Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Large chain restaurant meals had, on average, fewer calories than independent and small-chain restaurants.
• No compelling evidence of association between Religiosity/Spirituality and the Metabolic Syndrome among U.S. Hispanics/Latinos.
• No Benefit Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet.
• Living in food desert was not significantly associated with BMI after potential covariates were considered.
• Ain't no mountain high enough? Setting high weight loss goals predict effort and short-term weight loss.
• No clear association of the early introduction of solid food with childhood obesity.
• No association of sugar-sweetened beverage intake with weight status in national sample of children with measured heights and weights.

Aging

• Young and old genetically heterogeneous HET3 mice on a rapamycin diet are glucose intolerant but insulin sensitive.
• Do sirtuins promote mammalian longevity?: A Critical review on its relevance to the longevity effect induced by calorie restriction.
• Calorie restriction (CR) and CR mimetics for the prevention and treatment of age-related eye disorders.

Basic Science

• Effects of chronic exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on energy balance in developing rats.
• Latitudinal patterns in phenotypic plasticity: the case of seasonal flexibility in lizards’ fat body size.
• An increase in the accumulation of adipose tissue in growing male mice caused by disturbances in the sleep-wake cycle following night-shifts.
• The role of ghrelin in energy balance regulation in fish.
• Characteristics and metabolism of different adipose tissues in fish.
• Brown adipose tissue transplantation improves whole-body energy metabolism.
• Neural circuits and motivational processes for hunger.
• Leptin Sensitive Sensory Nerves Innervate White Fat.
• Developmental programming: Impact of prenatal testosterone excess on insulin sensitivity, adiposity, and free fatty acid profile in sheep.
• Metabolism: CBAT and rBAT crosstalk to regulate temperature and energy balance.

Clinical

• BMI in relation to sperm count: An updated systematic review and collaborative meta-analysis.
• RCT: Inspiratory muscle training effects on diaphragmatic mobility, pulmonary function and maximum respiratory pressures in morbidly obese individuals.
• RCT: Whole body vibration training improves leg blood flow and adiposity in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• RCT: Tight Calorie Control in geriatric patients following hip fracture decreases complications.
• Ketosis and appetite-mediating nutrients and hormones after weight loss.

Commentary

• Martin Binks on the Perils on Looking for Heroes and Villains in Food.
• Obesity and blame: elusive goals for personal responsibility.
• National obesity rates: a legitimate health policy endpoint?
• Good and bad ideas in obesity prevention.
• Exchanges on obesity and smoking.

Dietary Fat

• Review calls for reevaluation of dietary recommendations to minimize dietary SFAs, for which mechanisms for adverse health effects are lacking.
• High-fat, low-carbohydrate diet alters myocardial oxidative stress and impairs recovery of cardiac function after ischemia and reperfusion in obese rats.
• RCT: Analysis of esterified and nonesterified fatty acids in serum from obese individuals after breakfasts prepared with oils heated at frying temperature.
• RCT: Among patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors, n−3 fatty acids did not reduce cardiovascular mortality and morbidity.

Food

• RCT: Fattening Fasting: Hungry Grocery Shoppers Buy More Calories, Not More Food.
• Restaurant Meals: Almost a Full Day's Worth of Calories, Fats, and Sodium.
• Eating Out Without Overeating.
• FDA studies caffeine's effects on children, teens.
• Very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet v. low-fat diet for long-term weight loss: a meta-analysis of RCTs.
• Adherence to National Diet and Physical Activity Objectives among Military Personnel: What Are the Implications?
• Do Environmental Interventions Impact Elementary School Students' Lunchtime Milk Selection?
• Normal protein intake required for weight loss and maintenance, elevated protein intake for preservation of REE and FFM.
• Eating insects could help fight obesity, U.N. says.
• RCT: Smaller breakfasts lead to lesser total intake in day.
• Meals inspired by ancestors show some short term benefits.

Gut Microbiota

• Gut microbe may fight obesity and diabetes.
• 100 Trillion Friendly Germs: Some Might Control Your Weight.

Methods

• Estimating Obesity Rates in the Presence of Measurement Error.
• Observational Bias during Nutrition Surveillance: Results of a Mixed Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Data Collection System in Northern Nigeria.
• Measurement error is altered by participation in a physical activity intervention.
• Panel regression formulas for estimating stature and body mass from immature human skeletons: A statistical approach without reference to specific age estimates.
• Apples and oranges: a comparison of costing methods for obesity.
• Accuracy and preference of measuring resting energy expenditure using a handheld calorimeter in healthy adults.
• Fat tissue measurements by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry: Cross-calibration of 3 different fan-beam instruments.

Neighborhoods

• Change in Neighborhood Traffic Safety: Does It Matter in Terms of Physical Activity?
• Disentangling neighborhood contextual associations with child BMI, diet, and physical activity: Role of built, socioeconomic, and social environments.
• Neighborhood deprivation and change in BMI among adults with type 2 diabetes.

Physical Activity

• The energy expenditure of sedentary behavior: a whole room calorimeter study.
• Web-Enabled Feedback Control Over Energy Balance Associated with an Increase in Physical Activity and a Reduction of Body Weight.

Policy Related

• Law as a Tool in "The War on Obesity": Useful Interventions, Maybe, But, First, What's the Problem?
• If Sugar Is Addictive...What Does It Mean for the Law?

Psychology

• Greater impulsivity is associated with decreased brain activation in obese women during a delay discounting task.
• Happy Eating And Obesity: Happiness Tied To Comfort Eating And Weight Gain

Research Reproducibility and Integrity

• Whither research integrity? Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and coercive citation in an age of research assessment.
• The Matilda Effect in Science Communication: An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest.
• Biomarkers in cardiovascular medicine: The shame of publication bias.
• Half of researchers have reported trouble reproducing published findings.

Salt

• Changes in Sodium Levels in Processed and Restaurant Foods, 2005 to 2011.
• IOM Report: Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence.

Stigma

• Obesity stigma: a failed and ethically dubious strategy.
• If Shaming Reduced Obesity, There Would Be No Fat People.
• Bootcamp, brides, and BMI: Biopedagogical narratives of health and belonging on canadian size-transformation television.

Sugar, SSBs, and related

• Whey protein sweetened beverages reduce glycemic and appetite responses and food intake in young females.
• Short-term association of sugar consumption with hunger and ad libitum food intake in young women.
• Building a Strategy for Obesity Prevention One Piece at a Time: The Case of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxation.
• Mondo/ChREBP-Mlx-Regulated Transcriptional Network Is Essential for Dietary Sugar Tolerance in Drosophila.

Surgery

• Weight Loss after Gastric Bypass Surgery in Human Obesity Remodels Promoter Methylation.
• Operator independent focused high frequency ISM band for fat reduction: Porcine model.
• Unrealistic weight loss goals and expectations among bariatric surgery.

Video

• Molly Bray on Genetic & Environmental Influences on Obesity and Exercise.
• The importance of publishing datasets.
• Tim Garvey on “New Tools for Weight Loss Therapy: A Complications-Centric Model for Obesity Management and Cardiometabolic Disease Staging”
• Strategies to Optimize the Impact of Nutritional Surveys and Epidemiological Studies – Experimental Biology Session

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• A more ‘healthful’ food environment associated with less obesity among the rich, but with higher obesity lower-income African Americans.
• No difference in energy expenditure among children between the school year and the summer months.
• After moderate intensity exercise, a meal with a high-fat/low-carbohydrate ratio had a less favorable metabolic impact than an isoenergetic, isoproteic low-fat/high-carbohydrate meal.
• Candy consumption among adults not associated with adiposity or select cardiovascular risk factors.
• RCT: No effect of magnesium supplementation on body composition and muscle strength in middle-aged overweight women.
• RCT: A high-fibre bean-rich diet was as effective as a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, although only the bean-rich diet lowered atherogenic lipids.
• RCT: No effect of low sucrose diet on weight or body composition.
• Neighborhood walkability associated with less physical activity and more obesity.
• Adolescents who went to McDonald’s and Subway bought about the same number of calories at each, despite Subway's reputation as a healthier place.

Aging

• Fasting and Caloric Restriction?
• Lactobacillus salivarius strain FDB89 induced longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans by dietary restriction.
• Young blood reverses heart decline in old mice.

Video & Audio

• Brian Parks “A systems genetics approach to study obesity, dietary interactions, and the microbiome"
• Radio: David Allison on Myths of Obesity.
• Radio: Adam Drewnowski on economics and geography of obesity.

Gary Taubes Essay and Comments

• Re: The science of obesity: what do we really know about what makes us fat?
• Re: The science of obesity: what do we really know about what makes us fat? An essay by Gary Taubes.
• The science of obesity: what do we really know about what makes us fat? An essay by Gary Taubes.

Surgery

• Overweight patients achieve ideal body weight following curative gastrectomy resulting in better long-term prognosis.
• Occipital C1-C2 neuromodulation decreases body mass and fat stores and modifies activity of the autonomic nervous system in morbidly obese patients - A pilot study 
• Swallowable gastric balloons as an aid for weight loss: A pilot feasibility study.
• Duodenal–jejunal bypass improves glucose metabolism and adipokine expression independently of weight loss in a diabetic rat model.

Sugar-Related

• Gut hormone release and appetite regulation in healthy non-obese participants following oligofructose intake. A dose-escalation study. 
• Really? most of the added sugar in our diets comes from sugary drinks.
• Scientific review of Robert Lustig’s fat chance.
• Reduced prevalence of obesity in children with primary fructose malabsorption: a multicentre, retrospective cohort study.
• Sucralose affects glycemic and hormonal responses to an oral glucose load.
• Consumption of added sugars among U.S. adults, 2005–2010.

Stigma

• The affective and interpersonal consequences of obesity: Weight and the stereotype content model.
• The stigmatization of obesity among Gypsy and Hungarian children.
• Weight bias as a function of personality, attributions and contact experiences.

Schools/Community

• RCT: A 20-month school-based intervention on BMI shows benefit in girls, but not in boys.
• Meta-analysis: Educational interventions are effective in treatment, but not prevention, of childhood obesity and its consequences.

Psychology

• I know not to, but I can't help it: Weight gain and changes in impulsivity-related personality traits.
• Different paths towards obesity: Exploring the relation between obesity and insecurity.
• More schooling appears to reduce the risk of obesity. evidence from U.K. twins.

Policy Related

• Consumer Understanding of Calorie Amounts and Serving Size: Implications for Nutritional Labelling.
• Is less always more? The effects of low-fat labeling and caloric information on food intake, calorie estimates, taste preference, and health attributions.
• An interesting NIH grant: INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY RHETORIC ON PUBLIC HEALTH OUTCOMES IN JUDICI…
• NEJM Editorial asserts "There is robust scientific support for various alternative strategies for presenting calorie information to consumers...."

Methods

• Zinc-α2-glycoprotein as a marker of fat catabolism in humans.
• Environment feature extraction and classification for Context aware Physical Activity monitoring.
• How to investigate within-subject associations between physical activity and momentary affective states in everyday life.
• Self-report based adolescent obesity prevalence estimates are likely biased downward because of selective non-responding.
• A multilevel approach to estimating small area childhood obesity prevalence at the census block-group level.
• Measurement of subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness by near-infrared.
• Analyzing weight loss intervention studies with missing data: Which methods should be used?
• Use of scanning electron microscopy to monitor nanofibre/cell interaction in digestive epithelial cells.
• Modeling energy expenditure in children and adolescents using quantile regression.
• Establishing a standard definition for child overweight and obesity worldwide: international survey.
• Animals in research: Zebrafish.

Gut Microbiota

• Composition of dietary fat source shapes gut microbiota architecture and alters host inflammatory mediators in mouse adipose tissue.
• Differences in gut microbiota composition between obese and lean children: a cross-sectional study.

Genetics

• Genome-wide meta-analysis of observational studies shows common genetic variants associated with macronutrient intake.
• FTO predicts weight regain in the Look AHEAD clinical trial.
• Genome-wide association of single-nucleotide polymorphisms with weight loss outcomes after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery.

General Science

• Group heterogeneity increases the risks of large group size: A longitudinal study of productivity in research groups.
• Research team developing system that could diagnose a disease simply by patients blowing into a device.
• Incidental exposure to no-smoking signs ironically boosts cigarette-approach tendencies in smokers.
• COPE's new Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers: background, issues, and evolution.
• NIH Details Impact of 2013 Sequester Cuts.
• How to stop Excel errors driving austerity economics.
• Careful: Your big data analytics may be polluted by data scientist bias.

Food

• Vegetables containing phytochemicals with potential anti-obesity properties: A review.
• Mouse strain-dependent variation in obesity and glucose homeostasis in response to high-fat feeding.
• RCT: Consumption of low-fat dairy foods for 6 months improves insulin resistance without adversely affecting lipids or bodyweight in healthy adults.
• Control of protein and energy intake - brain mechanisms.
• RCT: Preordering school lunch encourages better food choices by children.
• RCT: Oatmeal shows satiety advantages over cereal in study.
• High-fat, low-carbohydrate diet alters myocardial oxidative stress and impairs recovery of cardiac function after ischemia and reperfusion in obese rats.
• RCT: Effect of Lactobacillus gasseri SBT2055 in fermented milk on abdominal adiposity in adults.
• Paleolithic diet is associated with unfavorable changes to blood lipids in healthy subjects.
• The interactions of dietary tomato powder and soy germ on prostate carcinogenesis in the TRAMP model.

Exercise

• Exercise and caloric restriction modulate resident immune cells in adipose tissues differently in spite of an equivalent body weight reduction.
• Physical activity and physical activity induced energy expenditure in humans: measurement, determinants, and effects.
• RCT: Moderate-intensity high-volume aerobic exercise produces greater improvements in sexual function, testosterone, and fat mass than smaller exercise volume.
• More rigorous workplace physical activity studies produce weaker results: a systematic review.
• RCT: Being active between mental work and a meal may create a negative energy balance following mental work.
• RCT: Only combined aerobic and resistance training reduced body fat in older men.
• RCT: In PE classes, a mastery approach, which allows children to drive their own physical activity, elicits more time spent in MVPA.
• Listening to music during exercise increase the metabolic efficiency by improvement of perceived exertion rate and increased anaerobic threshold.
• Educating the Student Body: Taking physical activity and physical education to school - Report Release Meeting May 32, 2013.

Epidemiology

• The associations of perceived neighborhood disorder and physical activity with obesity among African American adolescents.
• Population-adjusted street connectivity, urbanicity and risk of obesity in the U.S. 
• The geographic concentration of U.S adult obesity prevalence and associated social, economic, and environmental factors.

Evolution, Ecology, & Energetics

• The lifespan-reproduction trade-off under dietary restriction is sex-specific and context-dependent.  
• Basal metabolic rate can evolve independently of morphological and behavioural traits.
• Costs of colour change in fish: food intake and behavioural decisions.
• The effect of hydration state and energy balance on innate immunity of a desert reptile.

Drugs

• Efficacy and safety of lorcaserin in obese adults: A meta-analysis of 1-year randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and narrative review on short-term RCTs.  
• Association of long-term treatment of hypogonadal men with testosterone with sustained weight loss.
• US patent for vaccine treatment of obesity is awarded.
• Clinical utility of phentermine/topiramate (Qsymia™) combination for the treatment of obesity.

Commentary

• Ascent to altitude as a weight loss method: The good and bad of hypoxia inducible factor activation.
• Standards and classification: A perspective on the 'obesity epidemic'.
• Energy efficiency as a unifying principle for human, environmental, and global health.
• Articulating Fatness: Obesity and the Scientific Tautologies of Bodily Accumulation in Neoliberal Times.
• Wishful thinking about food deserts.
• Can a weight loss of one pound a week be achieved with a 3500-kcal deficit? Commentary on a commonly accepted rule.
• Obesity treatment paradigms should target those at risk for diabetes.

Clinical

• Parent-only vs. parent-child (family-focused) approaches for weight loss in obese and overweight children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• RCT: Stress management can facilitate weight loss in Greek overweight and obese women.
• RCT: Executive function training with game elements for obese children.
• In Trials, weight loss is associated with an increase in both bound and unbound testosterone levels.
• Packaged diet foods may spur more weight loss.
• The internal circadian clock increases hunger and appetite in the evening independent of food intake and other behaviors.

Body Composition

• Of mice, rats and men: Trabecular bone architecture in mammals scales to body mass with negative allometry.
• Getting to the height of the matter: the relationship between stature and adiposity in pre-pubertal children.
• Evidence for two types of brown adipose tissue in humans.

Basic

• Cloning of the heart fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) gene and its tissue-specific expression profile in the Lanzhou fat-tailed sheep, Ovis aries.
• Extract of Cinnamomum cassia twigs inhibits adipocyte differentiation via activation of the insulin signaling pathway in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes.
• Role of circadian clock gene expression in metabolic adaptation upon switching from high to low carb diets with replacement by fat.
• Evidence for transgenerational metabolic programming in Drosophila.
• Exposure to light at night increase weight and accelerates aging and carcinogenesis in female 129/Sv mice.
• Metabolic regulation of brain response to food cues.
• Developmental origins of a novel gut morphology in frogs.

Announcements

• 3rd Short Course on Statistical Genetics and Genomics.
• IOM Webcast and Meeting: Creating Equal Opportunities for a Healthy Weight - A Workshop - June 6-7, 2013.
• IOM Weight of the Nation for Kids airs Tuesday, May 7, beginning at 5:30 pm ET/PT.
• Using mice in research: Everything not in the literature - Jackson Laboratory webinar May 16, 2013.
• Q&A with the USDA –Webinar July 9, 2013.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Empirical evidence does not support an association between less ambitious pre-treatment goals and better treatment outcomes: a meta-analysis
• RCT: a brief lifestyle intervention delivered by generalist community nurses increased advice and referral for diet or physical activity and readiness for change in physical activity but not weight loss.
• RCT: No effect of reducing the n-6/n-3 fatty acid ratio on the maternal and fetal leptin axis in relation to infant body composition.
• Calorie restriction does not increase short-term or long-term protein synthesis.
• RCT: A high-fibre bean-rich diet was as effective as a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, although only the bean-rich diet lowered atherogenic lipids.

Surgery

• Weight loss is associated with improved sexual function after bariatric surgery
• Impact of Excess Skin from Massive Weight Loss on the Practice of Physical Activity in Women

Stigma

• Exploring the relationship between stigma experience and exercise behaviour in young Scottish adults.
• Big fat inequalities, thin privilege: An intersectional perspective on 'body size'.
• Physicians build less rapport with obese patients
• No Clear Winner: Effects of The Biggest Loser on the Stigmatization of Obese Persons
• Obesity, Bias, and Bedrock.
• Are Doctors Nicer to Thinner Patients?

Pregnancy

• Pre-Pregnancy Body Mass Index in Relation to Infant Birth Weight and Offspring Overweight/Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
• Increased maternal nutrition alters development of the appetite-regulating network in the brain

Policy

• Publication bias in calorie-income elasticities revealed by meta-analysis.
• RCT: What types of nutrition menu labelling lead consumers to select less energy-dense fast food?
• RCT: The effect of calorie information disclosure depends on perceived healthfulness of the restaurant.

Methods

• Drosophila as a Model to Study Metabolic Disorders.
• The Effect of Height on Body Weight Estimation by the Photo in Internet Users and Experts.
• The Carbon Isotope Ratio of Alanine in Red Blood Cells Is a New Candidate Biomarker of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake.
• A Novel Carbon Isotope Biomarker for Dietary Sugar.
• Time trends and forecasts of body mass index from repeated cross-sectional data: A different approach.
• Prevalent BMI group misallocation in studies of BMI-based prognosis in critically ill patients
• Turning the analysis of obesity-mortality associations upside down: Modeling years of life lost through conditional distributions

Leptin

• Racial differences in adiponectin and leptin in healthy premenopausal women
• Dietary Components in the Development of Leptin Resistance.
• Ablation of Ghrelin O-Acyltransferase Does Not Improve Glucose Intolerance or Body Adiposity in Mice on a Leptin-Deficient ob/ob Background.
• Roles for Central Leptin Receptors in the Control of Meal Size.

General Science

• Opting-in: Participation bias in economic experiments.
• Perceptions of the size of an object depend on how it is desired.
• Funding Source Doesn't Affect Cancer Trial Reports
• For sand tiger sharks, a deadly, cannibalistic battle inside the womb is part of evolution
• Oxidative damage increases with reproductive energy expenditure and is reduced by food-supplementation
• Delaying gratification is not always the rational choice.

Food

• RCT: The Effects of Carbohydrate, Unsaturated Fat, and Protein Intake on Measures of Insulin Sensitivity.
• Does intake of sugarless carbonated water at physical activity cause type 2 diabetes?

Exercise

• Exercise associated with improved accuracy of compensation for previous EI, independent of weight loss.
• The relationship between aging expectations and various modes of physical activity among aging adults.

Economics

• The long-term returns of obesity prevention policies
• Denmark to scrap decades-old soft drink tax

Communication

• Researchers urge retailers not to mislead on health risks.
• A model retraction in the Journal of Neurochemistry for “unexpected effect” of a filter
• It’s time for AllTrials registered and reported
• Guidelines for Communicating the Emerging Science of Dietary Components for Health
• Heavy: Uneasy Lies the Fat that Wears a Crown.

Clinical

• RCT: Naltrexone reduction of long-term smoking cessation weight gain in women but not men.
• RCT: Alternate day fasting increases LDL particle size independently of dietary fat content in obese humans.
• AACE Comprehensive Diabetes Management Algorithm 2013
• Overweight, obesity and risk of premenopausal breast cancer according to ethnicity: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus and pancreatic cancer.

Behavioral

• Characteristics of Screen Media Use Associated With Higher BMI in Young Adolescents
• Assessing the Online Social Environment (Facebook) for Surveillance of Obesity Prevalence
• The family meal panacea: exploring how different aspects of family meal occurrence, meal habits and meal enjoyment relate to young children’s diets
• Risk of completed suicide after bariatric surgery: A systematic review
• Stress, not Doughnuts, Explains Police Obesity Risk
• Delaying gratification is not always the rational choice
• Consumer Understanding of Calorie Amounts and Serving Size: Implications for Nutritional Labelling

Basic

• Study: Cat obesity ballooning
• Methane and Hydrogen Positivity on Breath Test Is Associated With Greater Body Mass Index and Body Fat
• A Surgical Model in Male Obese Rats Uncovers Protective Effects of Bile Acids Post-Bariatric Surgery
• Mild-mannered flies turn cannibal when short of food
• Effects of a single bout of walking exercise on blood coagulation parameters in obese women
• Resistance to aerobic exercise training in rats causes metabolic dysfunction and reveals novel exercise-regulated signaling networks
• Evidence for two types of brown adipose tissue in humans
• Fat provisioning in winter impairs egg production during the following spring: A landscape-scale study of Cyanistes caeruleus.
• In vitro indeterminate teleost myogenesis appears to be dependent on Pax3.

Video

• Steven Smith: "Unraveling the Molecular Origins of Body Fat Distribution"
• Lora Burke: "The Integration of mHealth in a Program of Behavior Change Research"

Announcements

• The Food Forum Workshop on Sustainable Diets: Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet
• Conference: Enhancing the Public Health Nutrition Workforce: Strategies to Promote Healthy Diets and Physically Active Lifestyles
• U.S. Lawmaker Proposes New Criteria for Choosing NSF Grants
• 1^st Annual Workshop on Metabolomics
• The Obesity Society (TOS) Guidelines for Accepting Funds from External Sources