It's Not What You Eat, It's What You Drink

When it comes to calorie intake, researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that liquid calorie intake has a stronger impact on weight gain (or loss) than solid calorie intake. As you might suspect sugar sweetened beverages are the leading source of liquid calories.

Consumption of liquid calories from beverages has increased in parallel with the obesity epidemic. Earlier studies by Bloomberg School researchers project that 75 percent of U.S. adults could be overweight or obese by 2015 and have linked the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to the obesity epidemic, which affects two-thirds of adults and increases the risk for adverse health conditions such as type 2 diabetes.

“Among beverages, sugar-sweetened beverages was the only beverage type significantly associated with weight change at both the 6- and 18-month follow up periods,” said Liwei Chen, MD, PhD, MHS, lead author of the study and a Bloomberg School graduate.

Thought You'd Be Interested

In a recent post I pointed out that current economic conditions are forcing a growing number of Americans to engage in unhealthy behavior, like skipping renewing prescriptions in order to save money. However, the leaders of the companies who produce the drugs many people can no longer afford won't have a similar problem. Here are the compensation numbers for the 10 best paid big pharma execs as compiled by fiercepharma.com:

1. Miles White - Abbott - $33.4M

2. Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough - $30.1M

3. Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson - $25.1M

4. Bob Essner - Wyeth - $24.1M

5. Robert Parkinson - Baxter - $17.6M

6. Daniel Vasella - Novartis - $15.5M

7. Richard Clark - Merck - $14.5M

8. Frank Baldino - Cephalon - $13.5M

9. Sidney Taurel - Eli Lilly - $13M

10. Jeff Kindler - Pfizer - $12.6M