A study presented at a scientific congress Thursday reported a link between long naps and a higher risk of diabetes, though it couldn’t say if daytime sleeping was a symptom or a cause. People who slept more than an hour each day were 45 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, a debilitating condition associated with overweight and a sedentary lifestyle, the study found. Individuals with diabetes are unable to naturally regulate their blood sugar levels.

Oprah Winfrey will help Weight Watchers International Inc pick a new leader, the diet company said on Monday, about a year after the media mogul announced she had bought a 10 percent stake in the company. Weight Watchers said its chief executive, James Chambers, would resign at the end of September after three years on the job. The company has struggled to compete with other weight-loss programs in recent years, and revenues in the quarter ended July 2 were little changed from a year earlier.

By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) – In the 1960’s, before conflict of interest disclosure was required, the sugar industry sponsored research promoting dietary fat as an important cause of coronary heart disease, and downplaying the role of sugar, according to a special report online September 12 in JAMA Internal Medicine. A 1967 literature review in The New England Journal of Medicine pointed to fat and cholesterol as the dietary culprits of heart disease, glossing over evidence from the 1950s that sugar was also linked to heart disease. According to the new report, the NEJM review was sponsored by the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF), which is today the Sugar Association, although its role was not disclosed at the time.