Diet and Weight Loss News

June 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Fitness Trackers Are Failing Millions — This Fix Could Change Everything

June 20, 2025 — Fitness trackers often fail people with obesity by underestimating their energy burn, leading to discouraging results and misguided health data. A scientist's frustrating experience in an exercise class with his mother-in-law where her effort wasn t ...

Self-Esteem Skyrockets 131% After Weight-Loss Surgery, Study Reveals

June 20, 2025 — Self-esteem scores jumped a remarkable 131% within just one year of bariatric surgery, according to a large study presented at ASMBS 2025. Tracking nearly 5,800 patients, researchers found a direct link between weight loss and rising confidence, ...

Beyond Ozempic: New Weight Loss Drug Rivals Surgery

June 12, 2025 — Tufts University scientists are aiming to revolutionize the future of weight loss drugs by engineering a new compound that targets four gut hormones instead of the usual one to three. These next-gen tetra-functional peptides may overcome the ...

Scientists Found the Brain Glitch That Makes You Think You’re Still Hungry

June 11, 2025 — A team of scientists has identified specialized neurons in the brain that store "meal memories" detailed recollections of when and what we eat. These engrams, found in the ventral hippocampus, help ...

Why Your Diet Might Be Making You Sad--Especially If You're a Man

June 7, 2025 — New research reveals a surprising downside to calorie-cutting diets: a link to higher levels of depressive symptoms, especially in men and those who are overweight. Despite popular beliefs that healthy eating boosts mental wellness, real-life ...

Understanding Cultural Differences in Salt Usage May Help Lower Consumption

May 30, 2025 — An analysis of data from a national health survey conducted before the pandemic found that pizza, soup and chicken are some of the main sources of sodium (salt) intake for people in all racial and ethnic groups. The study also showed clear ...

A High-Fat Diet Sets Off Metabolic Dysfunction in Cells, Leading to Weight Gain

May 29, 2025 — Researchers find high-fat diets set off metabolic dysfunction in cells, leading to weight gain, but these effects can be reversed by treatment with an ...

Looking to Cut Calories? Try Adding Chilies, Study Suggests

May 22, 2025 — Throwing a little heat on your meal might be an effective strategy for cutting back on calories, according to a new ...

Gut Bacteria and Acetate, a Great Combination for Weight Loss

May 21, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a new way to reduce obesity. Supplying the gut with extra acetate reduces fat and liver mass in both normal and obese mice, as long as bacteria of the Bacteroides species is also present. When both these conditions are ...

Eating Craved Foods With Meals Lessens Cravings, Boosts Weight Loss

May 20, 2025 — Small clinical study with obese dieters who had chronic health problems found that eating balanced meals and including craved foods with those meals helped dieters manage cravings, even into the yearlong maintenance phase of the ...

School Dinners May Encourage Picky Teenagers to Eat Better, Says New Study

May 16, 2025 — Having school dinners rather than packed lunches could encourage picky eating 13-year-olds to eat a wider variety of foods, according to a new ...

In Healthy Aging, Carb Quality Counts

May 16, 2025 — Intakes of dietary fiber and high-quality carbohydrates in midlife are linked to increased likelihood of healthy aging and other positive health outcomes in older women. Higher intakes of refined carbohydrates and starchy vegetables were associated ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:58pm EDT

Eating Ultra-Processed Foods May Harm Your Health

May 8, 2025 — Eating even small amounts of ultra-processed foods—like soda, chips, or packaged cookies—can steadily increase your risk of serious health problems. A massive study reviewing data from over 8 ...

Junk Food for Thought: Landmark Study Directly Links Ultra-Processed Foods to Poor Health

May 7, 2025 — A landmark study exploring consumption of chips, frozen pizzas, breakfast cereals and other ultra-processed foods typically loaded with fat, sugar ...

Simple Test Could Better Predict Your Risk of Heart Disease

May 1, 2025 — For almost 60 years, measuring cholesterol levels in the blood has been the best way to identify individuals at high risk of cardiovascular disease. In a new study, researchers have shown ...

High Blood Sugar in Adolescence Tripled the Risk of Premature Heart Damage Affecting Females Worse Than Males

May 1, 2025 — Persistently high blood sugar and insulin resistance significantly increased the risk of worsening functional and structural heart damage during ...

Omnivorous? Vegan? Makes No Difference to Muscle Building After Weight Training, Study Finds

Apr. 21, 2025 — A new study asked three questions about muscle protein synthesis in response to a nine-day diet and weight training regimen: First, does the source ...

Carb Restriction Offers Relief from Calorie Counting

Apr. 13, 2025 — The intermittent fasting diet, which involves periods of severe calorie restriction, may be on the way out, as research is suggesting that rather than drastically reducing calories, people can ...

Parents' Metabolic Traits Can Affect the Child's Health Over Time

Apr. 13, 2025 — Research shows that the biological parents' genes affect the child's insulin function and capacity to regulate blood sugar levels and blood lipids in different ways. Such knowledge may be used to to ...

Research Highlights Urgent Need for National Strategy to Combat Rising Eating Disorders

Mar. 28, 2025 — The increasing number of people with eating disorders and a lack of national guidance for support teams has led to researchers calling for a new ...

How Time-Restricted Eating Affects Weight Loss

Mar. 27, 2025 — A new study indicates that when healthy adults pair an eight-hour eating window with regular exercise, they lose more fat -- without sacrificing lean muscle -- compared to exercise ...

Glucose Revealed as a Master Regulator of Tissue Regeneration

Mar. 27, 2025 — Glucose is life's main energy source. But a new study reveals a surprising role as a master manipulator of tissue maturation, hinting at its importance in diabetes and ...

99 Trials Later, Fasting Ties Traditional Diets in Weight-Loss Showdown

June 19, 2025 — Intermittent fasting might not be a miracle solution, but it stands shoulder to shoulder with traditional calorie-cutting when it comes to shedding pounds and improving metabolic health. A major new ...

Adulting Is Hard on the Heart: Teen to Young Adulthood Is a Critical Time to Address Risk

Mar. 26, 2025 — Many youth have heart disease risk factors by their late teens, and preventing or addressing these risks early may reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the future, according to a ...

Scientists Discover Why Obesity Takes Away the Pleasure of Eating

Mar. 26, 2025 — Many obese people report losing pleasure in eating rich foods -- something also seen in obese mice. Scientists have now discovered the reason. Long-term high-fat diets lower levels of neurotensin in ...

AI Can Help Doctors Give Intravenous Nutrition to Preemies

Mar. 25, 2025 — An algorithm that learned from tens of thousands of nutrition prescriptions for premature babies could reduce medical errors and better identify what nutrients the smallest patients ...

Healthy Eating in Midlife Linked to Overall Healthy Aging

Mar. 24, 2025 — Maintaining a healthy diet rich in plant-based foods, with low to moderate intake of healthy animal-based foods and lower intake of ultra-processed foods, was linked to a higher likelihood of healthy ...

Maternal Depression Can Lead to Children's Emotional Overeating, Study Shows

Mar. 17, 2025 — Up to 25% of new mothers suffer from postpartum depression, which can significantly impact their parenting behavior and the wellbeing of their children. A new study looks at long-term effects of ...

New Study Explores the Link Between Diet, Blood Sugar and Cancer Risk Across Species

Mar. 12, 2025 — A new study analyzing diet, average plasma sugar levels and cancer prevalence in some 273 vertebrate species showed surprising results. The study found no significant link between diet and plasma ...

Memory Is Impaired in Aged Rats After 3 Days of High-Fat Eating

Mar. 6, 2025 — Just a few days of eating a diet high in saturated fat could be enough to cause memory problems and related brain inflammation in older adults, a new study in rats ...

We Feed Gut Microbes Sugar, They Make a Compound We Need

Mar. 3, 2025 — Gut microbes that were thought to feed exclusively on dietary fiber also get fed sugar from our guts, from which they produce short-chain fatty acids that are crucial to many body functions. The ...

Strong Link Between Western Diet During Pregnancy and ADHD

Mar. 3, 2025 — New research reveals that a mother's diet during pregnancy -- characterized by a Western dietary pattern high in fat and sugar and low in fresh ingredients -- may increase the risk of ...

How a Low-Carb Diet Can Drive Colorectal Cancer Development

Mar. 3, 2025 — Researchers have shown how a low carbohydrate diet can worsen the DNA-damaging effects of some gut microbes to cause colorectal cancer. The study compared the effects of three different diets in ...

How to Trick the Body's Metabolism

Mar. 3, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a new way in which the liver regulates its consumption of sugar and fat. This could potentially increase the effectiveness of weight-loss and diabetes ...

Genomics Approach to Metabolism Reveals How Reactions Flow

Feb. 26, 2025 — Two new papers describe a significant advance in understanding the complex functions of the metabolic ...

What Happens When a Diet Targets Ultra-Processed Foods?

Feb. 21, 2025 — In just two months, a Drexel University pilot program helped participants cut their ultra-processed food intake by half, leading to weight loss, better moods, and major reductions in sugar, fat, and ...

Biological Clock Plays Critical Role in Driving Teens' Late-Day Eating Habits

Feb. 17, 2025 — The causes of obesity are complex and influenced by many factors. While research has highlighted connections between sleep, eating patterns and weight gain, scientists remain uncertain of the role of ...

Putting Least Calorific Meals First on Menu Makes Teenagers More Likely to Order Them

Feb. 11, 2025 — New research has found that putting lower-calorie meal choices at the top of a restaurant menu, and reducing the availability of high-calorie options, makes teenagers more likely to order the ...

Carbohydrate Cravings in Depression

Feb. 5, 2025 — Depression affects 280 million people worldwide. The mental illness has been proven to lead to changes in eating behavior. Researchers have discovered that although patients with depression generally ...

Obese and Healthy

Feb. 5, 2025 — Body weight and body mass index alone are not enough to predict whether someone will develop a metabolic disease. A new atlas of cells in fat tissue could help to explain why some overweight people ...

Could the Contraceptive Pill Reduce Risk of Ovarian Cancer?

Feb. 3, 2025 — It's a little pill with big responsibilities. But despite its primary role to prevent pregnancy, the contraceptive pill (or 'the Pill') could also help reduce the risk of ovarian ...

Gut Microbes May Mediate the Link Between Drinking Sugary Beverages and Diabetes Risk

Jan. 31, 2025 — It's well known that consuming sugary drinks increases the risk of diabetes, but the mechanism behind this relationship is unclear. Now researchers show that metabolites produced by gut microbes ...