problem is perennial. I trust I needn’t make the case that you are under constant assault by distorted, contorted, titillating, and insipid headlines. This is certainly true in my domain of health and medicine; it may well be true more generally, but I tend to limit my commentary to the realm of my actual expertise. But to …
The deadly consequences of media distortion in health and medicine
Weight is not a behavior, and weight is not a choice. Nobody wakes up and decides what to weigh today. In an age when healthy and unhealthy behaviors are increasingly subject to incentives and disincentives, respectively, this is all too easily forgotten.
Of course, weight is largely the byproduct of behaviors and choices, namely what and how much we eat, and what and how much we do: calories in and calories …
Weight loss resistance is real
Lebron James makes over $19 million per year playing basketball for the Miami Heat. Not surprisingly, this salary is peanuts compared his endorsement earnings, which in 2012 topped $42 million. Although perhaps peanuts is the wrong word to use when discussing James outside earnings, which to my knowledge have not involved foods anywhere near as healthy as peanuts. Instead, according to …
Lebron James: The king of junk food
However you see the Reverend Al Sharpton, one thing is certain: you see less of him now. His Twitter pic tells you he is proud of his 167-pound weight loss. Good for him, he should be.
If you care about health, the disappearance of the Sharpton-of-old is worth mention. His story teaches us a lot, and, if one dares to look a little …
What we can learn about weight loss from Al Sharpton
Recently, food has become the center of a revival of interest in cultures that make up Chicago.
The smells, tastes, sounds, and even atmospheres created by cuisine allow both tourists and native Chicagoans to sample our city’s diverse cultural heritage. As such, food has become an increasingly popular and a relatively inexpensive way to enjoy what Chicago has to offer. In fact, one …
Food deserts are incredibly complex problems
Today in clinic, I interviewed a formerly morbidly obese woman. She has lost almost 300 pounds since undergoing gastric bypass surgery a few years ago, a presentation that has become increasingly common. She was here to see the plastic surgeon for her four week follow up appointment, status post abdominal skin flap removal.
See, after losing a ton of weight, loose skin remains, especially in places like the arms and abdomen. …
When should insurance cover body contouring?
Nathan Pritikin: 69. Robert Atkins: 72. Roy Walford: 79. Adelle Davis: 70. Aveline Kushi: 78. Marjorie Shostak: 51. Jack LaLanne: 96. Ancel Keys:100.
David Murdock is a billionaire who believes that he knows the formula for the perfect diet. Not only has he built his own research institute to refine his theories, but he is confident that his food choices will keep him alive to the age of 125. This would …
Don’t waste your time finding the perfect diet
Ah, the addictive power of modern food. Never underestimate it.
On a recent trip to New York I happened to be flipping through the channels on my in-flight TV when I ran across Mike Huckabee doing an interview on Fox News. I was surprised to see that he had gained his weight back. The former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate had staked quite a bit on the success of his …
Did Mike Huckabee foreshadow his journey back to obesity?
“Discrimination against heavy people, by the general public and medical professionals, might be a greater health and social problem than any extra pounds they may be carrying” argues UCLA Professor Abigal Saguy, PhD, in a provocative essay in the Washington Post.
“Despite the fact that body weight is largely determined by an individual’s biology, genetics and social environment, medical providers often blame patients for their weight and blame their …
Stop blaming patients for not doing enough to stay healthy
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