Washington, D.C.

Recently, I’ve been busy working on some new and exciting features for the Weight management center at Revolution Health.

The first, Project PACT (Parents and Children Together), is a straight-forward and realistic four-step plan meant to help parents combat childhood obesity. We continue to hear that it’s a growing problem, but did you know that researchers predict nearly half the children in North America will be overweight by 2010? Project PACT is intended to act as a resource in the fight against this.

We’ve also recently launched Obesity in America, an interactive map that shows how the nation’s waistline has expanded since 1990. In that year, 11.6% of the country was obese – last year, that percent had more than doubled to 25.1%. You can also watch the spread and also see which states are the fittest … and fattest.

Anyway, let me know what you all think of these. Hopefully, I’ll be back to posting semi-regularly here again soon.

Washington, D.C.

Alli, the first FDA-approved, over-the-counter weight-loss drug hit store shelves last week. I’ve put together a special package at Revolution Health that sorts out all you need to know about it.

Taken three times a day with each meal, the drug blocks the absorption of some of the fat in the foods you eat. Unlike other weight-loss products, it does not affect your brain or heart. Combined with a reduced-calorie, low-fat diet, the drug manufacturer (GlaxoSmithKline) claims that Alli can help you lose 50% more weight than dieting alone – so instead of losing 10 pounds, you could lose 15.

It’s not without “treatment effects” though that may include: “gas with oily spotting, loose stools and more frequent stools that may be hard to control.” Patients can expect these to occur if they consume greater than 15 grams of fat at each meal. The companion book to Alli is more blunt: “Until you have a sense of your treatment effects, it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants and bring a change of clothes with you to work.”

Still considering it? Here’s what a group of four medical experts had to say about the drug.

Washington, D.C.

Hitwise has reported that for the week ending May 26, 2007, Revolution Health was “ranked #11 in the Health & Medical – Information category, and traffic increased by 113% since the week ending April 28, 2007, when it was ranked #23.”

As NextNet further elaborates, this gives RH.com a 1.57% market share in this category — and the rise is “due to traffic sent by search engines like Google and Ask.com.”