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The Ancestral Health Society just posted a video of my recent talk "What Causes Leptin Resistance?"  Follow the link below to access it.  Enjoy! What Causes Leptin Resistance?

For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. John McDougall is a doctor and diet/health advocate who recommends a very low fat, high starch, whole food vegan diet to control weight and avoid chronic disease.  He's been at it for a long time, and he's a major figure in the "plant-based diet" community (i.e., a diet including little or no animal foods). Dr. McDougall invited me to participate in his 3-day Advanced Study Weekend retreat in Santa Rosa, CA.  My job was to give my talk on insulin and obesity, and participate in a panel discussion/debate with Dr. McDougall in which we sorted through issues related to low-carb, Paleo, and the health implications of eating animal foods.  I was glad to receive the invitation, because I don't see myself as a diet partisan, and I believe that my evidence-based information is applicable to a variety of diet styles.  I saw the Weekend as an opportunity to extend my thoughts to a new community, challenge myself, and m...

I have two talks planned over the next two months.  Hope to see you there! Ancestral Health Symposium 2014: UC Berkeley, August 7-9 If you want to understand the most rigorous science available on leptin resistance-- a key mechanism of obesity and a major barrier to fat loss-- this talk is for you.  This is my primary area of professional expertise; I have years of firsthand research experience on the subject and I've published a number of related papers in peer-reviewed journals.  The talk will be accessible to nearly all levels of expertise.  AHS14 tickets are available here .  I've pasted the talk's abstract below. What Causes Leptin Resistance? Leptin is the primary hormonal regulator of body fatness.  Obese people exhibit a resistance to leptin’s effects in the brain, causing the brain to oppose fat loss by multiple mechanisms.  Research in animal models suggests that leptin resistance may be required for obesity to develop.  How does leptin...

This Friday, I'll be giving an invited lecture at the University of Virginia, my undergraduate  alma mater .  I was kindly invited by a medical student named Robert Abbott, and it worked out well because I was already traveling to Charlottesville. The talk will be titled "Why Do We Overeat?  A Neurobiological Perspective".  Here's the teaser: Obesity is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized nations, yet this is a relatively recent phenomenon.  In the United States, increasing obesity prevalence has paralleled a gradual increase of daily energy intake.  Why do most Americans eat more than we used to, and more than we need to maintain a lean state, despite negative consequences?  This presentation will touch on the neurobiology of action selection, the neurobiology of energy homeostasis, and why our central nervous system hardware may not be up to the task of constructively navigating the modern food environment. The talk will be a...

Smarter Science of Slim Jonathan Bailor recently released an interview we did a few months ago on the neurobiology of body fat regulation, and the implications for fat loss.  It's a good overview of the regulation of food intake and body fatness by the brain.  You can listen to it here . Super Human Radio Carl Lanore interviewed me about my lab's work on hypothalamic inflammation and obesity.  I'm currently wrapping up a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Michael Schwartz at the University of Washington, and the interview touches on our recent review paper " Hypothalamic Inflammation: Marker or Mechanism of Obesity Pathogenesis ?"  Dan Pardi and I are frequent guests on Carl's show and I'm always impressed by how well Carl prepares prior to the interview.  You can listen to the interview here . The Reality Check podcast Pat Roach of the Reality Check podcast  interviewed me about the scientific validity of the "carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis" of ...

My friend Pedro Bastos graciously invited me to speak at a conference he organized in Lisbon on October 5 titled "Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases".  I will give two talks: "Ancestral Health: What is Our Human Potential?"  This talk will explore the health of non-industrial cultures in an effort to understand how much of our modern chronic disease burden is preventable, and it will briefly touch on one major aspect of non-industrial life that may protect against the "diseases of civilization".  This presentation will focus on age-adjusted data from high quality studies.   "Why Do We Overeat: a Neurobiological Perspective."  This talk will attempt to explain why most of us consume more calories than we need to maintain weight-- a phenomenon that is a central cause of morbidity and mortality in the modern world.  It will touch on some of the brain mechanisms involved in ingestive behavior, and outline a framework to explain wh...

For those who are attending the Ancestral Health Symposium this year, my talk will be at 9:00 AM on Saturday.  The title is "Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence", and it will focus on the following two questions: Does elevated insulin cause obesity; does obesity cause elevated insulin; or both? Is there a unifying hypothesis that's able to explain all of the seemingly conflicting evidence cited by each side of the debate? I'll approach the matter in true scientific fashion: stating hypotheses, making rational predictions based on those hypotheses, and seeing how well the evidence matches the predictions.  I'll explore the evidence in a way that has never been done before (to my knowledge), even on this blog. Why am I giving this talk?  Two reasons.  First, it's an important question that has implications for the prevention and treatment of obesity, and it has received a lot of interest in the ancestral health community and to some extent amon...