Tag Archives: obesity
Dietary Research
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th August 2019Fat is one of the side effects of capitalism and freedom. Humans evolved under conditions where the search for food was constant. Accordingly, we were programmed to be always hungry. Now that food is available in many parts of the world in almost limitless quantities and at low cost, many of us are too heavy….
› Read the full entry
New Dietary Guidlines
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th February 2015They’re at it again. The federal government is about to issue new dietary guidelines, the first since 2010. The actual report is not yet available, but some of its contents has been leaked to the press. The committee charged with writing the guidelines is an interesting one. There are three physicians on it – a pediatrician, an…
› Read the full entry
Is Pleasantly Plump Best?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd January 2013A paper in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association presents some interesting data on the association of obesity with overall mortality. The authors of the study reviewed mortality data from almost 3 million subjects. They classified mortality against body mass index (BMI). Their reference group was people with BMIs of 18.5…
› Read the full entry
Medical Costs and Wrong Assumptions
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th April 2011Bob Duffy Director of Ipsos Social Research Institute, is a true believer in governmental social planning. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal he opines that people are now ready for the government to help us make the “right” choices that will benefit our health. He’s particularly interested in getting people to stop…
› Read the full entry
More on Obesity
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th December 2010I recently wrote about the obesity paradox. There are diseases in which patients who have a disease and are overweight live longer than patients with the same disease who are thinner – hence the paradox. The December 2 New England Journal of Medicine examines Body-Mass Index and Mortality among 1.46 Million White Adults.The authors measured the relationship between BMI (weight in kg divided by the square of…
› Read the full entry
The Obesity Paradox
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th February 2010A paper in the February Mayo Clinic Proceeding gives food for thought: Obesity Paradox and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in 12,417 Male Veterans Aged 40 to 70 Years. Everyone is aware of the negative health consequences of obesity. Less familiar is the consistent inverse correlation (the so-called obesity paradox) between mortality and body mass index (BMI) among…
› Read the full entry
A Tax on Reason
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th April 2009The New England Journal of Medicine continues its move towards less personal liberty and more paternalism. Ounces of Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages serves as a text on how academia and government government are certain that they know how the rest of mankind should behave. It’s up to the…
› Read the full entry
Americans Addicted to Food
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th March 2009The normally sober George Will seems to have lost his marbles over corn. His latest column makes the discovery that America has figured out how to make almost endless amounts of food at a very low price. Mr Will thinks that this is bad because cheap food allows people to eat too much of it….
› Read the full entry
Doctors Confirm 1st Law of Thermodynamics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th February 2009A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that reducing calories results in the same weight loss regardless of how caloric reduction is realized. In other words, a calorie lost from reducing fat, or carbohydrate, or protein has the same effect. “Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of…
› Read the full entry
