Browse the evidence

The association between SFA intake and dyslipidemia is modified by LDL-C-related genetic polymorphisms, specifically rs6102059.

Genetic testing for LDL-C-related polymorphisms like rs6102059 may help identify Filipino women who are particularly sensitive to the dyslipidemia risks of high SFA intake. Those with CC alleles should be especially cautious with saturated fat intake.

An altered enteric microbiome contributes to obesity by enhancing energy harvest from dietary roughage, modulating intestinal physiology to slow transit, and influencing the entero-insular axis and central nervous system to increase appetite and fat storage.

Your gut bacteria play a significant role in how much energy you get from food and how your body stores it. While diet and exercise remain important, understanding that your microbiome influences hunger, fat storage, and nutrient absorption can help explain why weight management is challenging. Strategies like targeted probiotics or dietary changes that support a healthy microbiome may offer additional support alongside traditional lifestyle changes.

Improvement in cellulite severity is not significantly correlated with changes in body weight or fat mass, indicating that local structural and metabolic-dermal interventions are primary drivers of cellulite reduction rather than systemic adiposity loss.

If you are trying to reduce cellulite, relying solely on weight loss or fat loss may not yield visible improvements in skin texture. This study suggests that combining systemic metabolic health (e.g., managing insulin/inflammation) with targeted local treatments (like specific topical formulations) is more effective for cellulite than weight loss alone. Focus on local tissue health and metabolic balance rather than just the scale.

In non-beta tissues (liver, kidney, skeletal muscle, adipose), the mitochondrial benefits of GLP-1RAs are likely a combination of direct receptor signaling and indirect systemic improvements such as weight loss and reduced inflammation.

While GLP-1 drugs improve mitochondrial health in organs like the liver and muscles, these benefits are partly due to the overall reduction in body weight and blood sugar. It is a combined effect of losing weight and the drug's direct action on cells.

Nutritional interventions involving proteins, amino acids, and other nitrogenated supplements do not promote increased muscle mass in PLWH.

Do not rely solely on protein or amino acid supplements to increase muscle mass in PLWH; they have not been shown to be effective in this population.

Biliopancreatic Diversion (BPD) appears to be the most effective bariatric surgery for achieving T2DM remission and lowering HbA1c levels, although evidence is sparse due to limited study numbers.

Biliopancreatic Diversion (BPD) shows the strongest potential for reversing Type 2 Diabetes and significantly lowering HbA1c levels among all bariatric surgeries. However, because very few studies have evaluated it, its use is limited by concerns over surgical complexity and complications. It should be considered for patients with severe T2DM and obesity who are willing to accept higher surgical risks for the best chance of remission.

Marathon running induces significant, transient cardiac stress markers (Hs-TnT, ST2, NT-proBNP) in both men and women, with values returning to baseline within 48 hours, indicating that acute cardiac damage is a normal physiological response to extreme endurance efforts rather than necessarily pathological.

Do not panic if your cardiac biomarkers (like troponin) are elevated immediately after a marathon. This is a common, transient physiological response to extreme exertion. In healthy individuals, these levels typically return to baseline within 48 hours. Persistent symptoms or failure of markers to normalize should be evaluated by a physician.

In patients with type 2 diabetes, higher BMI (overweight/obese) is associated with lower all-cause mortality compared to normal weight, a phenomenon known as the 'obesity paradox'.

If you have type 2 diabetes, do not use the 'obesity paradox' as an excuse to maintain a high BMI. While some studies show obese diabetics live longer than lean ones, this is likely due to biases like muscle mass or fitness, not the fat itself. Standard medical advice remains to lose weight if overweight, as it improves metabolic markers and does not increase mortality risk.

US obesity prevalence is predicted to plateau independently of current prevention strategies due to demographic factors (birthrate and probability of being born into an obesogenic environment).

Current obesity prevention strategies in the US are not reversing the epidemic but are likely contributing to a predicted plateau. To achieve further reductions, new strategies must be significantly more effective than the natural demographic trends predicted by this model.

Human milk consumption in infancy is associated with lower risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease in adulthood, mediated by improved glucose homeostasis, lipid metabolism, and gut microbiota modulation.

Breastfeeding offers long-term metabolic advantages, including lower risks of obesity and diabetes, likely due to unique components like oligosaccharides that shape gut health and energy regulation. If breastfeeding is not possible, focus on high-quality nutrition for the infant, as the metabolic programming benefits are significant but not exclusive to breast milk.

Consuming raw milk does not reduce lactose malabsorption or lactose intolerance symptoms compared to pasteurized milk in adults with confirmed lactose malabsorption.

If you have confirmed lactose malabsorption, switching to raw milk will not help you digest lactose better than regular pasteurized milk. The lactose content is identical, and your body will process it similarly. You are better off sticking to pasteurized milk or lactose-free options to avoid the health risks of raw milk without gaining any digestive benefit.

Bariatric surgery is the only weight-loss treatment providing sustained weight loss and improvement of obesity-related comorbidities, yet access is inequitably distributed based on sociodemographic factors.

Bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for morbid obesity, but access is not equal. If you meet the medical criteria (BMI ≥40 or ≥35 with comorbidities), systemic factors like income, race, or location may prevent you from receiving it. The paper calls for identifying these specific barriers to improve equity.

Extrusion cooking of wholegrain pearl millet promotes the formation of amylose-lipid complexes (ALCs) that moderate the release of reducing sugars and slow starch digestion compared to native or cooked native flour.

If you eat pearl millet, choosing extruded wholegrain flour and preparing it with warm (not boiling) water can help slow down how quickly your body digests the starch. This processing method creates complexes that moderate sugar release, potentially offering better metabolic control than traditional cooked porridge.

Initial skeletal muscle size (leg fat-free mass or quadriceps cross-sectional area) does not predict the magnitude of muscle atrophy following 14 days of unilateral lower limb immobilization in men.

If you are injured and must immobilize a limb, do not assume that having larger muscles will cause you to lose them faster than a smaller person would. The rate of muscle loss during short-term immobilization (14 days) is not determined by your starting muscle size. Focus on adhering to your rehabilitation protocol and maintaining adequate protein intake.

Habitual hot-tub bathing (≥4 times/week) is associated with statistically significant, albeit small, improvements in glycemic control (HbA1c), body mass index (BMI), and diastolic blood pressure in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

If you have Type 2 Diabetes, taking a hot tub bath at least four times a week for about 16 minutes is associated with slightly better blood sugar control, lower body weight, and lower diastolic blood pressure. This is not a replacement for medication, but a supportive lifestyle habit. Be cautious if you are elderly or have existing heart conditions, and consult your doctor before starting.

Combining protein supplementation with exercise does not provide a robust benefit for bone mineral content (BMC) or density (BMD) in middle-aged and older adults compared to exercise or protein alone.

If your goal is bone health, focus on consistent resistance or weight-bearing exercise and adequate protein intake separately. Adding extra protein supplements on top of your exercise routine does not currently show evidence of providing additional bone density benefits compared to doing just one of those things alone.

Dietary interventions (caloric restriction, high-fat, high protein-to-carbohydrate ratios, and specific micronutrients) administered during critical developmental windows (puberty, pregnancy, or lifetime) can induce transgenerational epigenetic modifications that protect offspring against environmental toxins.

To potentially protect future generations from environmental toxins, parents should consider adopting protective dietary patterns—such as high protein-to-carbohydrate ratios, caloric restriction, or specific micronutrient supplementation—during critical life stages like puberty, pregnancy, or throughout their lifetime. These dietary choices can induce epigenetic changes that may persist for multiple generations.

Age is the most significant factor for multimorbidity, with individuals over 60 years old having a 5.89 times higher likelihood of reporting two or more chronic diseases compared to those under 49.

As you age, the risk of developing multiple chronic conditions increases significantly. However, managing modifiable risk factors like blood pressure and weight can help mitigate this risk. Regular health screenings and adherence to medication for conditions like hypertension and diabetes are crucial for older adults to prevent multimorbidity.

Bariatric surgery (specifically gastric bypass) leads to net cost savings for healthcare systems, but this economic benefit is conditional on long-term follow-up (typically >17 years) and specific surgical techniques, as short-term costs exceed conservative management.

For healthcare policymakers, bariatric surgery (specifically gastric bypass) should be viewed as a long-term investment rather than a short-term expense. While initial costs exceed conservative management, the break-even point is typically reached after 17 years due to reduced chronic disease burden. For patients, this highlights that the procedure's value is realized over decades, not months.

A multidisciplinary care model involving plastic surgeons, bariatric specialists, dieticians, and mental health providers is essential for optimizing safety and outcomes in body contouring surgery for massive weight loss patients.

If you are considering body contouring after significant weight loss, ensure your care team includes not just a surgeon, but also a dietitian to check for nutrient deficiencies, a mental health professional to manage expectations, and a primary care doctor to manage conditions like diabetes. This coordinated approach minimizes complications and improves long-term satisfaction.

Combining obesity management medications (OMM) with metabolic bariatric surgery (MBS) or endoscopic procedures is an inevitable and necessary component of future personalized obesity care, though optimal protocols are currently undefined.

Future obesity care will likely involve combining medications (like GLP-1s) with surgery or endoscopy. This combination is becoming standard to manage weight regain or suboptimal responses, though specific dosing and timing protocols are still being researched.

Moderate-intensity and high-intensity interval exercise training provide equal cardioprotection against diabetic cardiomyopathy in rats by preventing left ventricular fibrosis and collagen cross-linking.

If you have diabetes or are at risk, both moderate-intensity and high-intensity interval exercise can protect your heart. You do not need to choose high intensity if moderate is more sustainable; both approaches prevent heart damage and fibrosis in this model.

Pyridoxamine supplementation alleviates cardiac fibrosis and oxidative stress in prediabetic rats, preventing left ventricular collagen deposition.

Pyridoxamine may help reduce heart scarring and oxidative stress in prediabetes, but this is based on animal studies. It should not replace lifestyle changes like exercise and diet.

Using a single Maximum Voluntary Isometric Contraction (MVIC) position to normalize gluteus maximus EMG data is invalid due to significant individual variation; researchers must use multiple MVIC positions to ensure accuracy.

If you are normalizing EMG data for the gluteus maximus, do not rely on a single 'prone' test. Individual anatomy causes some people to generate higher EMG in standing positions. To get accurate normalization, test multiple positions (e.g., prone and standing) and use the highest value obtained for that specific subject as the baseline.