A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. And there’s a certain symmetry to that since sugar might be the reason why we need so much medicine in the first place. In the New Yorker, Michael Specter examines the an increasingly common question: How Much Harm Can Sugar Do? Specter also explains one of the reasons we’re losing the war on obesity: “In most wars, the enemy stays the enemy. In this one, however, our allies and demons keep swapping places. When I was young, fat was the principal nemesis, and any other form of calorie was considered acceptable. My mother, keenly interested in the health of her children, insisted that we put margarine on our Wonder Bread.” (He was lucky. I didn’t start experimenting with Wonder Bread until college.)

+ LA Times: Half of Americans have diabetes or pre-diabetes. And believe it or not, that’s the good news.