Browse the evidence

Defining 'non-responders' is methodologically challenging and depends heavily on the threshold used (e.g., measurement error vs. clinical significance), leading to inconsistent classification across studies.

Be cautious when comparing 'success rates' of exercise programs. One study's 'non-responder' might be another's 'responder' due to different measurement standards. Focus on your own progress rather than population statistics.

Leaving the parental home during early adulthood causes a significant decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption.

Moving out of your parents' house is a high-risk time for your diet. You will likely eat fewer fruits and vegetables because you lose the existing home environment that supported those habits. To counter this, prioritize setting up your new kitchen with healthy options visible and accessible immediately, and plan your grocery shopping routine before you move in.

Providing calorie labeling on fast food menus has no significant effect on the energy content of meals ordered or consumed by adolescents and adults.

Adding calorie counts to fast food menus does not reliably lead to lower calorie orders in a single visit. Consumers often do not notice the labels, and even when they do, it does not change their choices. To be effective, labeling must be paired with education on how to interpret and use that information.

Eliminating value size pricing (standardizing price per unit across portion sizes) has no significant effect on the energy content of meals ordered or consumed.

Changing how fast food is priced (e.g., removing value sizes) does not reliably lead to lower calorie orders in a single visit. Consumers often do not notice or understand the pricing structure changes.

Type D personality (distressed personality, characterized by high negative affect and social inhibition) is associated with increased mortality risk, particularly in patients with cardiovascular disease.

If you tend to feel distressed and withdraw socially, be aware this may increase health risks, especially if you have heart disease. Seeking social support and managing negative emotions can be protective.

Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (DTCA) systematically minimizes the efficacy of lifestyle interventions and frames medication as the sole or superior means to regain control, thereby promoting medicalization over behavioral modification.

Be aware that drug advertisements are designed to make you feel that lifestyle changes are not enough. They portray characters who are 'out of control' until they take the drug. This is a marketing tactic, not necessarily a medical reality. For many conditions, lifestyle changes are effective first-line treatments. Do not let ads convince you that medication is the only path to health or control.

Leptin administration in leptin-deficient patients normalizes brain activation patterns in response to food cues, reducing the motivational salience of food.

Leptin treatment doesn't just burn fat; it changes how your brain perceives food. Within days of starting treatment, the brain's reward response to food images normalizes, making it easier to resist food cues even before significant weight loss occurs.

Caring for patients with confirmed COVID-19 is associated with significantly higher levels of insomnia, chronic and acute fatigue, depersonalization, and post-traumatic stress compared to caring for non-COVID-19 patients.

Healthcare administrators must recognize that caring for COVID-19 patients imposes a unique psychological burden. Staff assigned to these units require targeted mental health support, sleep resources, and protected break times to mitigate the increased risk of burnout and PTSD.

A family-based educational intervention does not significantly improve physical activity levels or cardiovascular fitness in healthy families.

While the intervention successfully improved dietary habits, it did not significantly increase physical activity or fitness levels. This suggests that changing physical activity habits is more difficult and may require different strategies.

The Mediterranean diet does not significantly reduce the incidence of metabolic syndrome itself, nor does it reduce the need for pharmacological treatment for metabolic components compared to control diets.

While the Mediterranean diet improves individual health markers like blood pressure and cholesterol, current evidence does not show it prevents the diagnosis of Metabolic Syndrome itself or reduces the need for medications as effectively as it improves biomarkers. This suggests that while the diet is highly beneficial for health, it may not replace all medical interventions for everyone.

Interventions tailored to the stages-of-change model (e.g., Transtheoretical Model) do not demonstrate superior effectiveness in promoting health-related behavior change compared to non-stage-based interventions or usual care.

Do not rely on complex stage-assessment tools to tailor health behavior interventions (like smoking cessation or diet plans) expecting better results than standard care. The evidence suggests that standard interventions are just as effective as those meticulously matched to a patient's self-reported 'stage of change'. Focus on delivering effective standard interventions rather than investing resources in complex staging algorithms.

Higher educational attainment is causally associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Education is a powerful protective factor for metabolic health. Public health policies should focus on educational access.

There is no convincing evidence of an association between the food environment (e.g., availability of supermarkets, fast-food outlets) and T2DM risk or prevalence.

Current evidence does not strongly support the idea that changing the food environment (e.g., adding supermarkets or removing fast food) will significantly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Other factors, such as urbanization and walkability, may be more influential.

As national GDP per capita increases, the prevalence of overweight and obesity shifts from being concentrated in the wealthiest population deciles to the poorest deciles, driven by rising obesity rates among the poor rather than declining rates among the wealthy.

Public health policy in developing nations must anticipate that obesity will increasingly become a disease of poverty, not wealth. Interventions should target the poor, focusing on affordable healthy food access and physical activity opportunities, rather than assuming the wealthy are the primary at-risk group.

Modifying food retail access (availability, proximity, or price) does not have a profound or independent effect on dietary consumption or obesity levels.

Simply building a supermarket in a food desert is unlikely to solve obesity or improve diet quality on its own. If you are on a tight budget, focus on 'economy' lines which can be as healthy as standard products, and prioritize food budgeting strategies over relying on the proximity of a single store type.

Dietary medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) are ineffective for long-term body weight control because achieving weight loss requires an energy intake level (approx. 50% of calories from MCT) that is unsustainable for long-term compliance.

Do not rely on MCT oil for weight loss. While MCTs are metabolized differently than long-chain fats, the amount needed to actually cause weight loss is so high (around 50% of your daily calories) that it causes gastrointestinal distress and is impossible to maintain. Focus on sustainable caloric deficits using a balanced diet rather than seeking 'metabolic shortcuts' with specialized oils.

Adding complex goal-setting (Achieve) and nutrition (Nourish) modules to a basic weight loss program significantly reduces user engagement and retention compared to the basic program alone.

Keep digital weight loss programs simple. Adding too many modules or complex goal-setting features can overwhelm users and reduce engagement. A basic, focused program often yields better adherence than a complex, multi-module one.

Males, smokers, and individuals with higher estimated medical costs (RxRisk) are less likely to enroll in internet-based weight loss programs than females, nonsmokers, and lower-risk individuals.

To reach high-risk populations (smokers, males, those with chronic illness), use targeted, personalized outreach from trusted sources. General marketing may not reach these groups effectively.

Evidence regarding the impact of workplace physical activity and nutrition interventions on productivity is limited and insufficient.

Employers should be cautious when expecting significant productivity gains from workplace health interventions, as the current evidence base is limited and insufficient.

COVID-19 pandemic lockdown restrictions significantly increase total sedentary behavior (SB) in university students, with increases averaging 1.93 hours per day on weekdays and 1.30 hours per day on weekends compared to pre-pandemic baselines.

Lockdowns and remote work/study environments naturally increase sedentary time by nearly 2 hours daily. To counteract this, you must intentionally schedule non-sedentary activities (e.g., walking meetings, standing desks, or home workouts) because the default environment will pull you toward sitting.

Female university students spend significantly more total time on sedentary behavior than male students during pandemic restrictions, with females averaging 14.19 hours/day on weekdays and 15.22 hours/day on weekends compared to males' 12.90 and 14.10 hours respectively.

Women in lockdown environments tend to accumulate more sedentary time than men. If you are female, be extra vigilant about scheduling movement, as you may be more susceptible to the sedentary pull of remote work/study environments.

Dietary supplements carry a significant risk of inadvertent doping violations due to contamination, despite widespread use among athletes.

Be extremely cautious with dietary supplements. Many are contaminated with banned substances. Consult a qualified professional and use third-party tested supplements to avoid accidental doping violations.

Visual normalization theory posits that increased population exposure to larger body sizes recalibrates internal visual norms, raising the threshold for what is perceived as 'overweight' and causing widespread under-detection of adiposity in self, children, and others.

If you or your family consistently fail to recognize that you are overweight despite objective measures, it may be due to 'visual normalization'—your brain has adapted to larger body sizes as the new normal. To counter this, rely on objective metrics (BMI, waist circumference) rather than visual estimation alone, and be aware that recognizing your status might trigger psychological stress, so seek supportive, non-stigmatizing health resources.

Stand-alone use of commercially available smartphone fitness apps (immersive or non-immersive) does not significantly improve cardiorespiratory fitness or physical activity levels in insufficiently active adolescents compared to usual behavior.

Downloading a fitness app is not a workout. If you want to improve your fitness, you must use the app consistently (ideally 3x/week) and push yourself to the required intensity. Simply having the app installed and using it occasionally will not change your cardiorespiratory fitness.