Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

Calm Down, Step Away From the Burger

May 4, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
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If it’s true that we are what we eat, then people who eat a lot of trans fatty acids — common in fast foods ­— might be a bit touchier than the rest of us. In a new study of eating habits and behavior, Dr. Beatrice Golomb, a researcher and professor at the University of California, San Diego medical school, lays out evidence that a diet high in trans fats is linked to traits of irritability and aggression. In her study, Golomb gave 945 Californians who had already enrolled in a drug clinical trial a standard dietary questionnaire that asked what they ate and how often they ate ... Read More

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Mice Losing Weight With Less Exercise?

April 23, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

What if there was a pill that would allow you to add lean muscle mass and lower your cholesterol and insulin levels, all while chowing down on your favorite high-fat, high-sugar foods? Scripps Research Institute scientists in Florida may have done just that — in mice. The scientists have crafted a pair of synthetic molecules that cause them to lose weight, exercise more, and normalize their blood sugar by tinkering with the “clock” that controls a mouse’s metabolism. The research, published in Nature online, opens the door for new drugs to treat obesity, cardiovascular disease, ... Read More

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Can Chocolate Make You Thin?

March 26, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

In recent years, a growing body of research has pointed to the benefits of chocolate — it’s loaded with antioxidants and improves everything from blood pressure to cholesterol levels — and now, according to a new study, it might also make you thinner. Published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study asked 1,017 subjects how many times a week they ate chocolate. Researchers then determined the Body Mass Index (a measure of body fat based on height and weight) for 972 of those subjects. “Adults who consume chocolate more frequently had a lower BMI than those who ... Read More

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FDA Cracks Whip on Lap-Band Marketing

December 13, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

In July, we asked how candidates for Lap-Bands — surgically implanted belts that wrap around the stomach and can be tightened to make it smaller — should be evaluated after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration widened the window of those eligible for the weight-loss procedure. By lowering the body-mass index criteria, as many as one in seven Americans became eligible for the surgery. Our Taylor Orr wondered if the Lap-Band wasn’t being promoted a little recklessly as a get-thin cure-all – besides Lasik, how many surgical procedures do you see offered on billboards? “In short, ... Read More

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Don’t Tax Soda, Tax Sweeteners

December 8, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Public-health officials and policymakers across the United States have been talking a lot lately about tackling the epidemic of obesity through smaller nudges like a per-ounce tax on soda. Not surprisingly, as enthusiasm for this idea expands, so too has soda-tax scholarship. “Our take on this was basically that everybody is talking about a soda tax, so we stepped back and said, ‘Wait a minute, this is not very well targeted,’” said John Beghin, an economist at Iowa State University. “If you want to impose a tax and reduce calorie intake from sweeteners, there is a better way to ... Read More

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Sweetener Death Match: Sugar vs. Syrup

October 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The idea that high-fructose corn syrup infuses lots of our food has left a bitter taste in many consumers' mouths. So the corn industry has started a public relations campaign on behalf of its beleaguered syrup in an attempt to rename the additive as "corn sugar." But a civil lawsuit in federal court seeks to stop the renaming. An effort from public health advocates to try to keep the corn industry honest? Nope, the suit was filed by the giants of the sugar industry to protect their brand. The squabble has pitted sugar producers and processors like American Sugar Refining and Imperial Sugar ... Read More

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Some People Do Heed Fast-Food Calorie Data

July 31, 2011 • By •

You're next in line to get the McDonald's burger you've been craving and so close that you can almost taste it. But there’s just one problem: Right next to the words "Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese" on the menu is the number 740 — as in calories. If this makes your jaw drop and your cravings wave a white flag, you're not alone, but you're close to it. A new study conducted in New York City found about 15 percent of customers took the nutritional information into consideration when making their food choice. "One in six customers reported using the calorie information when making ... Read More

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Less Stress May Mean Less Fat

July 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Obesity has generally been explained as the interaction of three factors: diet, exercise and genetics. Researchers, though, have begun to look at another element — particularly as it relates to childhood obesity — and their findings have implications for government-run social safety-net programs that the politicians wrangling over them likely never considered. "What we see is that at least in clinical studies using rats, if you induce stress in a rat, it causes them to have high levels of cortisol, which then leads to have higher levels of obesity," said Craig Gundersen, a professor of ... Read More

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How Should We Evaluate Lap-Band Candidates?

July 15, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

You've tried Atkins, South Beach and Nutrisystem. You've enlisted the help of a personal trainer, busted your butt at your gym's boot camp and sweated it out in Bikram yoga. Desperate to trim inches, you've even bought into gimmicky weight-loss pills, fasting and cleanses. But the stubborn scale still tells you that you're overweight. Where should you turn now? If you have a body mass index of 30 or higher (a man standing at 5'9" and weighing in at 203 pounds) and one weight-related medical condition (high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.), you now qualify for quick and easy gastric bypass ... Read More

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Obesity Linked to False Perception of Food Scarcity

June 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

There’s an old joke about being on a see-food diet ("I see food, I eat it"). Newly published research suggests this obesity-inducing, just-say-yes response to gastric temptation may be based on a fundamental misperception. Finnish researchers have discovered a connection between body-mass index (a common measure of obesity) and a person’s awareness of the presence of food. They report that, in two experiments, thinner people noticed cakes, cabbages and crackers scattered among other objects more rapidly than their corpulent counterparts. The notion that fatter people are less likely ... Read More

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