Obesity of Politicians as Indicator of a Country’s Corruption

This new study gives a quick, iffy method to identify which country’s politicians appear to be bigly corrupt, or just plain bigly. The study is: “Obesity of Politicians and Corruption in Post‐Soviet Countries,” Pavlo Blavatskyy, Economic of Transition and Institutional Change, epub 2020. (Thanks to Gabriel Istrate for bringing this to our attention.) The author, […]

Which individuals become fatter when they practice exercise? (study)

Professor Jean-Frédéric Brun of the Service Central de Physiologie Clinique, Centre d’Exploration et de Réadaptation des Anomalies du Métabolisme Musculaire (CERAMM), Montpellier, France, has spent almost half of his life writing research or tutorial papers which deal with exercise, fuel metabolism assessment in vivo, and hemorheology. He has recently investigated a paradox which has, surprisingly, […]

Fat Cats Disambiguation (tubby tabbies, or….?)

To (very loosely) paraphrase Murphy’s law :  “If there’s a chance that something might be misunderstood, someone will come along and misunderstand it.” That’s exactly what happened when Improbable came across a 2010 paper in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, entitled : ‘Novel dietary strategies can improve the outcome of weight loss programmes […]

Augmented satiety: Making junk food look bigger

“Recent psychological studies have revealed that the amount of food consumed is influenced by both its actual volume and external factors during eating.” Therefore, reasoned a research team from the University of Tokyo, if a portion of food seems bigger, maybe diners would eat less of it? Their experimental real-time computer graphic kit creates the […]

Case report: Big guy dies

A Case of Polysarcia, reported by Dr. Ira D. Hopkins in the Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal (November 1861), volume I(4):114-115: Richard Holmes, colored, a cook, aged 41 years, was admitted into the Utica City Hospital on the 14th of August, 1861, suffering from polysarcia, of which he died September 3d, 1861. He was 5 1/2 feet […]

High-Specificity Study of the Month: Espresso/bariatric/etc

This month’s High-Specificity Study of the Month is: “Regular coffee but not Espresso drinking is protective against fibrosis in a cohort mainly composed of morbidly obese European women with NAFLD undergoing bariatric surgery,” Rodolphe Anty, Sophie Marjoux, Antonio Iannelli, Stéphanie Patouraux, Anne-Sophie Schneck, Stéphanie Bonnafous, Camille Gire, Anca Amzolini, Imed Ben-Amor, Marie-Christine Saint-Paul, Eugenia Mariné-Barjoan, […]