NuVal began as, and remains, a dream of mine -- a dream about helping everyone find and choose better foods, and in the process, putting pressure on the food industry to offer better foods in the first place. They'll stop selling what we stop buying, after all.
This was a dream born initially of frustration. I have been caring for patients for over 20 years, ...
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I recently spoke at a symposium on nutrition and public health at the Tuck School of Business at my alma mater in beautiful Hanover, N.H., Dartmouth College. Among others on the panel with me was Richard Starmann, the former head of corporate communications for McDonald's. Those with even a modest number of Katz-column frequent flyer miles can readily guess how often he and I agreed.
One point Mr. Starmann made, more ...
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In that riveting courtroom scene we all know from the movie A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson's character famously tells us: We can't handle the truth. That often seems the case with regard to food.
I have encountered the resistance to fundamental truths about food often, but I am committed to doing the best I can to tell them even so. I tell them in narrative every chance I ...
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I have witnessed a lot of obesity bias in my career, and I have railed against it on more than one occasion. But it's not the focus of my career, as it is for some of my colleagues. I have long thought those colleagues who do devote themselves to the topic may tend to overlook a very fundamental question, namely: Why would obesity bias ...
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Perhaps you already know the behind-closed-doors guiding principles of the news media, but if so, I suppose I'm a bit naïve in comparison. I thought they would be all about reliably reporting the news. Instead, I learned this guiding principle during my days working as an on-air contributor for ABC News' Good Morning America: "Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable." This is by no means an ABC mantra; it's industry-wide. ...
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Since an iron lung costs quite a few dollars, the prevention of polio cannot make sense. Right? If that one has you scratching your head, with a "say what?" dangling from your lip, we are on the same page. Let's populate it accordingly. Of course prevention can save dollars. But that will only be the case when what we refer to as "prevention" really makes sense.
Prevention ...
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I am just back from my colonoscopy more or less. All went well, but I am still shrugging off the lingering tendrils of my sedation. So let's chalk up any grammatical snafus to that, shall we?
I had, of late, had some GI symptoms. But those were mostly coincidental and likely due to extensive travel and the havoc changing time zones wreaks on circadian rhythms.
Mostly, it was just time to have ...
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Among others, Gary Taubes has famously argued that calories don't count. Perhaps the more nuanced version is that the quality of calories, not the quantity, is what counts. Mr. Taubes and I have discussed this, and agreed to disagree. Leaving aside Newton and laws of thermodynamics, there is the Twinkie Diet on my side: evidence that weight can be lost when calories are restricted, no matter ...
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A recent meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that coenzyme Q10 is of benefit in congestive heart failure. For those who like the idea that food and nutrients can be excellent medicine, this paper is interesting at the very least. But there is a case to be made that it is far more than that. There is a case to be made that it ...
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Responding to our justifiably increasing preoccupation with widespread obesity, the Coca-Cola Company has released a masterful television ad on the subject. They characterize their own efforts, and invite us all to "come together" to combat this scourge. The whole "come together" concept receives great emphasis, with evocative images from the (presumably) good old days of: "I'd like to buy the ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
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