all things to do with diabetes obesity and metabolism
12th February 2026, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
When we think about major complications in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), we automatically think of an atherosclerotic cardiovascular event. While diabetic kidney disease, diabetic foot disease and retinopathy makes the quality of life miserable the last 5-7 years of their shortened lifespan but it is ASCVD events that kills them.…
27th January 2026, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We are very familiar with preventing the progression of prediabetes to type 2 diabetes (T2D). Achievement of remission involves multi-component interventions including dietary and physical activity measures and often, pharmacological intervention. Patients with T2D are at heightened cardiometabolic complications. You would think that preventing the progression from prediabetes to diabetes will prevent some of these complications.…
28th December 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We discussed the Lancet Commission’s clinical obesity 12 months ago. Clinical obesity is obesity in the presence of a clinical disease (whether complication or co-morbidity). This is why the PBS is funding semaglutide for patients with obesity and established cardiovascular (CV) disease and not obesity on its own. There are many other “diseases” associated with obesity which will be funded by the PBS in the very near future.…
11th December 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We all have a handful of patients witth idiopathic intracranial hypertension. It is often diagnosed by someone else incidentally. While the full pathophysiology of the condition is still not clear, we know enough about the condition to know who may be at highest risk and perhaps, diagnose the condition early to prevent visual loss. Medical treatment is possible in the early stages and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunting is no longer the only surgical options. Headaches is the most common initial symptom but we see so many patients with headaches that we don’t find a cause for. Who may have IIH? Which patients with headaches should we be on the lookout for IIH?
Max Nonne, a German neurologist, described a syndrome of headache accompanied by swollen optic disks in patients with CSF pressure back in 1904 (1). He called the condition “pseudotumor cerebri,” because it behaves like a tumour but none of these patients have a tumour. He described a clinical syndrome of chronically elevated intracranial pressure of unknown aetiology.…
23rd November 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Patients used to be given tacit recommendations about lifestyle changes for metabolic dysfunction associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) because it’s “just a little fat in the liver”. For those of us who have that few patients with those liver as well as non-liver complications, we will remember how horrible these patients fare moving forward.…
11th October 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
Weekly semaglutide injectable has been around for some years now. Even with my special interest in diabetes and obesity, I am getting confused with all the clinical trials involving semaglutide in patients with obesity with or without diabetes. They all have very innovative acronyms most of them starting with “S” which makes them hard to keep track of.…
22nd August 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We always worry when athlete patients take supplements to improve their workout and performance. We don’t really know what these “supplements” are. We don’t really know whether they work or whether they are safe. One of the most commonly used supplements is creatine. Does it help muscle building and performance? Does it help to lose fat?…
13th August 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We know the ongoing cost and availability of anti-obesity medications (AOM) the likes of Wegovy and Mounjaro although we have been assured that the supply issue is behind us now. Part of the problem with cost relate to the manufacturing cost of the devices. In fact, the rate limiting step to the production is the pen, which needs to be precisely manufactured and tested as it is a medical device.…
28th July 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We are all aware of the four pillars of treatment in the guideline directed medical treatment (GDMT) of patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) – SGLT2 inhibitors (SGLT2i), angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI), beta blockers and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA). When we come to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HRpEF), the pillar of treatment is rather lonely – SGLT2i only.…
30th June 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
You would have no doubt noticed headlines everywhere about the new criteria for GDM diagnosis that was just released a few days ago. Why is there such a buzz? Why is everyone seemingly that excited? We have covered many of the issues covered by ADIPS over the years leading up to this new guideline.…
30th June 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
There are many reasons why some of our patients go vegetarian. A primarily plant-based diet with less meat is supposed to lower the morbidity of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers [1]. Some patients may choose to reduce their food-related ecological footprint. A transition to a diet that contains more plant-based products and less meat could increase food availability while releasing the burden on the environment [2].…
27th May 2025, A/Prof Chee L Khoo
We know about type 1 to type 3 diabetes mellitus. I didn’t know that there was a type 4 and now they tell us there is a type 5. For someone who has a special interest in things diabetes, this is definitely news to me. Actually, on further research, it’s actually not that new.…