David Katz, M.D.

The lead story in today's New York Times is that Mayor Bloomberg wants to restrict the size of soft drinks sold in New York City to a maximum of 16 oz. Another way to go might be to restrict them to a minimum of two gallons so you...

The United States Preventive Services Task Force has moved on from ambivalence about prostate cancer screening with the PSA test, and inveighed decisively against it. As is ever the case with guidance about cancer screening, this recommendation is apt to stoke the flames of...

An opinion about a fact is just an opinion. And that's a fact.

It's a fact of particular importance to the world of nutrition guidance, where opinions are routinely substituted for facts, and where the expression of opinion all too often takes on a religious zeal. But it's...

That's dam"m"ed, not dam"n"ed.

A CDC report issued today from the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention reveals that drowning causes more deaths among children age 1 to 4 in the U.S. than any other cause except congenital anomalies.

This is a terrible, tragic, and obviously

The National Consumers League, claiming to represent consumers' interests, issued a press release this week announcing they had submitted a complaint to the FDA, asking the agency to banish NuVal from the nation's supermarkets. The group claims that NuVal cannot be credible because it generates some...

The news of the day is that we are headed toward an obesity rate of 42 percent by 2030. We can't afford to go there! So perhaps it's time to recall that the best way to predict the future... is to create it. We need to create a...

The May 2 issue of JAMA includes an editorial by Dr. Paul Offit of the University of Pennsylvania suggesting that the budget of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine might be more productively used by other institutes at the NIH. Dr. Offit runs through a litany...

There was an expression, once commonly used, to describe a situation in which it was easy to exploit people: "like taking candy from a baby." As with all such similes, the illustration itself was meant to be the extreme, self-evident case. Stealing a baby's candy is something so...

Here's a dual-choice question about making a fortune in a relative hurry -- which do you think works better?

A) A hard toil with the truth
or
B) A well-timed tirade?

Here's another related question: Which is more likely to put you on the fast...

I have previously expressed my concerns that weight loss and common sense have trouble co-habitating, and might even be at war. The discord is understandable: Desperation breeds gullibility, and wishful thinking. People with more than ample common sense are lulled into a state of hypnotized bemusement by magical...

I was at the White House recently, for the 2012 Easter Egg Roll.

Before I get any credit I don't deserve for being among the chosen few invited to perform, I hasten to add I was there essentially as the unofficial photographer to the backup dancers for the...

I know -- as a parent first of all, then as a physician, and finally as a public health practitioner -- that "breast is best." Breast milk, absent some very compelling contraindication such as a transmissible infection, is the ideal food for a newborn. Nothing else we've got confers the...

The big medical news of the past week was about common sense restraint, rather than scientific advance. It was, mostly, about when not to use the medical technology at our disposal.

I refer, of course, to the "Choosing Wisely" program, set in motion last year by...

The notion that eating meat might be bad for us is tough to swallow for a generation that has drunk deep of the "low carb" Kool-Aid. But even if eating meat were good for people, too much focus on it would be ill-advised for a population of 7...

As those who know me best will attest, I am far from crude. If anything, I tend to err the other way -- with an excess of Monkish fastidiousness. It is in deference to that inclination, and on the chance you may share it, that I warn you...

Health care is NOT like cell phones. Hold that thought.

Apparently, during the already infamously harsh second day for health care reform before the Supreme Court, one of the justices posed this question: If the government can force us all to buy health care, what can't the government...

On March 20, 2012, one of the USA Today cover stories was "Measles Outbreak Could Hit the USA" as a result of rising rates of measles in Europe, and declining rates of vaccination here.

If measles does make a meaningful comeback, it would imply public health is...

A calorie is, incontrovertibly, now and forever, a calorie. Well, a kilocalorie actually. Back to that in a minute.

Not every gallon of gasoline poured into the tank of every car produces the same travel distance. But that does not induce us to ask: Is a gallon a gallon? Of...

A proud American, I think the separation of church and state long honored by a nation literally founded by those fleeing state-sanctioned religious persecution in Europe, and dedicated to tolerance, is a very good idea. But I'll leave that fight to others and move on -- to matters...

I am, and have long been, on the masthead at Men's Health magazine as an editorial advisor, with contributions focused principally on weight control. Proud of it, too.

I do note, in passing, that I don't always agree with my good friends there. They seem to feel...