Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• RCT: Sleep restriction increases the neuronal response to unhealthy food in normal-weight individuals.
• Researchers Demonstrate Use of Stem Cells to Analyze Causes, Treatment of Diabetes.
• Hunger Affects Decision Making and Perception of Risk in Fruit Flies.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Food addiction: Those fries really may be addicting.
• Study: An fMRI study of milkshake differing in GI – neither French fries nor addiction were studied.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: The theoretical advantages of omentectomy in regard to weight loss and obesity-related abnormalities are not confirmed.
• Higher animal, but not plant, protein associated with better body composition in young adulthood.
• “We generally found limited evidence for a longitudinal association between various indicators of sweet drink consumption and body mass index.”
• No evidence that, on average, children's BMI and BMI percentile scores are affected before parents’ marital disruption, after the disruption, and as time passes from the disruption.
• Neither purported food addiction status nor symptom count affects weight loss or attrition during weight loss treatment.
• RCT: In comparison to interrupted sitting or structured physical activity, a single bout of 8h of uninterrupted sitting does not result in measurable changes in circulating levels of insulin, glucose, or lipids in healthy children and youth.
• BMI is not associated with sperm-zona pellucida binding ability in subfertile males.
• “White males receive a wage premium for higher BMI. Wages of all other ethno-gender groups seem to remain unaffected by obesity.”

Math & Obesity

• Why is the 3500 kcal per pound weight loss rule wrong?
• Response to 'Why is the 3500 Kcal per pound weight loss rule wrong?'
• A Gender-STRUCTURED RANDOM MODEL FOR UNDERSTANDING ADULTHOOD OBESITY.

Surgery

• A Role for Fibroblast Growth Factor 19 and Bile Acids in Diabetes Remission After Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass.
• Comparison between laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding for morbid obesity: A meta-analysis.
• A meta-analysis: To compare the clinical results between gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy for the obese patients.
• Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding vs standard medical management in obese patients with type 2 diabetes: a budget impact analysis in the UK.
• Improvement in hepatic insulin sensitivity after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in a rat model of obesity is partially mediated via hypothalamic insulin action.
• The Rise of Soluble TWEAK Levels in Severely Obese Subjects After Bariatric Surgery May Affect Adipocyte-Cytokine Production Induced by TNF-alpha.
• Obesity and trends in malpractice claims for physicians and surgeons.
• Type of reconstruction and adjuvant chemotherapy significantly associated with amount of visceral fat loss after curative gastrectomy in gastric cancer patients.

Food

• Long-term effects of low glycemic index/load vs. high glycemic index/load diets on parameters of obesity and obesity-associated risks: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
• Does wheat make us fat and sick?
• Two meals a day may be better for weight loss than 'grazing'.
• High carbohydrate intake specially refined sources with high glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) is associated with increased risk of stroke.
• Consumers challenged in making healthful choices
• Is household food insecurity associated with overweight/obesity in women?

Forensic

• Man to spend six years in prison for fake weight-loss study.
• A right to be fat? A survey of weight management in medium secure units.
• Sudden Death in the Super Obese - the Forensic Implications of Obesity,

Sugar Sweetened Beverages

• AMA to campaign against eligibility of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages for purchase with food stamps
• Regarding Fagherazzi et al. - Artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages and incident type 2 diabetes.
• Regarding Fagherazzi et al. - Consumption of artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages and incident type 2 diabetes: methodologic concern about a recent epidemiological study.
• Regarding Fagherazzi et al. - Diabetes and diet beverage study has serious limitations.
• Reply to HC Stevens and C La Vecchia.

Methods

• Fitting statistical models in bivariate allometry: Scaling metabolic rate to body mass in mustelid carnivores.
• Correlation between Hepatic Fat Content Using 3-Echo 3-D Dixon Method and Intravoxel Incoherent Motion (IVIM) Perfusion MR Imaging.
• Obesity and fast food in urban markets: A new approach using geo-referenced micro data.
• Parent-Reported Height and Weight as Sources of Bias in Survey Estimates of Childhood Obesity.
• Toward 'Omic Scale Metabolite Profiling: A Dual Separation - Mass Spectrometry Approach for Coverage of Lipids and Central Carbon Metabolism.
• The use of routine thoracoabdominal CT scans in the polytrauma patient to estimate obesity.
• Determination of diuretics and laxatives as adulterants in herbal formulations for weight loss.
• Is BMI Alone a Sufficient Outcome To Evaluate Interventions for Child Obesity?

Exercise

• Achieving recommended daily physical activity levels through commuting by public transportation: Unpacking individual and contextual influences.
• Effects of exercise on resting blood pressure in obese children: a meta-analysis of RCTs.
• The role of weight loss and exercise in correcting skeletal muscle mitochondrial abnormalities in obesity, diabetes and aging.
• Patterns of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Diet in U.S. Adolescents.
• Effects of exercise on resting blood pressure in obese children: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
• Exercise training attenuates cerebral ischemic hyperglycemia by improving hepatic insulin signaling and beta-cell survival in gerbils.
• Persuading students to exercise: What is the best way to frame messages for normal-weight versus overweight/obese university students? 'Gain-framing'.
• Observational study: Lack of physical activity and overweight/obesity associated with poor survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis.

Evolution, Ecology and Energetics

• The energetics of organic synthesis inside and outside the cell.
• Honeybees and cell lines as models of DNA methylation and aging in response to diet.
• Density Triggers Maternal Hormones That Increase Adaptive Offspring Growth in a Wild Mammal.
• Limits to sustained energy intake XX: body temperatures and physical activity of female mice during lactation.
• Food abundance affects energy intake and reproduction in frugivorous female Assamese macaques.
• Predation promotes survival of beetles with lower resting metabolic rates.

Epidemiology

• Changes in smoking, sports participation and overweight: Does neighborhood prevalence matter?
• We find a robust positive and statistically significant relationship between obesity and economic insecurity that holds for nearly every age, gender, and race/ethnicity group, both in cross-section and over time.
• Life Years Lost Associated with Obesity-Related Diseases for U.S. Non-Smoking Adults.
• Epidemiology of companion animal overweight/obesity in Great Britain.
• Infectious Diseases in Children and Body Mass Index in Young Adults.
• Anthropometric markers of obesity and mortality in white and African American adults: The Pennington Center Longitudinal Study.
• Overweight and obese patients had higher prevalence of hypertension, more abnormal left ventricular geometry and lower stress-corrected midwall shortening in a SEAS substudy.

Obesity Among The Seriously Ill

• Differences in prescribed Kt/V and delivered haemodialysis dose--why obesity makes a difference to survival for haemodialysis patients when using a 'one size fits all' Kt/V target.
• Obesity associated with protective alterations in outcome, susceptibility, treatment, and inflammatory response in critically ill patients
• Male gender, increased blood viscosity, body mass index and triglyceride levels are independently associated with systemic relative hypertension in sickle cell anemia.
• Statins Modulate the Mortality Risk Associated With Obesity and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Diabetics.
• Obesity not associated with decreased overall or disease-free survival in patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

Brown Adipose Tissue

• White, brown, beige/brite: different adipose cells for different functions? Maybe.
• Brown Fat Activation Mediates Cold-Induced Thermogenesis in Adult Humans in Response to a Mild Decrease in Ambient Temperature.
• Role of PRDM16 in the activation of brown fat programming, with discussion of relevance to the development of obesity.

Conjecture

• Evidence that dirty electricity is causing the worldwide epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
• What If Being Overweight was Good For You?
• Could a hormone point the way to life extension? Maybe.

Clinical

• Systematic review of lifestyle interventions to limit postpartum weight retention: Implications for future opportunities to prevent maternal overweight and obesity following childbirth.
• Study shines a light on relationship between genes, diet and obesity.
• RCT: The effects of a family-based intervention (FBI) for overweight/obese children on health and psychological functioning.
• RCT: Diet-induced weight loss in obese children with asthma
• RCT (pilot): Pilot testing three types of health coaches for obesity treatment finds professionals better than past successes
• A New Endoscopically Implantable Device (SatiSphere) for Treatment of Obesity-Efficacy, Safety, and Metabolic Effects on Glucose, Insulin, and GLP-1 Levels.
• RCT: Addition of dietary-induced weight loss to physical activity reduced leptin and hsIL-6 more than physical activity alone and more than a successful aging (SA) health education intervention in older adults at risk for CVD.
• RCT (pilot): Caloric restriction in overweight men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer increases serum IGFBP-3, compared to standard diet.
• RCT: Experience and acceptability of diets of varying protein content and glycemic index in an obese cohort (Diogenes trial).

Basic Science

• UCP4 expression changes in larval and pupal fat bodies of the beetle Zophobas atratus under adipokinetic hormone treatment.
• Metabolic profiling and biological mechanisms of body fat reduction in mice fed the ethanolic extract of black-colored rice.
• Adipocyte lineages: Tracing back the origins of fat.
• What are the Effects of Maternal Obesity on Synaptic Function in the Maternal and Offspring Hippocampus?
• Following the Swarm: Stephen Simpson discusses insights into human nutrition and obesity gleaned from locusts
• Mice lacking C1q are protected from high-fat diet induced hepatic insulin resistance and impaired glucose homeostasis.
• Effects of obesity and estradiol on Na+/K+-ATPase and their relevance to cardiovascular disease.
• Thyroid hormones correlate with resting metabolic rate, not daily energy expenditure, in two charadriiform seabirds.
• Dietary Intervention Causes Redistribution of Zinc in Obese Adolescents (non-RCT).
• Gut microbes spur development of liver cancer in obese mice
• Impaired blood pressure compensation following hemorrhage in conscious obese Zucker rats due to blunted increase in total peripheral resistance.
• Functional consequences of microbial shifts in the human gastrointestinal tract linked to antibiotic treatment and obesity.
• Rare variants in single-minded 1 (SIM1) are associated with severe obesity.

Herbal Supplements

• RCT: Herbal blend of Sphaeranthus indicus and Garcinia mangostana lowers body weight and BMI compared to placebo.
• A systematic review of anti-obesity medicinal plants - an update.
• Dietary supplementation with purified mulberry (Morus australis Poir) anthocyanins suppresses body weight gain in high-fat diet fed C57BL/6 mice.

Obesity & Taxes

• Promotion of Healthy Eating Through Public Policy: A Controlled Experiment.
• Food Prices and Body Fatness among Youths.
• Book: Obesity and Taxes. Why Government Cannot Make You Thinner.
• Brutal pragmatism on food.

Policy Related

• Targeting Transparency.
• Massachusetts Considers Weight Discrimination Law.
• Examining Restaurant Menu Calorie Counts.
• Don’t Count on Calorie Counts.
• Exploratory analysis of fast-food chain restaurant menus before and after implementation of local calorie-labeling policies, 2005-2011.
• Academy of Medical Royal Colleges condemn NHS for inadvertently fuelling obesity crisis
• Wisconsin legislature: Hands off our junk food
• Manufacturers not giving a green light to 'traffic light' labeling.
• U.S. Agriculture Department announces new rules regarding snack foods sold in schools.

Commentary

• LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Sugar fear-mongering unhelpful.
• Not So Grrreat: Ten Important Myths about Food Advertising Targeted to Children in Canada.
• Tricking the public to ‘promote’ health.
• Peter Attia: Is the obesity crisis hiding a bigger problem?
• Martin Binks on Obesity as a Disease.

General Science

• Why uncertainty is part of science.
• The geometric increase in meta-analyses from China in the genomic era.
• Photos reveal rare jaguar living in Arizona mountains.
• A new species discovered because of avian flu in Phnom Penh
• Beak-to-Brain Nerve May Help Birds Navigate
• Study suggests that honey bees have split brains, like humans
• Japanese scientists clone a mouse from a single drop of blood
• Review of Cloning Paper Prompts Questions about the peer review process

Announcements

• EASO Björntorp Symposium: the Super Obese Child. Jerusalem, Israel, 10-12 November 2013.
• Conference: Metabolically Healthy and Unhealthy Obese, Oct 26-27, Dominican Republic.
• Conference: Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention, Sept 27-29, Fort Walton Beach, Fl.

Featured

• Methods for defining distinct bioenergetic profiles in platelets, lymphocytes, monocytes, and neutrophils, and the oxidative burst from human blood
• The obesity era.
• How junk food can end obesity.

Findings Contrary Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Blood type diets lack supporting evidence: a systematic review.
• RCT: RYGB did not have a superior effect in comparison to SG with regard to HbA1c levels or weight loss during 12 months of follow-up.
• RCT: Short-term diets containing low-fat dairy products did not lead to a more favourable biomarker profile associated with CVD risk compared with the full-fat dairy products.
• RCT: Childhood obesity prevention and control in city recreation centres and family homes, the MOVE/me Muevo Project, finds no significant effects for the primary outcomes of child's or parent's BMI and child's waist circumference.
• Cochrane Review: School-based physical activity interventions not effective in reducing BMI.
• No Association between Low Birth Weight and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Early Adulthood.

Video

• Louis Aronne, MD: Obesity as a Disease.
• Steven Blair, PhD: How Do You Get Patients to Stay Physically Active?

Transgenerational

• Obese Male Mice Father Offspring with More Body Fat.
• Transgenerational Metabolic Determinants of Fetal Birth Weight.

Surgery

• RCT: Patients who regain weight after gastric bypass may benefit from transoral outlet reduction.
• Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy compared to other bariatric surgical procedures: a systematic review of RCTs.

Sleep

• RCT: Catching Up on Sleep May Lower Diabetes Risk.
• Could parental rules play a role in the association between short sleep and obesity in young children?

Pychology

• Leaving a Flat Taste in Your Mouth: Task Load Reduces Taste Perception.
• Appropriateness standards can help to curb the epidemic of overweight: response to Dewitte and to Herman and Polivy.
• How the framing of portion size influences food intake.

Policy

• A.M.A. Recognizes Obesity as a Disease.
• The Unequal Distribution of Body Mass Index and State-Level Soft Drink Taxes on Obesity Inequality.
• FDA Releases Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Science and Research (CSR) Strategic Plan.
• Consistent food labeling in the UK.
• Obesity community supports the treat and reduce obesity act of 2013.
• Calorie estimation accuracy and menu labeling perceptions in individuals with and without eating disorders.

Methods

• Addressing continuous data for participants excluded from trial analysis: a guide for systematic reviewers.
• Body Composition: Assessment, Regulation, and Emerging Techniques.
• Measuring Nurses' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of the Safe Handling of the Morbidly Obese Patient: Instrument Development and Psychometric Testing.

Genetics

• Sex-stratified Genome-wide Association Studies Including 270,000 Individuals Show Sexual Dimorphism in Genetic Loci for Anthropometric Traits.
• Epigenetic changes in hypothalamic appetite regulatory genes may underlie the developmental programming for obesity in rat neonates subjected to a high-carbohydrate dietary modification.

Food

• RCT: Walnuts improve Endothelial Function in Overweight Adults with Visceral Obesity and cause no weight gain.
• Frequency of consumption at fast-food restaurants is associated with dietary intake in overweight and obese women recruited from financially disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Peanut consumption in adolescents is associated with improved weight status.
• Macronutrients and Obesity: Revisiting the Calories in, Calories out Framework.
• RCT: Effects of high-protein diets on fat-free mass and muscle protein synthesis following weight loss.

Exercise

• Changes in mechanisms proposed to mediate fat loss following an acute bout of high intensity interval and endurance exercise.
• Lack of exercise is putting lives at risk, says expert.
• RCT: Long-term effects of aerobics training versus combined training on physical fitness and cardiovascular disease risk factors in overweight elderly men with high blood pressure.
• RCT: Effects of resistance and multicomponent training on body composition and physical fitness of institutionalized elderly women.

Epidemiology

• Little Effect of Gestation at 3,100 m on Fetal Fat Accretion or the Fetal Circulation.
• The association between grandmaternal investment and early years overweight in the UK.
• The four undergraduate years. Changes in weight, eating attitudes, and depression.
• Inequality and Mortality: New Evidence from U.S. County Panel Data.
• Elevated BMI as a causal risk factor for symptomatic gallstone disease: A mendelian randomization study.

Evolution and Energetics

• Linking anti-predator behaviour to prey demography reveals limited risk effects of an actively hunting large carnivore.
• Experimental support for food limitation of a short-distance migratory bird wintering in the temperate zone.
• Mating success and energetic condition effects driven by terminal investment in a short-lived insect.

Conferences

• Functional Body Composition and Related Aspects in Research on Obesity and Cachexia, September 6-7, Hamburg.
• Metabolically Healthy and Unhealthy Obese, Oct 26-27, Domincan Republic.
• Bioactive food components in obesity and cancer prevention.

Commentary

• Comparing the Influence of Energy Intake vs Expenditure on Promoting the Population Growth in Obesity.
• Morgan Downey: AHRQ: Policy-based non-evidence evidence?
• Does Healthy Food Dogma Prevent or Cause Obesity?
• Big Brother: Families, Loyalty and Obesity.

Clinical

• RCT: Long-term effect of the Go4it group treatment for obese adolescents.
• RCT: Caloric restriction versus standard diet in overweight men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer.
• RCT: A Major Community-Based Environmental Intervention Produces a Mean Reduction of Six One-Hundredths of a BMI z-Score Decrease in Children.
• RCT: Targeting Obesity-Related Behaviors: Better Together Healthy Caswell County.
• RCT: Virtual Reality for Enhancing the Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Obesity With Binge Eating Disorder.
• Testosterone therapy in hypogonadal men associated with sustained and clinically meaningful weight loss.
• Targeting microbiota to address diet-induced obesity: a time dependent challenge.

Basic Science

• Chronic Intermittent Fasting Improves Cognitive Functions and Brain Structures in Mice.
• Two functional serotonin polymorphisms moderate the effect of food reinforcement on BMI.
• Divergent circuitry underlying food reward and intake effects of ghrelin: Dopaminergic VTA-accumbens projection mediates ghrelin's effect on food reward but not food intake.
• Changes in Ghrelin and Obestatin Levels before and after a Meal in Children with Simple Obesity and Anorexia.
• Markers of Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Function and Lipid Accumulation Are Moderately Associated with the Homeostasis Model Assessment Index of Insulin Resistance in Obese Men.

General Science

• The Cognitive Bias Keeping Us from Innovating.
• Dog genetics spur scientific spat.
• Opinion: Learning from Peer Review.
• Crowdfunding UAB researcher meets goal to pay for gun study.
• A Perverted View of “Impact”.
• Sizing up Big Data.
• Why I retracted my nature paper: a guest post from David Vaux.

Featured Debate

• Meta-analysis: Will reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption reduce obesity? Evidence supporting conjecture is strong, but evidence when testing effect is weak.
• Resolved: there is sufficient scientific evidence that decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption will reduce the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases.

Sugar

• Effects of fructose and glucose overfeeding on hepatic insulin sensitivity and intrahepatic lipids in healthy humans.
• Sugar Sweetened Drinks and Diabetes: What’s the Risk?.
• The obesogenic effect of high fructose exposure during early development.
• Consumption of sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup does not increase liver fat or ectopic fat deposition in muscles.
• Effect of glycemic index and glycemic load on energy intake in children.

Protein

• RCT: An additional 9 g of protein in a high protein Greek yogurt was insufficient to elicit protein-related improvements in markers of energy intake regulation.
• RCT: consuming dietary protein at levels exceeding the RDA may protect fat-free mass during short-term weight loss.
• In mice, whey protein isolate counteracts the effects of a high-fat diet on energy intake and hypothalamic and adipose tissue expression of energy balance-related genes.
• Dietary Protein Source Influence on Body Size and Composition in Growing Zebrafish.

Aging

• Oxidative stress and antioxidant enzyme activities in the trophocytes and fat cells of queen honeybees (Apis mellifera).
• Rapamycin given late in life reverses age-related heart disease in mice.
• Aging and long-term caloric restriction regulate neuropeptide Y receptor subtype densities in the rat brain.

Behavior

• Effects of providing personalized feedback of child’s obesity risk on mothers’ food choices using a virtual reality buffet.
• Neighborhood built and social environment characteristics: a multilevel analysis of associations with obesity among children and their parents.
• Systematic review on parental involvement in long-term European childhood weight control interventions with a nutritional focus.
• RCT: Combining behavioral weight loss treatment and a commercial program.
• Factors that determine energy compensation: a systematic review of preload studies.
• Timing of the introduction of complementary feeding and risk of childhood obesity: a systematic review.

Clinical

• Whole-body cryostimulation as an effective method of reducing low-grade inflammation in obese men.
• RCT: Impact of participant and interventionist race concordance on weight loss outcomes.
• Bariatric surgery for weight loss and glycemic control in nonmorbidly obese adults with diabetes: a systematic review.
• Economic Analyses of the Be Fit Be Well Program: A Weight Loss Program for Community Health Centers.
• Challenges and opportunities for faecal microbiota transplantation therapy.
• Genetic predisposition to an adverse lipid profile limits the improvement in total cholesterol in response to weight loss.

Drugs

• Phentermine and topiramate extended-release : a new treatment for obesity and its role in a complications-centric approach to obesity medical management.
• RCT: Orlistat improves endothelial function in obese adolescents.
• Effects of risperidone on energy balance in female C57BL/6J mice.
• No evidence of phentermine abuse or psychological dependence (addiction) in patients treated with phentermine for obesity.

Evolution, Ecology, and Energetics

• Limits to sustained energy intake XIX: A test of the heat dissipation limitation hypothesis in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus).
• The Effects of Colony Size and Social Density on Individual and Group Level Behavior and Energetics in Ants.
• Long-day photoperiod interacts with vasopressin and food restriction to modulate reproductive status, and vasopressin receptor expression of male Golden spiny mice.
• Comparative energetics of the 5 Fish classes on the basis of Dynamic Energy Budgets.
• Effect of temperature on energetic balance and fatty acid composition of early juveniles of Octopus maya.

Epidemiology

• Association between weight gain during pregnancy and postpartum weight retention and obesity: a bias-adjusted meta-analysis.
• No evidence that there are time trends in the accuracy of self-report by BMI categories, sex, age, or racial/ethnic groups.
• BMI underestimation is increasing across time.
• Absolute wealth and world region strongly predict overweight among women (ages 18–49) in 360 populations across 36 developing countries.
• The contributions of risk factor trends to cardiometabolic mortality decline in 26 industrialized countries.
• Secular changes in BMI and the associations between risk factors and BMI in children born 29 years apart.

Exercise

• Effect of Resistance Training on the Strength, Body Composition and Psychosocial Status of Overweight and Obese Children and Adolescents? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
• Non-randomized trial of Treadmill desks.
• Ready, set, go for physical activity.
• Leptin predicts a decline in moderate to vigorous physical activity in minority female children at risk for obesity.

Policy

• Effectiveness of subsidies in promoting healthy food purchases and consumption: A review of field experiments.
• Supreme Court Rules Human Genes May Not Be Patented.
• Smart School Cafeterias: Nudging Kids for Better Choices.
• NYU Investigates Professor Who Tweeted on Obese Ph.D. Students for Human Subjects Violation.

Psychology

• Perceived weight, not obesity, increases risk for major depression among adolescents.
• Lay Theories of Obesity Predict Actual Body Mass.
• Sex and dieting modify the association between emotional eating and weight status.
• Weight discrimination and bullying.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• No effects in a long-term toxicology study of pigs fed a combined genetically modified (GM) soy and GM maize diet.
• Results suggest colonic Archaea is not associated with obesity in healthy humans.
• RCT: Telmisartan did not decrease IMCL or liver fat content or other metabolic parameters among individuals with abdominal obesity.
• No Financial Disincentive for Choosing More Healthful Entrées on Children's Menus in Full-Service Restaurants.
• RCT: No effect of a school environment intervention on adolescent adiposity and physical fitness.
• Systematic review of RCTs of school-based interventions for physical activity in children and adolescents finds inconclusive effects on BMI, body fat and waist.
• RCT: No effect of Tuberil® in treatment of childhood obesity.
• Unintended consequences of Eliminating Flavored Milk in Elementary Schools.
• RCT: Although feasible, not harmful, and highly rated by families and practitioners, the HopSCOTCH program of primary and tertiary care management did not cause better BMI or other outcomes.
• In a naturally randomized experiment, no apparent peer effect on freshman weight.
• Programs designed to prevent childhood obesity in the home don't affect kids' weight a year or more down the line, according to a review of the evidence.

Basic Science

• Maternal high-fat diet programs rat offspring hypertension and activates the adipose renin-angiotensin system.
• Myocardial energetics in heart failure.
• White to brite adipocyte transition and back again.
• Operator Independent Focused High Frequency ISM Band for Fat Reduction: Porcine Model.
• Regulation of adipose branched-chain amino acid catabolism enzyme expression and cross-adipose amino acid flux in human obesity.
• Balancing the fat: lipid droplets and human disease.
• Effects of caloric restriction on oxidative stress parameters.
• Major urinary protein 5, a scent communication protein, is regulated by dietary restriction and subsequent re-feeding in mice.

Sensational Media

• As addictive as cocaine: Study suggests common bread, junk food ingredient obesity driver.
• Obesity problems may skip a generation, Edinburgh University study finds.
• BPA Responsible for Obesity in Girls, Study Reports.

Commentary

• Bias in randomised factorial trials.
• The Genius of Getting It Wrong.
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science.
• Obesity Surgery: Basic Calculating Errors in Systematic Reviews.
• Letters to NEJM ‘Myths paper’ and Response.

Videos

• ASN Videos from EB 2013.
• Dr. William Mair-Molecular Framework Linking Nutrient Sensing to Logngevity.

Announcements

• UAB Diabetes Research Center recruiting for national study.
• Request for Letters of Intent Regarding A Foundation for the NIH Biomarkers Consortium Research Project: “Biomarkers for prediction of response to obesity therapies and sustained weight loss”.

In Memoriam

• A great scholar and a kind man passes on.
• A Tribute to Frederick L. Brancati, MD, MHS.

Featured

• Sustained energy intake debate gets more complex.
• Elephant obesity is focus of Lincoln zoo research.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• No association found between fast food density and overweight or obesity in NYC.
• Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study shows no discernible association of exposure to fast food at the residential neighborhood with children's weight.
• No association of proximity to fast food locations and weight status among children living in low-income cities in NJ.
• Postpartum diet quality was not associated with weight retention.
• Higher prevalence of obesity in Greek children living in rural areas despite increased levels of physical activity.
• No association between BMI and time spent playing computer games in teens.
• RCT: No adverse effect of a high-protein weight-loss diets in people with type 2 diabetes and renal disease.
• RCT: No effect of a parental intervention involving lifestyle counseling and motivational interviewing on weight in total sample of overweight children.
• RCT: Using a smaller dining plate does not suppress food intake from a buffet lunch meal in overweight, unrestrained women.
• RCT: Intervention produces increases in reported daily breakfast intake and reductions in chip and sweetened beverage intake, but no effects on BMI among children.

Misinformation and Its Correction

• Why we are becoming a country of medical know-nothings.
• Worst. Reported. Study. Ever.
• What Do Scientific Studies Show?
• Anti-obesity campaign Photoshops kids to make them look fat.

Commentary

• Standards and classification: A perspective on the ‘obesity epidemic’.
• The inadequacy of self-reported energy intake.

Aging

• Mitochondrial targeted peptide rapidly improves mitochondrial energetics and skeletal muscle performance in aged mice.
• Life-long caloric restriction reduces oxidative stress and preserves nitric oxide bioavailability and function in arteries of old mice.
• Metabolic phenotype modulation by caloric restriction in a life-long dog study.

Basic Science

• High fat feeding-induced hyperinsulinemia increases cardiac glucose uptake and mitochondrial function despite peripheral insulin resistance.
• Chemerin connects fat to arterial contraction.
• Formula Feeding Monkeys Linked to Metabolic Stress and Risk of Later Disease.
• "Browning" of adipose tissue - regulation and therapeutic perspectives.
• Obesity skips a generation, affects grandchildren (in mice) the most.
• Muscle disease gene identified in fish.
• Mechanism of body weight reducing effect of oral boric acid intake in mice.

Caloric Restriction

• Sex differences in body composition, fat storage and gene expression profile in Caenorhabditis elegans in response to dietary restriction.
• A dietary regimen of caloric restriction or pharmacological activation of sirt1 to delay the onset of neurodegeneration.
• Fasting or caloric restriction for healthy aging.

Clinical

• RCT: Achieving long-term weight maintenance in Mexican-American adolescents with a school-based intervention.
• Size Matters: Obese patients more likely to trust overweight physicians for diet advice.

Drugs

• Synthetic compound developed from sun anemone venom, ShK-186 boosts metabolism.
• Patent: Mast cell stabilizers in the treatment of obesity.
• EU targets childhood obesity with computer-simulated testing of medicines.
• New evidence suggests no dependency/addictive potential of phentermine.
• Phentermine and topiramate extended-release : a new treatment for obesity and its role in a complications-centric approach to obesity medical management.

Surgery

• Tongue Patch Surgery: Risky Weight Loss Procedure Draws Criticism.
• Calorie restriction is a major determinant of the short-term metabolic effects of gastric bypass surgery in obese type 2 diabetic patients.
• UAB bariatric surgery earns highest accreditation level.
• RCT: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass vs intensive medical management for the control of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.
• Bariatric surgery for weight loss and glycemic control in nonmorbidly obese adults with diabetes: A systematic review.
• Gastric Bypass in Mild Obesity and Diabetes?

Exercise

• High- vs low-intensity exercise on postprandial lipemia, vascular function, oxygen consumption and energy consumption after a meal.
• RCT: Diet and diet combined with chronic aerobic exercise decreases body fat mass and alters plasma and adipose tissue inflammatory markers in obese women.
• RCT: Social support from teachers mediates physical activity behavior change in children participating in the Fit-4-Fun intervention.
• RCT: High-intensity resistance training reduces visceral fat more than compaartor exercise.
• Is there an upper limit to exercise?

Food

• Offering chocolate milk increases milk and calcium intake in short-term study.
• RCT: Benefit of a low-fat over high-fat diet on vascular health during alternate day fasting.
• Review of RCTs finds inconclusive effects of vegetable consumption on weight.
• 'Cheese is from plants' - study reveals child confusion.

Potatoes

• Vegetable cost metrics show that potatoes and beans provide most nutrients per penny.
• White potatoes, human health, and dietary guidance.
• Sweet potato and cassava can modify cholesterol profile in humans with moderately raised serum cholesterol levels.

Evolution, Ecology & Energetics

• Individual energetic state can prevail over social regulation of foraging in honeybees.
• Surviving the cold, dry period in Africa: Behavioral adjustments as an alternative to heterothermy in the African Lesser Bushbaby (Galago moholi).
• The evolution of mammal body sizes: responses to Cenozoic climate change in North American mammals.
• Energetics and metabolite profiles during early flight in American robins (Turdus Migratorius).
• A grassy trend in human ancestors' diets.
• Resource unpredictability promotes species diversity and coexistence in an avian scavenger guild: a field experiment.
• Seasonal mass variation as a life history trait in West African savannah birds.

Epidemiology

• Childhood obesity is associated with increased risk of most lower extremity fractures.
• The influence of BMI on injury pattern in polytrauma: thorax as the main source of complications.
• Population-adjusted street connectivity, urbanicity and risk of obesity in the U.S.
• Reducing racial/ethnic disparities in childhood obesity.

Genetics

• Phospholipid biosynthesis genes and susceptibility to obesity: Analysis of expression and polymorphisms.
• An overview of STRUCTURE: applications, parameter settings, and supporting software.
• The Power of Meta-Analysis in Genome-Wide Association Studies.
• Detection and impact of rare regulatory variants in human disease.
• Central precocious puberty caused by mutations in the imprinted gene MKRN3.

Methods

• On the accuracy of instantaneous gas exchange rates, energy expenditure and respiratory quotient calculations obtained from indirect whole room calorimetry.
• Assessment of dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry for use in evaluating the effects of dietary and environmental management on Hermann's tortoises (Testudo hermanni).
• Establishing disability weights from pairwise comparisons for a US burden of disease study.

Microbiota

• A mucus colonizer manages host metabolism.
• Gut microbiota composition in male rat models under different nutritional status and physical activity and its association with serum leptin and ghrelin levels.
• Gut microbiota after gastric bypass in human obesity: Increased richness and associations of bacterial genera with adipose tissue genes.

Policy

• Scientific decision making, policy decisions, and the obesity pandemic.
• New York expands fight against soda to juice drinks.
• New BAI code bans promotion of certain products during children’s programming in Ireland.
• Overweight and obesity: Can we reconcile evidence about supermarkets and fast food retailers for public health policy?

Psychology

• In times of stress, people lean on established routines -- even healthy ones.
• Intertemporal discounting as a risk factor for high BMI.

Stigma

• Inequities in healthcare: A review of bias and discrimination in obesity treatment.
• Media representations of obesity: First amendment friendly approach to addressing hate speech in the media.
• NYU visiting professor accused of insulting obese Ph.D. applicants with ‘impulsive’ tweet.

General Science

• Trust in science would be improved by study pre-registration.
• Accord aims to create global trove of genetic data.
• Epigenetics play cupid for prairie voles.
• Career exploration resources for grad students and postdocs.
• Temporal cloak erases data from history.