How did the press cover one of our city’s major medical discoveries?

We look at concepts and products that, for better and worse, were developed in Toronto. We face a daily barrage of media stories about “amazing” medical breakthroughs. While most of these innovations will eventually fall by the wayside or be exploited by those looking to make some fast money, significant developments do emerge from time [...]

Earlier this week, the Canadian Diabetes Association released the newest version of the Canadian Practice Guidelines for Diabetes. The online release includes the full text of all 38 chapters and an appendix. Each chapter comes with a slide set and a brief video highlighting the key recommendations. There are also accompanying tools for health care [...]

“Certain brain regions in people with major depression are smaller and less dense than those of their healthy counterparts. Now, researchers have traced the genetic reasons for this shrinkage. “Brain-imaging studies, post-mortem examinations of human brains and animal studies have … Continue reading →

by Canadian Institute of Health Information, Jan. 31, 2013: Once hospitalized for a heart attack, Aboriginal peoples in Canada are likely to have similar health outcomes as others in this country, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Informat…

While some readers may be hoping for the latest diet breakthrough, researchers have now discovered an even easier way to get those calories straight from your lips to your hips.
Thus, according to a paper from Phil Scherer’s lab published in Nature Medicine, the secret ingredient is an unassuming protein that lives in your mitochondria (those [...]

Back in 2006 there was a tremendous interest in the biology of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARg).
Not only had this nuclear hormone receptor been well recognised as a key regulator of adipocyte differentiation, but the introduction of thiazolidinediones (”glitazones”) in diabetes treatment sparked a tremendous amount of work in this ligand.
In a paper I co-athored [...]

Metformin is by far the most commonly used anti-diabetic drug in adults and in fact, the only anti-diabetic agent with a proven beneficial impact on diabetes-related mortality.
However, the use of this agent in the increasing number of obese kids, who present with insulin resistance and/or impaired glucose tolerance is scarce.
Now a paper by Deborah Kendall [...]

Last week, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the discontinuation of the intensive diet and lifestyle interventions in the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study.
This study, now in its eleventh year, was designed to compare the effects of an intensive diet and lifestyle program designed to promote and sustain weight loss [...]

This week on White Coat Black Art, we explore the bad health habits you insist on maintaining and the almost uniformly unsuccessful attempts by us to get you to give them up. We hector you, lecture you and browbeat you…

A local man suffering from diabetes is hoping a facebook page will start a movement to hold the government accountable.Brent Whitford has dealt with the Type 1 diabetes since he was three years old, and remembers clearly when premier Alison Redford pro…

A local man suffering from diabetes is hoping a facebook page will start a movement to hold the government accountable.Brent Whitford has dealt with the Type 1 diabetes since he was three years old, and remembers clearly when premier Alison Redford promised to include insulin pumps as part of Alberta Healthcare during her campaign.Whitford says he wants the province to address the promise, and

The next few days, I will be attending the 30th Annual Scientific Meeting of The Obesity Society at the San Antonio Convention Centre, just a few steps from the Alamo.
As a Fellow of this organisation and someone, who has sat on well over a handful of TOS committees, attending this conference has become part of [...]

One of the joys of being a grandparent is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child. Recently, I found my three-year-old grandson picking at a scab on his arm. It brought a flood of memories because I used to do the same thing. …

Regular readers will be quite familiar with the 4Ms of obesity (which incidentally feature quite strongly in the Obesity Network 5As of Obesity Management™).
These are the four domains that need to be explored in every assessment for obesity and stand for Mental, Mechanical, Metabolic, and Monetary health.
Last week, I co-hosted the International Hot Topics Conference [...]

Regular readers will be well aware of the 5As of Obesity Management™ toolkit and patient resources developed by the Canadian Obesity Network.
In contrast to other existing guidelines, including the hopelessly irrelevant recent US Preventive Task Force Recommendations, the 5As of Obesity Management recommend the use of obesity stages (based on presence of risk factors, comorbidities [...]

This week the CON-SNPs are hosting the 3rd Canadian Obesity Student Meeting (COSM) here at the University of Alberta.
Following a rather tight morning of oral presentations and posters, the noon Key Note talk was given by Jon McGavock, Robert Wallace Cameron Chair in Child Health Research and CIHR New Investigator at the University of Manitoba’s [...]

Yesterday, I posted on the results of an randomised controlled trial of n-3 fatty acids, which failed to show any positive effect on cardiovascular complications or death.
In the same trial (ORIGIN), published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the over 12,000 participants with cardiovascular risk factors plus impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, or [...]

For as long as I have been involved in cardiovascular research, the story of how the n–3 fatty acids found in fish oil can potentially help improve cardiovascular risk factors – by positively influencing everything from arrhythmias, elevated triglyceride levels, atherosclerotic plaque, impaired endothelial function, platelet aggregation, to inflammation.
Benefits of consuming fish oil was also [...]

Regular readers may recall our previous publication of the Sibutramine Cardiovascular OUTcomes (SCOUT) trial, the largest prospective randomised controlled trial of pharmacological obesity treatment.
In a paper just released in DIABETOLOGIA, we now our analysis of the relationship between HbA1c levels (a measure of diabetes control) and the risk of mortality in participants in this trial.
The [...]

BPA Image.jpg Bisphenol A, or BPA for short, has been in the spotlight for decades, with both the chemical industry and occasionally the federal government touting its safety, while independent, non-industry funded scientific studies show us how dan…