My girlfriend flipped out tonight, she was completely out of control, she threw our baby’s highchair across the kitchen, she was swearing and yelling at her six-year old son, but mostly at me, and accusing me of keeping our two-year … Conti…

Since my first publication in 1987, I have authored or co-authored well over 300 peer-reviewed papers, about half of which are on topics related to obesity. This year, I thought I would dedicate my Saturday posts to reviewing some of these papers and sharing the stories behind them. If nothing else, it may point readers [...]

In my continuing coverage from the World Diabetes Congress, I thought it may be appropriate to share with my readers the Global Diabetes Plan 2011-2012, recently released by the International Diabetes Federation.
The objectives of this ambitious plan are to
1) Improve health outcomes of people with diabetes – early diagnosis, cost effective treatment and self-management education [...]

As regular readers will recall, this week I am attending the World Diabetes Congress – with well over 14,000 attendees, the largest ever world congress on this issue.
For readers, who are not familiar with the International Diabetes Federation (!DF), it may be worth pointing out that the IDF is an umbrella organization of over 200 [...]

This week I am attending the World Congress on Obesity, organized by the International Diabetes Federation.
As one would imagine, the program here is chock-full of talks on obesity – everything from the impact of excess weight on insulin resistance and diabetes risk to basic science talks on energy and appetite regulation.
This morning I will be [...]

Regular readers should by now be quite familiar with the accumulating data suggesting that your risk for future development of obesity, diabetes, and possibly other metabolic diseases, may begin in the womb.
This topic is nicely reviewed in a paper by Marie-Claude Battista and colleagues from the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, published in Experimental Diabetes Research.
In [...]

‘Science-ish’ looks for evidence to back up our worries about the sugary, super-caffeinated beverages

My Lithium intake has been cut nearly in half for a week now and the uncontrollable tremors have mostly gone away. My hands still shake occasionally, mostly when I’m holding something, like my camera or a tube of toothpaste. But … Continue …

A new study suggests relocating people out of poor neighborhoods can be as effective as drugs in reducing their chances of becoming overweight and developing diabetes.

Regular readers will be familiar with the rather strange but consistent finding that obese people with chronic diseases tend to do better than skinny people with chronic diseases.
This ‘paradox’ has been demonstrated for a wide range of conditions including cancers, heart failure, kidney disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease.
A new disorder that can apparently added [...]

This is probably where the trigger warning should go. Most of this post is about inflicting some serious damage onto myself. There’s a quick guide to Lithium overdose at the bottom. This post is about more than the acts themselves, … Contin…

Yesterday, I discussed the strong interest in trying to understand why exactly bariatric surgery leads to an often dramatic improvement (if not resolution) of type 2 diabetes.
Additional insights into this topic comes from Marzieh Salehi and colleagues in a paper just published in Diabetes.
The paper takes advantage of the fact that some patients undergoing gastric [...]

You can add another name to the list of berries that are good for you. Blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, the goji. All are considered to have health-enhancing properties. Now say hello to the haskap berry, whose proponents claim it has three times the antioxidants of wild blueberries. “Our want is to make Lunenburg County the centre [...]

Today, as I attend the 47th European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting here in Lisbon, I cannot help but discuss an article by Kenneth E. Thorpe and Zhou Yang, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, published in the latest issue of Health Affairs.
Based on their analysis of the significant impact of even modest [...]

Known best for its role in the body as a regulator of blood glucose levels and fatty acid storage, insulin also acts in the brain to aid memory and thinking. Thus, when insulin regulation is disrupted, as it is in … Continue reading →

My connection to the Internet has been tenuous and intermittent over the past few weeks. This weekend I’ve only been able to connect twice, including now. My ISP initially told me it was their problem, something about the line coming … Cont…

The nurse at the diabetic clinic was finally able to find my family doctor, and he finally faxed a prescription for insulin to my pharmacist, and now I’ll finally have the opportunity to get better. From the appointment when my … Continue r…

Stress & anxiety are an integral part of our fast-paced & unhealthy schedule. We live hectic, traumatic, active lives, and while it’s time to finally lie down on the bed to sleep, we necessitate every benefit we can get to fall asleep promptl…