Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• A closed-loop synthetic gene circuit for the treatment of diet-induced obesity in mice.
• Calories and portion sizes in recipes throughout 100 years: An overlooked factor in the development of overweight and obesity?

Findings Contrary to Popular Hypotheses or Beliefs

• The concept of 'metabolic syndrome' in dogs does not appear to have merit.
• SSB consumption did not appear to mediate the association between the screen activities and changes in anthropometric measures.
• Living in a food desert was not significantly associated with BMI after potential covariates were considered.
• No Association of Obesity and Eating in the Absence of Hunger Among College Students in a Mexican-USA Border City.
• Refutation of dirty electricity hypothesis in obesity: epistemological arguments and trans-disciplinary study using an instrumental variable.
• Meta-analysis: No significant association was found between weight loss and overall HRQL improvement.
• Obese patients with no signs of metabolic disease are at a greater risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease than metabolically unhealthy people of normal weight.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: BMI or measure of obesity does not play significant role in weight loss operation, says study; Study: Patients' diabetes status, quality of life, eating behavior, IDEAL WEIGHT LOSS, and willingness to assume mortality risk to LOSE WEIGHT were associated with whether patients proceeded with gastric banding as opposed to gastric bypass.
• Headline 1: Newly identified gene could explain why up to 90% of obesity cases are inherited; Headline 2: Researchers prove the cause of the obesity epidemic is genetic; Study: Study findings suggest that loss of the ciliary protein CEP19 causes morbid obesity in mice and associated with morbid obesity in humans.

Surgery

• Efficacy of Metabolic Surgery on HbA1c Decrease in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients with BMI <35 kg/m2-a Review.
• Is left gastric artery embolization next "big thing" in the fight against obesity?

Stigma

• Attitudes towards obesity in the Swedish general population – The role of one's own body size, weight satisfaction, and controllability beliefs about obesity.
• Weighing the stigma of weight: An fMRI study of neural reactivity to the pain of obese individuals.
• Obesity stigma: a persistent problem, a possible solution.

Sugar

• Dietary sugar and blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
• The Metabolic and Endocrine Response and Health Implications of Consuming Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Findings From Recent RCTs.

Psychology

• Quality of life in overweight and obese children and adolescents: a literature review.
• Controlling Parental Feeding Practices and Child Body Composition in Ethnically and Economically Diverse Preschool Children.

Policy Related

• Exploring the Acceptability of a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Brief Evidence Review.
• Lowering the price of “good” foods would be better than taxing “bad” foods in reducing obesity.
• Exploring the Acceptability of a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Insight Work.
• A Proposal for Congressionally Mandated Federal Regulation of Child-Directed Food and Beverage Television Advertisements to Combat Childhood Obesity.
• New York City launches ad campaign conveying negative health impact of excessive sugary drink consumption.
• Fighting obesity with a carrot: the relationship between WIC's recent policy change and childhood obesity trends.
• Creating Equal Opportunities for a Healthy Weight - IOM Workshop Summary.

Methods

• Short-term Precision Error in Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry Bone-Mineral-Density and Trabecular-Bone-Score Measurements; and Effects of Obesity.
• SAR Computation and Channel Modeling of Body Area Networks.
• Residual Gastric Volume Estimated with a New Radiological Volumetric Model: Relationship with Weight Loss After Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy.
• Measuring Sensory and Marketing Influences on Consumers' Choices among Food and Beverage Product Brands.
• Does the type of weight loss diet affect who participates in a behavioral weight loss intervention? A comparison of participants for a plant-based diet versus a standard diet trial.
• Alcohol, NAFLD, Other: The Uneven Distribution of Liver Fat Estimated from MRI and its Clinical Importance.
• Energy expenditure by multisensor armband in overweight and obese lactating women validated by doubly labeled water.

Food

• RCT: Weight maintenance over 12 months after weight loss resulting from participation in a 12-week trial comparing all meal provision to self-directed diet in overweight adults.
• RCT: In short-term study, Oatmeal Beats Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereal at Improving Appetite Control.
• RCT: Effect of calcium in combination with magnesium and lactulose on body fat mass in middle-aged Japanese women.

Epidemiology

• The Spatial Accessibility of Fast food Restaurants and Convenience Stores in Relation to Neighborhood Schools.
• Neighborhood commuting environment and obesity in the United States: An urban–rural stratified multilevel analysis.
• Americans' Desire to Shed Pounds Outweighs Effort.
• [Purportedly] Obesogenic and Youth Oriented Restaurant Marketing in Public Housing Neighborhoods.
• Waist circumference is increasing alongside a stabilization in BMI - children appear to be getting fatter and the additional adiposity is being stored centrally.
• Interventions that reduce high blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose address about half of excess risk of coronary heart disease and three-quarters of excess risk of stroke associated with high BMI.
• Observational study's findings suggest that higher BMI and larger waist circumference are associated with increased risk of hearing loss in women. 
• Epidemiological findings suggest that compared with white toddlers, the risk of obesity was higher among Hispanic toddlers and American Indian Alaska Native toddlers, but lower among black toddlers.
• Abdominal obesity and lower gray matter volume: a Mendelian randomization study.

Energetics, Evolution and Ecology

• Normal glucose metabolism of healthy carnivores mimics diabetes pathology of non-carnivores.
• Hibernation Patterns of Dwarf Lemurs in the High Altitude Forest of Eastern Madagascar.

Economics

• The Economics of Information, Deep Capture, and the Obesity Debate.
• On the Role of Social Media in the ‘Responsible’ Food Business: Blogger Buzz on Health and Obesity Issues.

Drugs

• Functional Rescue of Obesity-causing Human Melanocortin-4 Receptor Mutants: Insights for Pharmacological Chaperon Drugs.
• The emergency contraception product marketed as Plan B may not work for women with excess weight.
• CEO of the maker of Contrave, a new experimental weight-loss drug, is excited about new drug, but will it sell?
• Limits on rosiglitazone-containing meds overturned by FDA.
• Green Light for Contrave.
• Evaluation of phentermine and topiramate versus phentermine/topiramate extended-release in obese adults.

Commentary

• Vitamin D and energy homeostasis—of mice and men.
• The relationship between gestational weight gain and fetal growth: time to take stock?
• That Pesky Obesity Virus.
• The Wobbly Link of Poverty to Obesity.

Clinical

• Systematic review on the effectiveness of embedding catgut therapy for simple obesity.
• RCT: Telehealth Weight Management Intervention for Adults with Physical Disabilities.
• RCT: Moderate concentrations of supplemental oxygen worsen hypercapnia in obesity hypoventilation syndrome.
• RCT: Health effect of the New Nordic Diet in adults with increased waist circumference.
• Comprehensive obesity management in 2013: Understanding the shifting paradigm.

Caloric Restriction

• Resolvin D1 primes the resolution process initiated by calorie restriction in obesity-induced Steatohepatitis.
• Interleukin-8 and interleukin-10, brain volume and microstructure, and the influence of calorie restriction in old rhesus macaques.
• Effects of age on changes of body composition through caloric restriction in overweight and obese women.

Basic Science

• IL-15 is required for post-exercise induction of the pro-oxidative mediators PPARδ and SIRT1 in male mice.
• Diet-Induced Obesity Reduces the Responsiveness of the Peripheral Taste Receptor Cells.
• Dietary epigenetics in cancer and aging.
• High Glucose Exposure Promotes Activation of Protein Phosphatase 2A in Rodent Islets and INS-1 832/13 β-Cells by Increasing the Posttranslational Carboxylmethylation of Its Catalytic Subunit.
• High fat fed obese Gpx1-deficient mice exhibit defective insulin secretion but protection from hepatic steatosis and liver damage.
• Association of Rapid Weight Loss on Oxidative Stress Markers and the Expression of the Metabolic Syndrome in Obese Individuals.
• Expression of Allograft inflammatory factor 1 (AIF-1), a new adipokine, is increased in obese women and associated with unfavorable phenotypes in a small observational study.
• Anti-obesity effects of gut microbiota are associated with lactic acid bacteria.
• Association between the seven-repeat allele of the dopamine-4 receptor gene (DRD4) and spontaneous food intake in pre-school children.

Video

• Nuts and death – NEJM animated video explanation.
• Christopher Kuzawa: "Epigenetic, developmental and intergenerational influences on US cardiovascular health disparities".

​General Science

• Stroke mortality is down, but the reason remains a mystery.
• Schadenfreude Found To Be Biological In Nature, Linked To Feelings Of Envy.
• A commentary on Pitfalls of predicting complex traits from SNPs.
• New Housecat-Size Feline Species Discovered.
• On the impoverishment of scientific education.
• Policy: Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims.
• Psychologists strike a blow for reproducibility.
• When Mice Mislead.
• FDA orders 23andMe to halt sales of DNA test kit.

Announcements

• The next International Academy on Nutrition and Aging meeting (Albuquerque, USA, July 10 & 11, 2014).
• 7th International Immunonutrition Workshop, “Eating for Preventing” - Carovigno, Brindisi, Italy from the 1st to the 3rd  of May, 2014.

Featured

• Acarbose, 17-alpha-estradiol, and nordihydroguaiaretic acid extend mouse lifespan preferentially in males.
• Commentary: Implausible results in human nutrition research.
• American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology's cholesterol risk calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk.
• RCT: Larger bowl size increases the amount of cereal that children request, consume and waste.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Isotopic estimates of sugar intake are related to chronic disease risk factors but not obesity in an Alaska native (Yup'ik) study population.
• RCT: Nicotine patch may increase energy intake during treatment, and does not prevent post-cessation weight gain in postmenopausal smokers.
• There is little evidence that teachers' judgments of pupils' ability are influenced by obesity.
• Gingivitis was not associated with obesity/overweight.
• High BMI should not be considered a contra-indication to mobile bearing knee replacement.

Clinical

• RCT: Efficacy of an acceptance-based behavioral intervention for weight gain prevention in young adult women.
• RCT: Effect of Weight Reduction and Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Management on Symptom Burden and Severity in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation.
• Anti-ghrelin Therapeutic Vaccine: A Novel Approach for Obesity Treatment.
• RCT: Increasing the Number of Chews before Swallowing Reduces Meal Size in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Adults.
• Maps: States where physicians prescribe more antibiotics also have high obesity rates.

Food

• RCT: Effects of dark chocolate on lipid profile, apo-lipoprotein A-1, apo-lipoprotein B and inflammation in type-2 diabetic patients.
• Intrinsic Rewards, Fruit and Vegetable Consumption, and Habit Strength: A Three-Wave Study Testing the Associative-Cybernetic Model.
• RCT: Visualising future behaviour: Effects for snacking on biscuit bars, but no effects for snacking on fruit.
• High dietary phosphorus intake is associated with all-cause mortality.

Drugs

• Long-term Drug Treatment for Obesity: A Systematic and Clinical Review.
• RCT: Canagliflozin, a sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitor: effects in overweight and obese subjects without diabetes mellitus.
• RCT: High-Dose Nicotine Patch Therapy for Smokeless Tobacco Users.

Exercise

• RCT: The effects of aerobic exercise training at two different intensities in obesity and type 2 diabetes: implications for oxidative stress, low-grade inflammation and nitric oxide production.
• RCT: Different types of resistance training in type 2 diabetes mellitus: effects on glycaemic control, muscle mass and strength.
• Fitter firefighters less prone to injury, even though as a group they are more fit than the general public.
• Meta-analysis: Exercise and drug interventions may provide similar mortality benefits in the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and the prevention of diabetes.
• Physicians who complete less physical activity may be less likely to encourage patients to engage in physical activity in geographic areas where the adult population is less active.

Protein

• Comparing the value of protein sources for maternal and child nutrition.
• Cohort study: Higher protein intake at baseline was associated with higher self-reported physical function.

Eating Disorders

• Binge eating was associated with a nearly fourfold higher risk of type 2 diabetes in females, regardless of BMI, according to a study presented at Obesity Week.
• Commentary: Anorexia awareness campaigns are unwittingly promoting anorexia.
• Daily self-weighing does not appear to be related to increased disordered eating behavior and is associated with better weight loss outcomes.

Gut Microbiota

• Resting energy expenditure and gut microbiota in obese and normal weight subjects.
• Use of pigs as a potential model for research into dietary modulation of the human gut microbiota.
• Anti-obesity effects of gut microbiota are associated with lactic acid bacteria.

Surgery

• Current status of robotic bariatric surgery: a systematic review.
• Where Are the Health Care Cost Savings With Bariatric Surgery in Obesity Management?
• Medical Indications for Weight-Loss Surgery in Adolescents But Are There Other Equally Important Indications?
• Previous bariatric surgery increases postoperative morbidity after sleeve gastrectomy for morbid obesity.
• Women who have had surgery for obesity have raised risk of preterm babies.
• Patients who have undergone laparoscopic gastric bypass continue to show favorable change in their lipid profiles at 5 years postoperative and take fewer lipid-modifying medications.
• RCT: 60% of type 2 diabetes patients who underwent gastric bypass surgery were in remission at one year, compared with only 6% of patients receiving intensive medical/lifestyle intervention.
• Discharge protocol checklists cut 30-day bariatric surgery readmissions.

Psychology

• Resourcefulness, Academic Stress, Dispositional Optimism, and Eating Styles among Fifth and Sixth Graders.
• Child Behavioural Problems and Body Size among 2-6 Year Old Children Predisposed to Overweight. Results From the “Healthy Start” Study.
• Personality Traits, Education, Physical Exercise, and Childhood Neurological Function as Independent Predictors of Adult Obesity.
• Hot and cool executive functioning and food approach behavior in middle childhood.
• People are able to accurately recognize social influences on food intake and this recognition is facilitated by the presence of mimicked eating, not by matching the total amount eaten.

Methods

• Model-based measurement of food portion size for image-based dietary assessment using 3D/2D registration.
• Validation of a new tool to measure responsiveness and structure in the feeding context : the Authoritative Feeding Practices Questionnaire.
• Estimation of 24-h energy expenditure in dairy cows using the 13C bicarbonate dilution method.
• Energy Expenditure Compared to Physical Activity Measured by Accelerometry and Self-Report in Adolescents: A Validation Study.
• Questions and answers to the validity of the doubly labeled water method in high-fat and sucrose-feeding mice irrespective of obesity proneness.
• Designing a Robust Activity Recognition Framework for Health and Exergaming using Wearable Sensors.
• Chemical imaging of lipid droplets in muscle tissues using hyperspectral coherent Raman microscopy.
• Modelling the Joint Effect of Social Determinants and Peers on Obesity Among Canadian Adults with Fuzzy Cognitive Maps.

Mathematics

• Elucidating the interactions between human gut microbiota and host through metabolic modeling.
• A Study of Temporal Action Sequencing During Consumption of a Meal.
• A modeling approach for compounds affecting body composition.
• Mechanical Analysis of Single Myocyte Contraction in a 3-D Elastic Matrix.

Ghrelin

• Stimulatory effect of ghrelin on food intake in bullfrog larvae.
• Ghrelin administration enhances neurogenesis but impairs spatial learning and memory in adult mice.
• Correlations between plasma ghrelin and parameters of fat metabolism in early lactating dairy cows.

Epidemiology

• Dietary Patterns Are Associated With Incident Stroke and Contribute to Excess Risk of Stroke in Black Americans.
• Inflammatory Dietary Pattern Linked to Depression among Women.
• Review: A majority of cross-sectional studies indicate that shiftwork increases weight gain and the prevalence of obesity. On the other hand, half of cohort studies show higher frequency of meal intake and/or poor nutrition quality in the shift workers.
• The prevalence of overweight and obesity in students from different altitudinal zones of Jujuy was highest in the highlands, according to three international references (IOTF, CDC and WHO) with good agreement.
• Higher BMI is associated with increased plaque buildup and greater heart disease risk in patients with type 2 diabetes.
• PTSD symptoms are associated with an increased risk of becoming overweight or obese among women.

Genetics

• EMR-linked GWAS study: Investigation of variation landscape of loci for BMI in children.
• Study of Severely Obese Family Leads to Gene Discovery.
• Effects of level of nutrient intake and age on mammalian target of rapamycin, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor-1 gene network expression in skeletal muscle of young Holstein calves.
• RAP1 Protects from Obesity through Its Extratelomeric Role Regulating Gene Expression.
• Prevention of neuromusculoskeletal frailty in slow-aging Ames dwarf mice: longitudinal investigation of interaction of longevity genes and caloric restriction.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Is natural hatching asynchrony optimal? An experimental investigation of sibling competition patterns in a facultatively siblicidal seabird.
• Species of sacoglossan sea slug that assimilate the photosynthetic organelles in the algae they eat – role in energetics and survival?
• Energetic adjustments in freely breeding-fasting king penguin: does colony density matter?

SSBs, Sugar & Sweeteners

• Effects of a nonnutritive sweetener on body adiposity and energy metabolism in mice with diet-induced obesity.
• The Role of Fructose, Sucrose, and High-fructose Corn Syrup in Diabetes.
• RCT: Effect of SSB ingestion during ‘spin’ classes on health and fitness parameters, quality of life and mood in recreational exercisers.
• Projected effects of taxes on sugar sweetened beverages: a meta-analysis.
• The role of low-calorie sweeteners in diabetes.
• Survey: Kids less thirsty for water than their parents.

Transgenerational

• Two-generation diet-induced obesity model producing mice with increased amount of body fat in early adulthood.
• Maternal Obesity Caused by Overnutrition Exposure Leads to Reversal Learning Deficits and Striatal Disturbance in Rats.
• Fetal and Early-Postnatal Developmental Patterns of Obese-Genotype Piglets Exposed to Prenatal Programming by Maternal Over- and Undernutrition.
• Exposure to a High-Fat Diet During Development Alters Leptin and Ghrelin Sensitivity and Elevates Renal Sympathetic Nerve Activity and Arterial Pressure in Rabbits.

Temperature

• Some physiological effects of deep underground mining in intense heat and the relationship with physical work capacity and functional work capacity.
• City-Scale Expansion of Human Thermoregulatory Costs.
• 'Elevated ambient indoor temperatures are associated with low BMI levels. Further research is needed to establish the potential causal nature of this relationship.'

Policy Related

• Should Child Obesity be an Issue for Child Protective Services?: A Call for More Research on this Critical Public Health Issue.
• Non-randomized study shows association between dining in restaurant with calorie menu labeling was associated with better food choices in full-service restaurants.
• 40% of large US firms will levy surcharges against employees that cannot or will not meet specific health criteria next year, 67% by 2015.
• 67% of employees who must participate in an employer's wellness plan to get full health coverage are required to meet weight-related wellness goals, but 59% have no coverage for fitness training, registered dietitian counseling, obesity drugs, or bariatric surgery.
• Lowering the threshold for a normal fasting plasma glucose level may increase medical costs despite its potential benefit in diabetes prevention.
• Odds of enacting state laws addressing obesity are mostly unrelated to state variation in education, population density, income, political party structure and obesity prevalence; however, a negative but weak association suggests that state governments that enact the most laws are those with relatively low obesity prevalence.
• Three Reasons “Get Tough” Backfires.

Ethics and Scientific Integrity

• Identifying ethical and scientific challenges raised by nutrigenomics / nutrigenetics research, with emphasis on 'biohype'.
• Non-publication of large RCTs: cross sectional analysis.

Basic Science

• Early postnatal maternal deprivation in rats can influence the fate of adipose tissue proliferation, presumably leading to obesity later in life.
• 'Smarter' blood pressure guidelines could prevent many more heart attacks and strokes.
• Breath test for blood glucose levels to begin testing next year.
• A Mendelian randomization study of Abdominal obesity and lower gray matter volume.
• The regulatory effects of resistant starch on glycaemic response in obese dogs.

Commentary

• Try it, you might learn to like it: The case for taste bud rehab.
• Fixing Food Stamps for All? Could be a SNAP.
• Health at an Impasse: The Case for Getting Past Collusion.
• What's new with measuring cholesterol?
• How Early Should Obesity Prevention Start?
• Are Sugar and Sloth the Causes of Obesity -- Or Just Convenient Whipping Boys for Meat?

Video

• Paul A.S. Breslin - "Anticipatory digestive responses to foods".
• Sleep Deprivation Disrupts Human Brain Reactivity in Response to Food Desire.
• The Sodium Story.
• Not all obesity is equal.

General Science

• The Necessity of RCTs.
• Mitochondrial genomes suggest the origin of dogs was 18,000 - 30,000 years ago in Europe.
• NYT: Wait, wasn't South China supposed to be the origin of dogs?
• How, if and why species form.
• How I faced my fears and learned to be good at math.
• The Myth of 'I'm Bad at Math'.
• Policy: Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims.
• Coldblooded does not mean stupid.
• Baseline tumor growth and immune control in laboratory mice are significantly influenced by subthermoneutral housing temperature.
• Hope for hemophiliacs as experimental gene therapy shows promise in a canine model.
• Satellite built by high-school students launched on Minotaur I rocket.

Announcements

• FDA Reopens Comment Period for Draft Guidance on Medical Foods.

Featured

• RCT: Sugar-sweetened beverage reduction study shows no significant effect on components of metabolic syndrome (but does on uric acid levels).
• RCT: What ends up on a buffet diner’s plate is determined by the presentation order of food.
• RCT: Participants with experimentally induced low blood glucose levels expressed stronger support for social welfare but not actual sharing behavior.
• Restriction increases children’s intake of restricted snack foods.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Cardiovascular disease is caused exclusively by overweight and obesity, major new study reveals.
• Study: Observational study finds overweight and obesity are risk factors for cardiovascular disease regardless of the presence or absence of metabolic syndrome.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Intervention to reduce bottle feeding reduced use of bottles, calories from milk bottles, and total calories, but had no effect on overweight.
• RCT: No Effect of Caloric Restriction on Salivary Cortisol Levels in Overweight Men and Women.
• No significant differences between treatment and control conditions observed in Be Active Eat Well obesity prevention program 3 years after the program finished.
• Study findings do not support the idea that cesarean delivery has increased the risk of long-term offspring obesity.
• Consumption of added sugars from liquid or solid sources was not associated with changes in adiposity, but liquid added sugars were a risk factor for the development of impaired glucose homeostasis and insulin resistance over 2 y among youth at risk of obesity.
• RCT: High dietary protein intake during weight loss has no clinically significant effect on bone density but slows bone turnover.

Basic Science

• Intake of high-fat diet stimulates the risk of ultraviolet radiation-induced skin tumors and malignant progression of papillomas to carcinoma in SKH-1 hairless mice.
• The latest developments in the central regulation of feeding behavior and the effects of leptin and the central nervous system control of glucose metabolism.
• Rabbit anti-alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) antisera may increase alpha-MSH anorexigenic effects.
• Subjects with increased brown adipose tissue activation had lower blood glucose and body fatness levels.
• Mixing stem cells extracted from the fat with breast cancer cells results in tumors.
• Decreased unsaturation in muscle mitochondrial membranes (lipids) is not required for reduced hydrogen peroxide production with calories restriction in mice.

Caloric Restriction

• Modulation of hypothalamic molecular pathways in models of calorie restriction and reduction of core body temperature.
• Caloric restriction and lithocholic acid extend yeast longevity by altering the age-related dynamics of changes in mitochondrial morphology and mitochondria-controlled apoptosis.
• Glucose depletion is essential for the calorie-restriction-mediated cardiac angiogenesis via PKA/AMPK-dependent autophagy.
• Food restriction to 60–70% of daily energy needs has a protective effect on acute ethanol-induced oxidative and nitrosative cardiac damage.

Amino Acid Nutrition and Metabolic Disease

• Transcriptional impact of dietary methionine restriction on systemic inflammation: Relevance to biomarkers of metabolic disease during aging.
• Remodeling of Lipid Metabolism by Dietary Restriction of Essential Amino Acids.
• Remodeling the Integration of Lipid Metabolism Between Liver and Adipose Tissue by Dietary Methionine Restriction in Rats.

Food

• Association of oral phenotypic markers and fat perception on fat intake during a breakfast buffet and in a 4-day food record.
• RCT: The influence of a low glycemic index dietary intervention on maternal dietary intake, glycemic index and gestational weight gain during pregnancy.
• RCT: Animal source foods have a positive impact on the primary school test scores of Kenyan schoolchildren.
• RCT: Impact of energy density and texture of a meal on food and energy intake, satiation, satiety, appetite and palatability responses in healthy adults.
• Study's findings suggest that under- and over-reporting of self-report energy intake is associated with dietary macronutrient composition.
• RCT: Application of an econometrics model to determine the connection between height and calories in early childhood.

Body Composition

• Metabolically abnormal obese and metabolically healthy obese cardiometabolic profiles are characterized by differences in body composition consistent between genders.
• Overall and abdominal obesity were both independently associated with dying or developing mobility disability and major chronic disease before 85 years of age in older women.
• Comparing weight loss and body composition changes in morbidly obese Taiwanese patients that underwent differing bariatric surgeries: 1-year follow-up study.
• Editorial: From BMI to functional body composition.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Food environments select microorganisms based on selfish energetic behavior.
• Discrete one-dimensional crawlers on viscous substrates: achievable net displacements and their energy cost.
• Lifetime foraging patterns of the wandering albatross: Life on the move!
• Fast-Paced Evolution in the Andes.
• Baboons shed light on human brain evolution: researchers gain understanding of genetic changes that led to brain folds.
• Weak evidence for anticipatory parental effects in plants and animals.

Exercise

• RCT: Effect of exercising while fasting on eating behaviors and food intake.
• Study findings suggest that the association of time perspective, obesity, and exercise varies by age.
• Details about the PICO project: A RCT focused on aquatic exercise for knee osteoarthritis in overweight and obese individuals.

Gut Microbiota

• Review of gut microbiota and obesity pathogenesis.
• The co-villains behind obesity’s rise.

Ghrelin

• Ghrelin increases food intake, swimming activity and growth in juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta).
• Exposure to a high-fat diet during development alters leptin and ghrelin sensitivity and elevates renal sympathetic nerve activity and arterial pressure in rabbits.
• Direction of post-prandial ghrelin response associated with cortisol response, perceived stress and anxiety, and self-reported coping and hunger in obese women.

Psychology

• Reading a book can change your mind, but only some changes last for a year: food attitude changes in readers of The Omnivore's Dilemma.
• The interplay of partner influence and individual values associated with daily fluctuations in eating and physical activity.
• Adversity during childhood is associated with central obesity.

Neuroscience

• Verbal labels selectively bias brain responses to high-energy foods.
• Aerobic glycolysis in the primate brain: reconsidering the implications for growth and maintenance.
• Review of neuroendocrine regulation of appetitive ingestive behavior.
• Neural adaptation to thin and fat bodies in the fusiform body area and middle occipital gyrus: An fMRI adaptation study.
• Food for thought: review of hormonal, experiential, and neural influences on feeding and obesity.
• RCT: Chronic dieters overeat when the regions of their brain that balance impulsive behavior and self-control become disrupted.

Clinical

• Long-term Drug Treatment for Obesity: A Systematic and Clinical Review.
• Meta-analysis of RCTs finds anti-obesity drugs, meal replacements, and high-protein diets were associated with improved weight-loss maintenance after a VLCD/LCD-period, whereas no significant improvements were seen for dietary supplements and exercise.
• Aspiration Therapy Associated with Weight Loss in Obese Subjects: A Pilot Study
• RCT: Increasing the Number of Chews before Swallowing Reduces Meal Size in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Adults.

Policy Related

• Can fat taxes and package size restrictions stimulate healthy food choices?
• Commentator on study of association between sidewalk condition and self-reported physical activity notes association does not imply causation, while author states ‘Cities should implement policies that keep sidewalks and other characteristics of pedestrian infrastructure in good condition as a step towards facilitating increases in physical activity.'
• Parents agree that schools should implement anti-bullying policies that include specific protections for students who are overweight or obese and increased availability of resources to youth who experience weight based victimization at school.
• New Obesity Treatment Guideline Released at ObesityWeek.

Sugar and Low Calorie Sweeteners

• Review: The limited experimental evidence does not support an effect of artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs) on obesity or chronic disease. Indeed, experimental studies in humans suggest ASB may be effective for weight loss when replacing sugar-sweetened beverages.
• RCT: Temporary high-fructose intake does not appear to cause obesity-related inflammation among healthy adults in a small feeding trial.
• The Metabolic and Endocrine Response and Health Implications of Consuming Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Findings from RCTs.
• Fructose, Sugar Consumption, and Metabolic Diseases.
• Meta-analysis shows that fructose in isocaloric exchange for other carbohydrate does not increase postprandial triglycerides.

Methods

• Measuring food volume and nutritional values from food images.
• Misreporting of energy intake in the 2007 Australian Children's Survey: differences in the reporting of food types between plausible, under- and over-reporters of energy intake.
• Concurrent and convergent validity of the eating in the absence of hunger questionnaire and behavioral paradigm in overweight children.
• Determining the long-term precision of DXA body composition measurements.

Mathematics

• Models of body weight change.
• Statistical significance and its part in science downfalls.

Transgenerational Effects

• Impact of Epigenetic Dietary Compounds on Transgenerational Prevention of Human Diseases.
• Effects of the Use of Assisted Reproduction and High Caloric Diet Consumption on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Health of Juvenile Mouse Offspring.
• Consumption of diets with graded fat and carbohydrate content in mice over three generations induces changes in indices of growth and metabolism that vary between generations.
• Epidemiological Spanish birth cohort study findings provides some evidence for an association between prenatal BPA exposure and obesity-related outcomes in childhood, although not in infancy.
• Maternal obesity induced by a high fat diet causes altered cellular development in fetal brains suggestive of a predisposition of offspring to neurological disorders in later life among rats.

Beverages

• Obese women alter diets in response to additional calories from soft drinks.
• Study's findings suggest that drink texture and density is associated with selected portion sizes among women when the drink's sensory characteristics is perceived to be satiating.
• Though taste and alcohol are more strongly associated with alcohol consumption among college students, drinking behavior modification might occur if caloric information is presented in a less complex format.
• A review of the suitability of caffeinated drinks for children.

Circadian Rhythm

• Energy intake and the circadian rhythm of core body temperature in sheep.
• Chronic exposure to even very low levels of light pollution may alter inflammatory responses and weight among mice.

Commentary

• The Myth of "Nutritional Precision:" What Do We Really Know.
• Historian Maureen Ogle defends the oft-criticized meat industry and suggests some foodies have it all wrong.
• New insights on bariatric surgery outcomes.
• Past Time to Stop Mocking Obesity.
• Panel discussion summary of concerning the direction of employee wellness programs: preserving its benefits while correcting the weaknesses.
• Behavior modification is cheaper: The opportunity cost of prescription diet drugs appear to hurt pharmaceutical sales and profitability.

General Science

• The peculiar spike in reported p-values in psychological research just below .05: possible effects of publication bias.
• The Connection between Dietary Phosphorus, Cardiovascular Disease, and Mortality: Where We Stand and What We Need to Know.
• Details of the disposable soma theory of aging in reverse.
• Why do fruit flies live so long?
• Science And Scientific Journals Are Flawed. Can Better Statistics Help?
• Turkey is home to new scorpion species.
• How the new "science of mind" might serve as an inspiration for the future of knowledge.
• "Lies, damned lies ..." and observational studies in comparative effectiveness research.
• A new test of mouse intelligence mimic the types of assays used with people and detects a subtle learning deficit reminiscent of one seen in teenagers with autism.
• Though living in a tunneled vision "specialist" society, humans are at their best when they turn our minds to many things.
• Combination therapy with an ACE inhibitor and an angiotensin-receptor blockers are associated with an increased risk of adverse events among patients with diabetic nephropathy.

Announcements

• Upcoming Institute of Medicine Workshop - The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States
• Youfa Wang, childhood obesity expert to head Social and Preventive Medicine at University fo Buffalo.
• Dannon Institute Academic Mid-Career Nutrition Leadership Institute accepting applications.

Featured

• RCT: Increased sleep in children led to reduced reported energy intake, weight loss, and lower leptin levels.
• Yellow light exposure leads to greater weight gain in chickens.
• RCT: Promoting choice can produce short-term increases in PA and decreases in sedentary behavior, as well as increased perceived autonomy during PE lessons.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: No direct link between sugar intake and liver disease.
• RCT: Postmenopausal HT and raloxifene did not increase abdominal fat loss during weight loss.
• RCT: Weight gain in college females is not prevented by isoflavone-rich soy protein.
• Try as we might, studies of the impact of nutrition labeling on fast food menus keep yielding the wrong results.
• Lack of correlation between morbid obesity and severe gastroesophageal reflux disease in candidates for bariatric surgery: Results of a large prospective study.

Caloric Restriction and Aging

• Yeast Sirtuins and the Regulation of Aging.
• Metformin: Do we finally have an anti-aging drug?
• Model-based identification of drug targets that revert disrupted metabolism and its application to ageing.

Clinical

• RCT: Effects of a physical activity and healthy eating intervention to reduce stroke risk factors in older adults.
• RCT: Weight and metabolic effects of dietary weight loss and exercise interventions in postmenopausal antidepressant medication users and non-users.
• Meta-analysis and systematic review of anti-obesity drugs, diet, and exercise effects on weight-loss maintenance after a very-low-calorie diet or low-calorie diet.
• RCT: Increased sleep decreases calories ingested in pre-teens.
• RCT: Motivational Interventions lower weight gain in overweight children aged 4-7, primarily in girls.

Surgery

• Evaluation of gender-specific aspects of gastric banding procedures.
• Weight loss and regaining weight, one year after insertion of bioenterics intragastric balloon versus Atkins diet.
• Metabolic Surgery for Type 2 Diabetes: Appraisal of Clinical Evidence and Review of RCTs Comparing Surgery with Medical Therapy.
• RCT: Bariatric surgery versus standard medical therapy improved acylated ghrelin suppression at 2 years in obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• Changes in taste perception and eating behavior after bariatric surgery-induced weight loss in women.
• Changes in sexual functioning and sex hormone levels in women following bariatric surgery.
• Adults had significant weight loss three years after bariatric surgery.

Exercise

• Dose-response association of physical activity with acute myocardial infarction: Do amount and intensity matter?
• RCT: Do soccer and Zumba exercise improve fitness and indicators of health among female hospital employees?

Food

• Resistant starch intake partly restores metabolic and inflammatory alterations in the liver of high-fat-diet-fed rats.
• RCT: Meal replacement based on Human Ration modulates metabolic risk factors during body weight loss.
• RCT: Effect of Daily Egg Ingestion with Thai Food on Serum Lipids in Hyperlipidemic Adults.
• RCT: Whole-body protein turnover response to short-term high protein diets during weight loss.

Chocolate

• Higher chocolate consumption was associated with lower total and central fatness in European adolescents.
• Effects of chocolate on cognitive function and mood: A systematic review.

Sugar

• Femoral biomechanic and microtomography from male rats submitted to dietary restriction supplemented with sucrose.
• Effects of a nonnutritive sweetener on body adiposity and energy metabolism in mice with diet-induced obesity.
• RCT: Effect of a micronutrient-fortified beverage on cognition and nutritional status of primary school children.

Epidemiology

• Human beings show corrective responses to deviations from average energy and macronutrient intakes with a lag time of 3 to 6 days, but not 1 to 2 days.
• Mealtime rituals associated with obesity.
• Early puberty in girls is associated with obesity.

Methods

• Body composition in sport: Interobserver reliability of a novel ultrasound measure of subcutaneous fat tissue.
• Changes in fat and skeletal muscle with exercise training in obese adolescents: Comparison of whole-body MRI and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.
• Obesity trend: pick a number to fit your story.

Policy Related

• Taxing sugar-sweetened beverages: not a “holy grail” but a cup at least half; comment on “Food taxes: A new holy grail?”
• Overall and income specific effect on prevalence of overweight and obesity of 20% sugar sweetened drink tax in UK.
• Ethical Agreement and Disagreement about Obesity Prevention Policy in the United States.
• Mexican Senate passes junk-food tax.
• San Francisco joins sugary drinks fray with tax proposal.
• Educational Fast Food Menus.

Psychology

• Impulsivity mediates the association between borderline personality pathology and BMI.
• The Bright Side of Stress-Induced Eating: Eating More When Stressed but Less When Pleased.  
• Eye-tracking women’s preferences for men’s somatotypes.
• Modelling the Joint Effect of Social Determinants and Peers on Obesity Among Canadian Adults.

Stigma

• Do Parental Bonds Break Anti-fat Stereotyping?: Parental Work Ethic Ideology and Disease Concerns Predict Bias Against Heavyweight Children.
• Pass the popcorn: “Obesogenic” behaviors and stigma in children's movies.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Latitudinal patterns in phenotypic plasticity: The case of seasonal flexibility in lizards' fat body size.
• The roles of melanin-concentrating hormone in energy balance and reproductive function: Are they connected.
• Arboreal adaptations of body fat in wild toque macaques (Macaca sinica) and the evolution of adiposity in primates.

Basic Science

• Neuropeptide y and peptide YY protect from weight loss caused by Bacille Calmette-Guérin in mice.
• Sorrento, Scripps Unite to Develop Obesity-Fighting Vaccines and Antibody Therapeutics.
• Diet-induced obesity mediated by the JNK/DIO2 signal transduction pathway.
• Transcriptomic and epigenetic changes in early liver steatosis associated to obesity: Effect of dietary methyl donor supplementation.
• DNA Study May Boost Personalized Medicine.
• Mitochondrial DNA diversity in the African American population.

Brown Fat

• Brown adipose tissue thermogenesis: ß3 adrenoreceptors as a potential target for the treatment of obesity in humans.
• Brown adipose tissue as an anti-obesity tissue in humans.
• Vagus Nerve Stimulation Increases Energy Expenditure: Relation to Brown Adipose Tissue Activity.

Transgenerational effects

• Delayed physical and neurobehavioral development and increased aggressive and depression-like behaviors in the rat offspring of dams fed a high-fat diet.
• A maternal diet of fatty fish reduces body fat of offspring compared with a maternal diet of beef and a post-weaning diet of fish improves insulin sensitivity and lipid profile in adult C57BL/6 male mice.

Commentary

• A dig through old files reminds me why I’m so critical of science.
• What now: It still takes too long and costs too much.
• Cerabino: Is handing out letters instead of candy to overweight kids at Halloween a good idea?
• Scholars’ rude awakenings.
• Marketing, Puffery, and Nutrition Research.
• A look into how and why the media ignores the science confirming that BPA poses no risk to humans.
• Salt: How much less should we eat for health?

General Science

• Doing the right thing: Scientists reward authors who report their own errors.
• Accusations of fraud spur a revolution in scientific publishing.
• Breakthroughs in animal health care may hold treatments for humans.
• Dating the Origin of Us.
• One in five Milky Way stars hosts potentially life-friendly Earths.
• Human Brain Project.

Video

• BioStats Project on Fast Food.
• Paul Breslin: "Anticipatory digestive responses to foods."
• Terry Huang: Community and Cross-Sectoral Actions in a Systems Approach to Obesity.