E259: Your state of the science on weight loss drugs

January 8, 2025

About two years ago, we released a podcast with Dr. Thomas Wadden of the University of Pennsylvania describing work on a new generation of medications to treat diabetes and obesity. They were really taking the field by storm. Since then, much more is known since many additional studies have been published and so many people have been using the drugs. So many, in fact, the market value of the Danish company, Novo Nordisk, one of the two major companies selling the drugs, has gone up. It is now greater than the entire budget of the country of Denmark. This single company is responsible for about half of Denmark’s economic expansion this year. So, a lot of people are now taking the drugs and this is a great time for an update on the drugs. And we’re fortunate to have two of the world’s leading experts join us: Dr. Wadden, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the inaugural Albert J. Stunkard Professor of Psychiatry at Penn. Joining us as well as Dr. Robert Kushner, a physician and professor of medicine at Northwestern University and a pioneer in testing treatments for obesity.

Related podcasts: Diet & Nutrition | Food, Psychology & Neuroscience | Obesity | Weight Stigma |

 

E256: ATNI – driving market change towards nutrition

November 21, 2024

Now more than ever, it’s important to challenge the world’s food and beverage manufacturers to address nutrition issues like obesity and undernutrition. Today, we’re going to discuss the 2024 Global Access to Nutrition Index, a very important ranking system that evaluates companies on their nutrition related policies, product portfolios, marketing practices, and engagement with stakeholders. The index is an accountability strategy produced by ATNI, the Access to Nutrition Initiative, a global nonprofit foundation seeking to drive market change for nutrition. Our guest today is Greg Garrett, Executive Director of ATNI.

Related podcasts: Addiction & Food | Advocacy & Food | Diet & Nutrition | Economics of the food system | Food Industry Behavior & Marketing | Food Policy | Ultra-processed Food & Additives |

 

E255: Reducing food waste: Less seafood wasted than thought in US

November 18, 2024

The U. S. is the largest importer of aquatic foods, which includes fresh and saltwater fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and aquatic plants served in restaurants and homes. A critical piece of this global market is the cold chain, keeping these foods chilled or frozen during storage and transport to market. With 44 percent of aquatic foods sold live or fresh globally, the percentage of fresh over frozen aquatic foods creates an extra logistical cold chain challenge. What’s more, most aquatic foods become, well, fishy from cold chain disruptions, which can cause perceived food safety concerns, potentially resulting in food getting tossed into the bin. Until recently, research to understand just how much aquatic food gets wasted or lost has been spotty. However, in a recent Nature Food article, researchers argue that aquatic food loss and waste in the United States is actually half of earlier estimates. And that’s good news that we’ll explore today. This interview is part of an ongoing exploration of food loss and waste.

Related podcasts: Agriculture & Tech | Climate Change, Environment & Food | Diet & Nutrition | Fisheries & Food Policy | Food Safety & Food Defense |

 

E251: The thoughtful transformation of Southern cooking

October 14, 2024

Today’s podcast is a gastronomic treat. I’m talking with Chef William Dissen, James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of the restaurant, The Marketplace, located in Asheville, North Carolina. William is the founder of four award winning restaurants and draws inspiration from traveling the world, creating dishes that tell a story, surprising guests with inventive food preservation techniques, and bringing classic dishes with explosive flavors to life. He published a debut cookbook in 2024 titled Thoughtful Cooking – Recipes Rooted in the New South. Food and Wine Magazine recognized it as the best spring cookbook and praised how he takes readers on a culinary journey organized by the four seasons of Appalachia’s most sought-after ingredients. William also enjoys the fame of being the first and only chef to beat Gordon Ramsay in a cook off on NatGeo TV’s Gordon Ramsay Uncharted Smoky Mountains.

Related podcasts: Advocacy & Food | Chefs & Food Writers | Diet & Nutrition | Food Policy | North Carolina |

 

E249: History Fact Check: Impact of Corporate Influence on Research

October 3, 2024

Study after study has shown that consumption of sugar sweetened beverages poses clear health risk. So how have the big soda companies, Coke and Pepsi in particular, reacted to this news and to public health policies that have aimed to restrict their business dealings like marketing, labeling, and even taxes? A fascinating and important part of this history has been told in a new book by Dr. Susan Greenhalgh called Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca Cola. Dr. Greenhalgh is the John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society Emerita at Harvard University. But hold on, what in the heck does China have to do all this? Well, we’re about to find out. This will be a very interesting discussion.

Related podcasts: Diet & Nutrition | Food Industry Behavior & Marketing | Soda Taxes |

 

E245: Menus of Change Collaborative – shaping university student eating habits and careers

September 9, 2024

When you hear university dining, you likely have images in your mind of college students with trays and hand waiting in a line for a meal in a dining hall. You may even think of a food court or a trendy food hall in the cool part of town. But there is so much more happening behind the scenes. Today we will learn about Menus of Change University Research Collaborative, MCURC for short, which is a nationwide network of colleges and universities using campus dining halls as living laboratories for behavior change. The collaborative’s goals are to move people towards healthier, more sustainable and delicious foods using evidence-based research, education and innovation. Our guest today is the collaborative’s co-founder and co-director, Stanford University’s Sophie Egan.

Related podcasts: Chefs & Food Writers | Diet & Nutrition | Food Industry Behavior & Marketing | Food, Psychology & Neuroscience | School Meals |

 

E241: What is the connection between the gut and our brain?

August 13, 2024

We’ve recorded a series of podcasts on the microbiome and its wide ranging impacts. But boy is this a field that moves rapidly. As soon as you think you’ve covered much of the territory, along comes some new and exciting findings, and this is the case today. We’re going to describe research done by our guest, Dr. Ibrahim Javed. He has done innovative work on links between the gut microbiome and the brain, particularly focused on Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Javed is an Enterprise Fellow and National Health and Medicine Research Council Emerging Leadership Fellow in Clinical and Health Sciences at the University of South Australia.

Related podcasts: Child Development & Nutrition | Diet & Nutrition | Microbiome |

 

E238: Celebrating the Successes of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation

June 27, 2024

Nonprofit organizations can play a very important role in building healthy communities by providing services that contribute to community stability, social mobility, public policy, and decision-making. Today we’re speaking with Kathy Higgins, CEO of the Alliance for Healthier Generation. The Alliance is a nonprofit organization, a well-known one at that, that promotes healthy environments so that young people can achieve lifelong good health.

Related podcasts: Advocacy & Food | Child Development & Nutrition | Childhood Obesity | COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Diet & Nutrition | Philanthropy & Food Systems | School Meals |

 

E236: Why we need a new food labeling system

April 29, 2024

The first nutrition labels mandated by the Food and Drug Administration appeared on food packages in 1994. A key update occurred in 2016, informed by new science on the link between diet and chronic disease. Along the way, things like trans fats and added sugars were required, but all along, the labels have been laden with numbers and appear on the back or side of packages. There has long been interest in more succinct and consumer-friendly labeling systems that might appear on the front of packages. Such systems exist outside the US, but for political reasons and lobbying by the food industry, have been blocked in the United States. There’s new hope, however, described in a recent opinion piece by Christina Roberto, Alyssa Moran, and Kelly Brownell in the Washington Post. Today, we welcome Dr. Christina Roberto, lead author of that piece. She is the Mitchell J. Blutt and Margot Krody Blutt Presidential Associate Professor of Health Policy in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Related podcasts: Diet & Nutrition | Food Industry Behavior & Marketing | Food Policy | Food, Psychology & Neuroscience |

 

E235: A successful interactive obesity treatment approach

April 22, 2024

Traditional clinical weight loss interventions can be costly, time consuming, and inaccessible to low-income populations and people without adequate health insurance. Today’s guest, Dr. Gary Bennett, has developed an Interactive Obesity Treatment Approach, or iOTA for short, that represents a real advance in this area. Dr. Bennett is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Medicine and Global Health at Duke University, where he is also Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

Related podcasts: Diet & Nutrition | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Obesity |