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• The study was conducted at San Diego State University and builds on previous research demonstrating the cardiovascular, metabolic, and cognitive health benefits of strawberries.
• Following strawberry consumption, cognitive processing speed increased by 5.2%, systolic blood pressure decreased by 3.6%, and total antioxidant capacity significantly increased by 10.2%.
• Long-term observational studies, including the Health Professionals Study and the Nurses’ Health Study, found that strawberry consumers had lower rates of cognitive decline.
• For more information on strawberry research, you can view the California Strawberry Commission’s Health Research Round-Up .

• The traditional approach to weight loss is to count calories and try to reduce the number consumed each day.
• Intermittent fasting – and the popular version known as time-restricted eating – could be a simpler option for people wanting to achieve a healthy weight.
• But is intermittent fasting any better than calorie counting for losing weight?

• The diets were then adjusted to help maintain this weight loss over the next six months.
• The researchers hypothesised that participants focusing on reducing the number of hours they ate would achieve and maintain weight loss better than participants focusing on counting calories.
• These findings support previous studies that have found similar weight loss when comparing time-restricted eating and other popular versions of intermittent fasting (such as the 5:2 diet), to daily calorie restriction.
• The new study shows that time-restricted eating can lead to weight loss without explicit instruction to reduce calorie intake.

Substantial counselling

• However, one important aspect of this study that makes it difficult to conclude that these interventions alone are enough to help people lose weight is the fact that participants in both dietary intervention groups received a lot of counselling during the study.
• Interestingly, a recent study found that time-restricted eating without additional support did not lead to weight loss after three months.
• There were also substantial differences in weight loss between individual participants on each diet.

• The statement by the AMA, the nation’s largest association representing physicians, signals a significant shift in how clinicians regard BMI as a measure of general health.
• As a board-certified obesity medicine physician with a research interest in patient-centered obesity care, I have written before about my concerns over use of BMI as a measure of health.

BMI basics

• The metric was developed to estimate a normal body weight depending on an individual’s height, given that taller people tend to weigh more.
• Research has consistently shown that BMI at a population level correlates strongly with body fat percentage and risk for serious health conditions.

Major limitations

• However, while BMI may have strong correlations with the amount of body weight composed of body fat in studies of averages of large groups of people, it does not directly measure body fat for an individual.
• Therefore, people with the same BMI may have substantially different body fat percentage based on a variety of factors such as age, muscle mass, sex and race.
• In an example from one large study, adults with a BMI of 25 had a body fat percentage ranging from 14% to 35% for men, and 26% to 42% for women.
• Adults with metabolically healthy obesity have significantly lower health risks associated with a high BMI and therefore may not benefit from weight loss.

Using BMI to guide recommendations for weight loss

• Its members cite the potential for lifestyle-based weight loss interventions to reduce obesity-related health risks as justification for the recommendation.
• Whether newer, more effective weight loss medications, such as Ozempic, will lead to long-term health benefits remains to be seen.
• Part of the reason that the evidence for health benefits of weight loss interventions is so poor is that body weight is regulated by a complicated hormonal system.

Alternatives for assessing weight and health

• With the shift away from BMI, the AMA recommends alternative measures that clinicians can use for the assessment of the health risks of an elevated body weight.
• Further, while these measurements may better predict health risks of elevated weight, evidence for using these measurements to improve health outcomes is lacking.
• Further research is needed to identify the best ways to assess the health risks of elevated body weight.

• “Hypothalamic obesity is a challenging disease to manage with patients generally refractory to standard treatments for obesity.
• “This impressive response adds to the evidence suggesting setmelanotide may provide a meaningful clinical benefit for patients with this disease who currently have no approved therapeutic options.”
  Rhythm enrolled 18 patients in its open-label, 16-week Phase 2 trial designed to evaluate setmelanotide in patients with acquired hypothalamic obesity.
• The primary endpoint is the percent change in BMI after approximately 52 weeks on a therapeutic regimen of setmelanotide versus placebo.
• All Rhythm’s presentations from ENDO will be available on the Publications and Presentations section of its website: https://www.rhythmtx.com/publications/ .