Understanding the mechanisms generating outcomes in a Danish peer support intervention for socially vulnerable people with type 2-diabetes: a realist evaluation.

Background: Despite an increasing use and positive effects of peer support interventions, little is known about how the outcomes are produced. Thus, it is essential not only to measure outcomes, but also to identify the mechanisms by which they are generated. Using a realist evaluation approach, we aimed to identify the mechanisms generating outcomes in a Danish peer support intervention for socially vulnerable people with type 2-diabetes (peers).

From the Miocene to olestra: a historical perspective on fat consumption.

Given the extraordinary dietary and geographic diversity of Pleistocene hominids, there is no single "Paleolithic diet" or average pre-Holocene fat intake. Even the Neanderthals initially were scavengers, possibly becoming seasonal hunters of large game at a later period. Fat intakes of greater than 20 g/day (11% of total caloric intake) developed after the domestication of mammals and then by selective breeding of genetically fatter animals in suitably temperate climates.

Fractionating healthy weight.

Any discussion of healthy weight necessarily starts with body composition and its relation to long-term mortality and morbidity and then goes on to consider the limited range of ages for which we have epidemiologic data, the time span involved, the criteria used to define "healthy," and the possibility that a weight that is advantageous with respect to one outcome criterion may be disadvantageous for another. One may therefore ask, weight of what? healthy weight for whom? by what criteria? and question whether a simple weight-for-height ratio is sufficiently effective for the task.