20K Films is an independent outfit that makes low-budget, high-quality documentaries, with Laura Zinger as producer and director. One of their previous works is about sickle cell anemia, and the current project is Sweet Nothing: America’s Addiction to …

As Childhood Obesity News has discussed, the EarlyBird Diabetes Study, being conducted in Great Britain, has been recording the physical attributes of about 300 children over a period of several years. They are zeroing in on the problem of insulin resi …

Childhood Obesity News has discussed the many variables involved in scientific studies, and how difficult it can be to satisfy the results-oriented patrons who are paying for the studies. Whether funding comes from the public or from a corporate entity …

I’m guessing that you remember my friend who played hand drums. You know, the one who got neuropathy in his feet, from Type 1 diabetes. Please don’t have nightmares, because your mom will be mad enough to super-glue me to a chair or something. But gues …

We were talking about diabetes and what a stone cold bummer it is when somebody has it. Okay, so I sound like a grandma — what would you say? I think you know what a stone bummer means, in grandma-land. If you want to school me about modern words, go …

I was hanging out with an old friend the other day, a percussionist, who always played hand drums — you know, congas and djembes and doumbeks and all that good stuff. He was in a bunch of bands and had a ton of hot girlfriends. The bad news is, he gre …

The EarlyBird study and others like it are important because they’re about preventing the preventable kind of diabetes, Type 2. Prevention is, of course, the best way, if it can be done. And if Type 2 develops, and is diagnosed, it can in many cases be …

The EarlyBird Diabetes Study has been going on for 12 years, keeping an eye on the same cohort of healthy kids, and it intends to continue until they are 16 years old. They are looking mainly at the causes and effects of insulin resistance. The website …

It’s National Diabetes Month, 2012. In the effort to solve diabetes and childhood obesity, why do we look at research based on data collected in 2005 and even farther back in time? Because to a certain extent, that’s how it is in any kind of study. It …

When generalized statements are made about diabetes, it pretty much means Type 2, because 9/10ths (maybe more) of the patients are afflicted by Type 2. A recently released study by the Centers for Disease Control found that in some American cities, dia …

In the realm of childhood obesity research, one of the big perplexing mysteries is the relationship between childhood obesity and diabetes. What exactly is going on there? How do cause and effect apply? Is it a vicious cycle? Take the United States. “D …

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and keep this post in mind when dinner is over, and the next day. At this traditional American celebration, people tend to eat too much and eat the wrong things. It all contributes to both adult obesity and childhood obes …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at some of the controversial theories of Dave Asprey relating to obesity, insulin, and inflammation. One of his theories is not so controversial, and is in fact now pretty well-accepted — that foods can be addi …

The National Diabetes Month continues, and citizen scientist Dave Asprey reports back from the far fringes of diabetes research, tying that subject up with his belief that, in the human body, as much as one-third of what appears to be fat could be swel …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at the ideas of Greg Critser, who sees three main causes for the ongoing childhood obesity epidemic. One big factor is prenatal care, because almost anything a prospective mommy does will have some effect on the …

Greg Critser knows two things are true — childhood obesity is real, and there are no simple answers. Despite talk of food deserts and the dire transportational straits of many city dwellers, he points to two studies (published in Social Science and Me …

The National Diabetes Month is almost not long enough to look at the various facets of this all-too-prevalent disease. The family-oriented, Spanish-language educational TV channel Discovery Familia is making use of the month to shed light on diabetes. …

Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News looked at the reportage done by Daniel Engber for Slate, on the subject of lab mice. An experiment is designed to compare the effects of an environment, regime, or chemical upon a group of mice, whose reactions are the …

Last time, in tune with National Diabetes Month, Childhood Obesity News looked at the discoveries made by Harvard University’s Dr. Barbara Kahn in regard to the importance of human fat cells getting enough sugar. In pursuance of her experiments, Dr. Ka …

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) announced that fat cells might prevent diabetes, which sounds totally counter-intuitive. But, in the human body, the balance of blood sugar and insulin is partly controlled by the fat cells. Medical News Tod …

We are still in National Diabetes Month, and for The Atlantic, Brian Fung gave a very clear basic explanation of that condition: These days, when people talk about diabetes, they mean the kind that goes hand-in-hand with obesity. The kind you get when …

When a person eats, a gland inside, called the pancreas, makes insulin, which keeps blood sugar in check. This is good because only a certain amount of sugar is supposed to be circulating around in a person’s bloodstream. But what if our cells don’t re …

Here is news nobody wanted to hear: “Childhood obesity rises during October Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.” Fortunately, this was a very localized report concerning Vigo County, IN, but the situation is not much brighter when the big picture is con …

It took two years and the combined efforts of four government agencies, pulled together into an uber-organization called the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, to come up with guidelines on marketing the foods laden with salt, fat, …

Back in 2009, four federal agencies (Centers for Disease Control, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Agriculture, and Food and Drug Administration) got together as the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children. When, two years later, …

With elections so close, even though minds are probably already made up, it’s hard to stop talking about Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program. Praise from some quarters, insults from others — that has been the story all along. Childhood Obesity News f …

A couple of things came out of the Obesity Society’s Scientific Meeting, which was in fact the 30th such annual gathering, convened by what its website describes as the leading North American professional and scientific organization that represents the …

As we head into the season that encompasses the traditional American Big Four — Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year — and a number of other ethnic, religious, and cultural holiday festivals, let us reflect on the words of psychotherapist …

Whether or not she serves a second term, Michelle Obama must be acknowledged as one of the most dynamic First Ladies ever. Attention has been focused on the childhood obesity epidemic, along with a great expenditure of money and energy. About whether a …

In David Foster Wallace’s novel, Infinite Jest, the action revolves around a movie that is fatally entertaining. In other words, anybody who watches it, dies. This plot is unpleasantly reminiscent of what goes on in certain laboratories where scientist …