Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Trapping the dynamic acyl carrier protein in fatty acid biosynthesis.
• A modeling approach for compounds affecting body composition.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Candy consumption in childhood is not predictive of weight, adiposity measures or cardiovascular risk factors in young adults: the Bogalusa Heart Study.
• RCT: Slower eating speed lowers energy intake in normal-weight but not overweight/obese subjects.
• RCT: No significant effect of physical activity mentors to increase the daily steps of older adults in the primary care setting: a pilot study.
• Meta-analysis: The evidence from RCTs does not convincingly show that pyruvate is efficacious in reducing body weight.
• RCT: By 8 months, no significant effect of a culturally tailored cable television delivered weight control program for Black women on BMI.
• RCT: Intervention showed no significant effect on child step counts per minute despite increasing time that staff delivered structured activity.
• RCT: No significant difference between the groups in physical activity after lifestyle intervention in general practice for elderly.
• RCT: In study exploring changes in physical activity, sedentary behaviors and hypothesized mediators in girls, there were significant between group erences in favor of the intervention group for self-reported but not objective sedentary behavior and no group-by-time effects for any of the physical activity outcomes or hypothesized mediators.
• RCT: A weight-loss intervention that focuses on daily self-weighing does not cause adverse psychological outcomes.
• Quercetin caused no significant reduction in body weight or adipose tissue sizes in rats.

Basic

• Integrated phenotypic and activity-based profiling links Ces3 to obesity and diabetes.
• Interleukin-17–producing innate lymphoid cells and the NLRP3 inflammasome facilitate obesity-associated airway hyperreactivity among mice.
• Ampicillin-Improved Glucose Tolerance in Diet-Induced Obese C57BL/6NTac Mice Is Age Dependent.
• Study's findings among mice suggest that oral peptide-YY signaling can affect taste-related behavior towards lipids.

Stigma

• Bias against obese persons among medical students.
• “Balancing the Scales” Theatre Workshop Trains Professionals in Obesity Sensitivity.
• Video: Student takes on prejudice against overweight people.

Interpreting Funding Associations

• Systematic review of financial conflicts of interest and conclusions regarding the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain finds association -  editorial notes “A major limitation of this study is that it cannot assess which interpretation of the available evidence is truly accurate”.
• Do Financial Conflicts of Interest Bias Research? Author argues that scientists should not suspend their skepticism and choose as a default hypothesis that bias is the cause.
• Effect of funding source on publication bias is not so clear cut.

Caloric Restriction

• Anthropometric, Hemodynamic, Metabolic, and Renal Responses during 5 Days of Food and Water Deprivation.
• Therapeutic fasting in patients with metabolic syndrome and impaired insulin resistance.
• Fasting therapy - old and new perspectives.
• Caloric restriction, caloric restriction mimetics, and healthy aging in Okinawa: controversies and clinical implications.
• Identifying evolutionarily conserved genes in the dietary restriction response using bioinformatics and subsequent testing in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Food

• RCT: Diets naturally rich in polyphenols improve fasting and postprandial dyslipidemia and reduce oxidative stress.
• RCT: The effects of weight loss and salt reduction on visit-to-visit blood pressure variability.
• Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: dietary Fatty acids for healthy adults.
• Nutritional Value of Meals at Full-service Restaurant Chains.
• Does modifying the thick texture and creamy flavor of a drink change portion size selection and intake?
• A systematic review of experimental studies show consistent evidence that norms influence food choices.

Drugs

• RCT: Comparing the GLP-1 receptor agonist liraglutide to a sulphonylurea as add on to metformin in patients with established type 2 diabetes during Ramadan.
• Dental considerations for patients taking weight-loss medications.
• Adiponectin signaling and metabolic syndrome.
• Restricted access to standard or high fat chow alters sensitivity of rats to the 5-HT2A/2C receptor agonist 1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylphenyl)-2-aminopropane.
• The year ahead for six new obesity treatments.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Multiple paternity in wild house mice (Mus musculus musculus): effects on offspring genetic diversity and body mass.
• Energetics of the acrobatic courtship in male golden-collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus).
• Plant DNA is challenging preconceptions about the evolution of life, including the human species.

Epidemiology

• Misreporting and misclassification: implications for socioeconomic disparities in BMI and obesity.
• School year versus summer differences in child weight gain: A narrative review.

Exercise

• Meta-analysis: Exercise is efficacious for reducing percent body fat in overweight and obese children and adolescents. Insufficient evidence exists to suggest that exercise reduces other measures of adiposity.
• RCT: Nutrition education added to internet-based information and exercise at the work place for weight loss in a racially diverse population of overweight women.
• Colorado stride (COSTRIDE): testing genetic and physiological moderators of response to an intervention to increase physical activity.
• RCT: An eight month exercise intervention alters resting state synchrony in overweight children.

Ghrelin

• Ghrelin levels after a cold pressor stress test in obese women with binge eating disorder.
• Ghrelin receptor regulates high fructose corn syrup-induced adipose inflammation and insulin resistance in mice.

Clinical

• RCT: Steps ahead trial to reduce unhealthy weight gain in the lower Mississippi Delta.
• RCT: A text messaging-assisted lifestyle weight loss trial among overweight adults in Beijing.
• RCT: Self-Efficacy, Quality of Life, and Weight Loss in Overweight/Obese Endometrial Cancer Survivors (SUCCEED): A Randomized Controlled Trial.
• RCT: Findings from a study of 70 women suggest that supplementing dietary caraway extract may be beneficial for obesity management and weight loss.
• RCT: Study findings suggest no difference in postprandial thrombotic risk profiles between participants on a low-fat diet and a diet high in monounsaturated fatty acids.
• Association of displaying traffic-light nutritional labels in a university cafeteria on students’ food choice.

Policy

• CMS coverage for obesity management.
• American Diabetes Association releases 2014 Standards of Medical Care.

Socioeconomic

• Economic development, urbanisation, technological change and overweight: what do we learn from 244 demographic and health surveys.
• Econometric analysis suggests that there is no causal relationship between credit card debt and obesity for either men or women; but suggestive evidence regarding trouble paying bills among women.
• Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Study: Environmental effects on obesity.

Surgery and Devices

• The Acute Effects of a New Type of Implantable Gastric Electrical Stimulators Featuring Varied Pulse Widths on Beagle Dogs' Food Intake and Gastric Accommodation.
• Findings from longitudinal investigation of weight loss trajectories among bariatric surgery patients that were severely obese suggest that though there was substantial weight loss among participants, the improvement in other cardiometabolic outcomes varied.

Methods

• Accelerometer data reduction in adolescents: effects on sample retention and bias.
• Mortality risk of obesity and underweight is overestimated with self-reported BMI.
• Association of run-in periods with weight loss in obesity randomized controlled trials.
• Study investigates the utility of small area estimation techniques to monitor obesity prevalence and dietary patterns in developing.

Transgenerational Effects

• Role of prenatal undernutrition in the expression of serotonin, dopamine and leptin receptors in adult mice: Implications of food intake.
• Epidemiological findings suggest that birthweight is a partial mediator of the associations between parental diabetes and participants’ type 2 diabetes.

Chronobiology

• Variants of circadian-related genes affect energy expenditure.
• Body weight gain in rats fed a high-fat diet produces chronodisruption in activity/inactivity circadian rhythm.

Commentary

• Adherence to diets for weight loss.
• Adherence to diets for weight loss—Reply.
• Diabesity: Palliating, curing or preventing the dysmetabolic diathesis.
• Obesity, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and chronic periodontitis: a shared pathology via oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction?
• Multivitamins Revisited, Again: Mission, Methods and Muddled Messages.
• The difference between being big and having obesity.
• The Future of Fat.

General

• Sex-trapolation in the Latest Brain Science.
• Microbiota modulate behavioral and physiological abnormalities associated with neurodevelopmental disorders among mice.
• Findings from GWAS analysis among Mexican and Latin American individuals identifies SLC16A11 as a novel candidate gene for type 2 diabetes with a possible role in triacylglycerol metabolism.
• To lay groundwork for future medicine, South China researchers isolate a fluorescent protein in jellyfish DNA and inject it into pig embryos to engineer piglets that glow under black lights.
• The next frontier for 3D printing: human organs.
• Archaeologists discover that ancient villagers cultivated vineyards in Spain.

Announcements

• Obesity Action Coalition welcomes new board members and chair Ted Kyle.

Featured

• Offspring pay sooner, parents pay later: experimental manipulation of body mass reveals trade-offs between immune function, reproduction and survival.

Defies Categorization

• Dissertation in which fat from the human body is transformed into jewelry.

Contrary

• RCT: No significant effect egg inclusion in breakfast on body weight regulation and blood lipids in university students over a 14-week semester.
• Six months of treatment with the endoscopic duodenal-jejunal bypass liner does not lead to decreased systemic inflammation in obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• RCT: A weight-loss intervention focused on daily self-weighing does not cause adverse psychological outcomes.
• RCT: No significant effects of low glycemic index compared with conventional dietary advice on selected pregnancy outcomes.

Basic

• Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein is released from adipocytes by a non-conventional mechanism.
• Scientists Use Screening Strategy To Identify Compound With Promise For Obesity-linked Diabetes.
• Diet affects metabolism by disrupting body's circadian rhythms.
• HIF-2: The missing link between obesity and cardiomyopathy.
• Opposite effects of a high-fat diet and calorie restriction on ciliary neurotrophic factor signalling in the mouse hypothalamus.
• Short-term calorie restriction feminizes the mRNA profiles of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters in livers of mice.
• Resveratrol and food effects on lifespan and reproduction in the model crustacean Daphnia.
• Ex vivo microperfusion system of the adipose organ: A new approach to studying the mobilization of adipose cell populations.
• Rapamycin-mediated lifespan increase in mice is dose and sex-dependent and appears metabolically distinct from dietary restriction.

Macrophages

• Local proliferation of macrophages in adipose tissue during obesity-induced inflammation.
• An altered macrophage migration in adipose tissue of Integrin Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) deficient mice.

Brown Fat

• Brown adipose tissue dynamics in wild-type and UCP1-knockout mice: in vivo insights with magnetic resonance.
• Early overfeed-induced obesity leads to brown adipose tissue hypoactivity in rats.

UCPs and thermoregulation

• The role of uncoupling proteins in thermoregulation, oxidative stress, obesity and diabetes.
• Human white adipocytes express the cold receptor TRPM8 which activation induces UCP1 expression, mitochondrial activation and heat production.

Energy Balance

• Interaction between immune and energy-balance signals in the regulation of feeding and metabolism.
• Altered regulation of energy homeostasis in older rats in response to thyroid hormone administration.
• The role of peptide YY in energy homeostasis.
• Variants in glucose- and circadian rhythm–related genes affect the response of energy expenditure to weight-loss diets.

Clinical

• Evaluating eating behavior treatments by FDA standards.
• Black Women Lose Less Weight Than White Women on Same Diet.
• RCT: Ear acupuncture for the treatment of overweight people.
• RCT: Weight gain prevention in the school worksite setting.
• UAB Examines Link between Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiovascular Risk in Guatemalan Children.
• Weight Loss Apps: To what extent are they grounded in behavior change theory?
• Weight-Loss Maintenance for 10 Years in the National Weight Control Registry.

Drugs

• Rosiglitazone reduces body wasting and improves survival in a rat model of cancer cachexia.
• Novo Nordisk Files for Liraglutide Approval from FDA, EMA.
• Systematic Review of the Benefits and Risks of Metformin in Treating Obesity in Children Aged 18 Years and Younger.

Surgery

• The effectiveness and risks of bariatric surgery: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis.

Commentary

• Too late to challenge the modern obesity epidemic?
• By using inaccurate criteria, the CDC comes to the incorrect conclusion that Asian Americans have a significantly lower rate of obesity than other ethnic groups.
• Government action to tackle obesity.
• The Emergence of an EU Lifestyle Policy - The Case of Alcohol, Tobacco and Unhealthy Diets.
• Saturated fat in cardiovascular disease and obesity: Friend or foe?
• Creatures of coherence: Why we're so obsessed with causation.
• Healthy Obesity: An oxymoron?
• It's time to make healthier food choices cheaper.
• The Brave New World of Academic Censorship.

Discussion on Replication of Research

• Reproducibility: The risks of the replication drive.
• Replication backlash.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• "Social" bacteria that work together to hunt for food and survive under harsh conditions.
• Oxidative stress as a cost of reproduction: Beyond the simplistic trade-off model.
• Effects of the February 2012 cold spell on terrestrial birds wintering in France.
• Fat accumulation and autumn migration strategy of Reed Warblers Acrocephalus scirpaceus and Sedge Warblers A. schoenobaenus in southern Sweden.
• Phenology of hibernation and reproduction in ground squirrels: integration of environmental cues with endogenous programming.
• Effect of body mass on hibernation strategies of woodchucks (Marmota monax).
• Revisiting the estimation of dinosaur growth rates.

Bone

• Negative influence of a long-term high-fat diet on murine bone architecture.
• Obesity Associated with Bone And Muscle Loss In Men, Study.
• Excess body fat negatively associated with bone mass in adolescents.

Exercise

• The effect of aerobic training and following detraining on renal function markers in obese girls.
• Skeletal muscle as a mechanism for peripheral regulation of voluntary physical activity.
• Near-realistic mobile exergames with wireless wearable sensors.
• Impact of different training modalities on anthropometric and metabolic characteristics in overweight/obese subjects: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.
• Effectiveness and feasibility of virtual reality and gaming system use at home by older adults for enabling physical activity to improve health-related domains: a systematic review.
• Dose-response relationship of physical activity to premature and total all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in walkers.

Food

• The association of fast food consumption with poor dietary outcomes and obesity among children: is it the fast food or the remainder of the diet?
• A calorie is a calorie? Compared with stearic acid, palmitic acid increased feed efficiency in cows.
• Impaired glucose tolerance in low-carbohydrate diet: maybe only physiological state.
• Review: Non-nutritive sweeteners: evidence for benefit vs. risk.
• Gut reaction: Zero-calorie sweeteners produce same response as water.
• Reprogramming of the circadian clock by nutritional challenge.

Food Preferences

• Climate effects on food preferences by spring migrating Pink-footed geese (Anser brachyryhnchus).
• Stressed mice alter caloric preference for carbohydrate rich diets: the role of ghrelin during stress.
• Eating on impulse: The relation between overweight and food-specific inhibitory control.
• Dopaminergic reward system in the development of food preferences, obesity and addictive behaviors.

Methods

• Dietary assessment in food environment research: A systematic review.
• Validity of the methods to assess body fat in children and adolescents using multi-compartment models as the reference method: a systematic review.
• Monitoring the Obesity Epidemic into the 21st Century - Weighing the Evidence.

Ethics

• Risk, harm and intervention: the case of child obesity.
• The influence of plaintiff's body weight on judgments of responsibility: The role of weight bias.
• Journalism is never perfect: The politics of story corrections and retractions.

Policy

• Childhood obesity policy research and practice: Evidence for policy and environmental strategies.
• Taxing sugar sweetened beverages to improve public health: Policy action in Hawai‘i.

Psychology

• Comparing decision-making in average and overweight children and adolescents.
• The role of overweight perception and depressive symptoms in child and adolescent unhealthy weight control behaviors: A mediation model.
• Portion size me: Plate-size induced consumption norms and win-win solutions for reducing food intake and waste.

Announcements

• Symposium: Metabolic Origins of Disease, March 3-5, 2014, Orlando, Florida.
• New Book: Controversies in Obesity.

Featured

• Comparative effectiveness of exercise and drug interventions on mortality outcomes: metaepidemiological study.
• Parallel, Redundant Circuit Organization for Homeostatic Control of Feeding Behavior.
• RCT: 12 week trial of the Curves Complete 90-day Challenge, Weight Watchers Points Plus, Jenny Craig, or Nutrisystem Advance Select weight loss programs.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Common Beliefs

• RCT: Moderate replacement of carbohydrates by dietary fats did not cause statistically different changes in fasting plasma glucose, insulin, or atherogenic dyslipidemia among individuals with the metabolic syndrome.
• RCT: No significant effect of Antibacterial Mouthwash on Basal Metabolic Rate in Humans.
• RCT: No association of the rs6923761 GLP-1R polymorphism with weight loss after two different hypocaloric diets.
• No demonstrable association of bariatric surgery on weight development in offspring.
• Typical Gum Disease Treatments Won’t Help Ease Diabetes, Study Finds.
• Maternal High Fat Feeding Does Not Have Long-Lasting Effects on Body Composition and Bone Health in Female and Male Wistar Rat Offspring at Young Adulthood.
• There is little evidence that teachers’ judgements of pupils’ ability are influenced by obesity.
• RCT: No significant effect of a program to reduce sugar use in schools.
• RCT: No effect of massage therapy on weight gain in premature neonates.

Basic Science

• Effects of short chain fatty acid producing bacteria on epigenetic regulation of FFAR3 in type 2 diabetes and obesity.
• Resveratrol and Piceid Metabolites and Their Fat-Reduction Effects in Zebrafish Larvae.
• Identification of Sphingolipid Metabolites That Induce Obesity via Misregulation of Appetite, Caloric Intake and Fat Storage in Drosophila.
• Weight cycling promotes fat gain and altered clock gene expression in adipose tissue in C57BL/6J mice.
• Nutrigenomics of High Fat Diet Induced Obesity in Mice Suggests Relationships between Susceptibility to Fatty Liver Disease and the Proteasome.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Intrinsic circannual regulation of brown adipose tissue form and function in tune with hibernation.
• Estimating body mass of fossil rodents.
• Ingestion of fat tissue from wolf prey species and its influence on fatty-acid composition in sled dogs.
• To Learn About Obesity, Researchers Turn to Grizzly Bears.

Food

• Review: Novel insights of dietary polyphenols and obesity.
• Are Nuts a Weight-Loss Aid?
• Meta-analysis: Significant inverse association between dairy and risk of type 2 diabetes.
• Eating Healthy Is Cheaper Than You Think.
• Meta-analysis of RCTs: Ursodeoxycholic Acid and High-fat Diets Prevent Gallbladder Stones During Weight Loss.

Exercise

• RCT: Adaptive Physical Activity Intervention for Overweight Adults.
• RCT: Exercise counteracts the effects of short-term overfeeding and reduced physical activity in healthy young men.
• RCT: Four weeks of normobaric hypoxic exercise training caused more weight loss than normoxic training.
• Disrupted ion channel activity increases energy consumption during low-intensity exercise.
• Meta-Analysis: Exercise and drug interventions are similar in mortality outcomes.
• Testing the utility of three social-cognitive models for predicting objective and self-report physical activity in adults with type 2 diabetes.

Transgenerational Effects

• In mice: Maternal high-fat diet induces hyperproliferation and alters Pten/Akt signaling in prostates of offspring.
• DNA Methylation in Oocytes and Liver of Female Mice and Their Offspring: Effects of High-Fat-Diet–Induced Obesity.
• Meta-analysis: Gestational weight gain is associated with offspring obesity.
• Obese women had an increased risk for giving birth to an infant with Down syndrome compared to normal weight women.

Epidemiology

• First drop in obesity prevalence among final year primary school children in England.
• Trauma, Obesity, and Ghrelin.
• Synergistic effect of LEP and LEPR gene polymorphism on BMI in a Chinese population.

Clinical

• Non-linear mixed effect models for the relationship between fasting plasma glucose and weight loss.
• Review: Long-term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?
• Review Finds Weight-Loss Surgery Safe and Effective.
• RCT: The acute metabolic responses to Fastin-RR®, a commercial weight loss/energy product, in overweight and obese individuals.
• Adenovirus-36 seropositivity and its relation with obesity and metabolic profile in children.

Drugs

• Review: Targeting the intestinal L-cell for obesity and type 2 diabetes treatment.
• Anti-obesity activity of hen egg anti-lipase immunoglobulin yolk, a novel pancreatic lipase inhibitor.
• RCT: No significant effects of nicotine patch on weight gain in postmenopausal women during smoking cessation.
• The first year of antipsychotic treatment is a critical period for weight gain and metabolic changes.
• A mitochondrial targeted antioxidant (MnTBAP) patented for treatment of obesity.
• RCT: Liraglutide-augmented weight loss stimulated beta cell function independent of weight loss.

Policy Related

• 'Fat taxes' in Europe - A Legal and Policy Analysis under EU and WTO Law.
• FDA is trying to look at medical obesity devices through a patient’s eyes.
• Nordic Nutrition Recommendations.
• FDA to Extend Comment Period on Measure to Further Reduce Trans Fat in Processed Foods.

Caloric Restriction

• Body mass, energy budget and leptin of mice under stochastic food restriction and refeeding.
• Reduced Insulin/Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Signaling and Dietary Restriction Inhibit Translation but Preserve Muscle Mass in Caenorhabditis elegans.
• Leucine improves protein nutritional status and regulates hepatic lipid metabolism in calorie-restricted rats.

Brown Fat

• Review: Modulation of Adipose Tissue Thermogenesis as a Method for Increasing Energy Expenditure.
• Enhancement of brown fat thermogenesis using chenodeoxycholic acid in mice.

Methods

• A method for estimating visceral fat from the elasticity of lumbar subcutaneous fat.
• An electronic system (PDA) to record dietary and physical activity in obese adolescents; data about efficiency and feasibility.
• Terminology of Study Completion in Weight Loss Treatment in Obese Adults.
• Isolation of adipose-derived stem cells: a comparison among different methods.
• Liver fat quantification using a multi-step adaptive fitting approach with multi-echo GRE imaging.
• A Mobile Food Intake Monitoring System based on Breathing Signal Analysis.
• How to use published complete case results from weight loss studies in a missing data sensitivity analysis.

Stigma

• Thin or Overweight Women's Fat Talk: Which Is Worse for Other Women's Body Satisfaction?
• Fat Talk and Body Dissatisfaction Among College Dancers.

Evidence-based medicine

• Lack of evidence for clinical and health policy decisions.
• Following celebrities’ medical advice: meta-narrative analysis.
• AHRQ report: Lack of comparative evidence to inform communication and dissemination of evidence-based and uncertain practices.

Commentary

• Why it’s time, author says, for journalism to raise its intellectual standards.
• Fat vs. Sugar: Which Do We Crave More?
• Video: Barry Bogin on “Impact of Globalization on Children's Nutrition.”
• Feeding Homo sapiens: Are We Truly As Clueless As We Seem?
• Too early to proclaim the end of the war on childhood obesity.

General Science

• The mesenchymal stem cells of whales and mice are alike, in both morphology and size.
• Nature's 2013: the year in science.
• Biomedical research: Believe it or not?
• JAMA Publishes New Hypertension Guidelines - Committee Chaired by UAB's Suzanne Oparil.
• Supplements - Systematic Review: Two trials found a small, borderline-significant benefit from multivitamin supplements on cancer in men only and no effect on CVD.
• Supplements - RCT: In male physicians aged 65 years or older, long-term use of a daily multivitamin did not provide cognitive benefits.
• Supplements - RCT: Oral High-Dose Multivitamins and Minerals After Myocardial Infarction.
• DNA of Storied Plant Provides Insight into the Evolution of Flowering Plants.

Announcements

• IOM Roundtable on Obesity Solutions.

Featured

• A heart–adipose tissue connection in the regulation of energy metabolism.
• Focusing on the satiety effect of a meal as the unit of analysis for human feeding behavior may be too myopic - we must view the control of energy intake over longer periods of time.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Common Beliefs

• No association between neighborhood built environment or change in built environment and BMI.
• RCT: No significant effect of assignment to different protein to carbohydrate ratios on weight loss.
• RCT: No effect of a school environment intervention on adolescent adiposity and physical fitness.
• Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa in 8-11 year old children.

Headline versus Study

• Headline: You are what your father eats.
• Study: Low paternal dietary folate alters the mouse sperm epigenome and is associated with negative pregnancy outcomes.

Basic Science

• Functional collaboration of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Receptor (IGF-1R), but not insulin receptor (IR), with acute GH signaling in mouse calvarial cells.
• Irisin, a novel myokine: potential role in obesity and diabetes.
• Oncostatin M Is Produced in Adipose Tissue and Is Regulated in Conditions of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.
• Macrophages, fat, and the emergence of immunometabolism.
• Obesity and breast cancer: role of inflammation and aromatase.

Video

• Christopher Kuzawa - Epigenetic, developmental and intergenerational influences on US cardiovascular health disparities.
• Philipp Gut – “A whole-organism approach to study metabolic networks.”
• Understanding Risk: A Primer for Journalists.
• What if blaming the obese is blaming the victim?

Sugar & Sweeteners

• European Food Safety Authority concludes aspartame safe at current levels of exposure.
• The reward value of sucrose in leptin deficient obese mice.
• Sugar-containing drinks. Why do men compensate more than women?
• RCT: Repeated consumption of a non-caloric sweetened beverage, instead of a sugar sweetened version, appears not to result in changes in the reward value.
• RCT: Artificial sweeteners (sucralose and AceK) have no effect on gastric emptying, glucagon-like Peptide-1, or glycemia after oral glucose in healthy humans.

Sleep

• RCT: Sleep deprivation increases plasma levels of ghrelin and food intake.
• RCT: Restricting night-time eating reduces daily energy intake in healthy young men.

Psychology

• Help Me Get Fat! Feederism as Communal Deviance on the Internet.
• Humans are not fooled by size illusions in attractiveness judgements.
• Perceived weight in youths and risk of overweight or obesity six years later.
• Review: Friendship networks and physical activity and sedentary behavior among youth.
• Correlates of daily leisure-time physical activity in a community sample: Narrow personality traits and practical barriers.
• Metabolic signals and food intake. Forty years of progress.
• Trajectory of Suicidal Ideation in Relation to Perceived Overweight From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.
• The hypothalamus and metabolism: integrating signals to control energy and glucose homeostasis.

Policy Related

• Greater obesity severity is associated with less obesity-related policymaking.
• RCT: Healthy, anti-obesity, and mixed food advertising reduced intakes of total calories, fat, sodium, and carbohydrates and increased selection of more healthy items and fewer unhealthy items from a menu.
• Commentary: Is a tax on sugary drinks too bitter to swallow?
• RCT: Especially when hungry, participants choose a French fry side dish presented as the default more often.
• Regarding food taxes, “Do We Know What We Do not Know? A Response to Celine Bonnet.”
• Is overweight and class I obesity associated with increased health claims costs?

Methods

• Using freedom of information requests to elicit data about looked after children's involvement in physical activity.
• How many days of accelerometer monitoring predict weekly physical activity behaviour in obese youth?
• Vibration platform for mice to deliver precise, low intensity mechanical signals to the musculoskeleton.
• Bias in Recording of BMI Data in the Electronic Health Record.
• Overadjustment in Regression Analyses: Considerations When Evaluating Relationships Between BMI, Muscle Strength, & Body Size.
• Volumetric differences in body shape among adults with differing BMI values.
• A comparison of the Slaughter skinfold-thickness equations and BMI in predicting fatness and CVD risk factor levels in children.
• Predictors of validity and reliability of a physical activity record in adolescents.
• How evidence-based medicine biases physicians against nutrition.

Mathematical

• An Actor-Based Model of Social Network Influence on Adolescent Body Size, Screen Time, and Playing Sports.
• Effects of Body Surface Area-Indexed Calculations in the Morbidly Obese: A Mathematical Analysis.

Carbohydrates

• Effects of low carb diets on energy and nitrogen balance and body composition in rats depend on the dietary protein/energy ratio.
• Effects of low-carbohydrate high-fat diets on apparent digestibility of minerals and trace elements in rats.
• Review: Greater short term weight loss among obese individuals on low carb vs low fat diet, no differences in long term effect.

Food

• Organic Production Enhances Milk Nutritional Quality by Shifting Fatty Acid Composition.
• RCT: Effects of changes in portion size on meal eating behaviour in overweight women.
• When and why carbohydrate restriction can be a viable option.
• RCT: Dietary strawberries increase the proliferative response of CD3/CD28-activated CD8+ T cells and the production of TNF-a in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes from obese human subjects.
• RCT:Yeast hydrolysate can reduce body weight and abdominal fat accumulation in obese adults.
• RCT: Antiobesity Effect of Caraway Extract on Overweight and Obese Women.
• RCT: Zinc supplementation improves BMI, body weight, and triglyceride concentration.
• RCT: Big breakfast rich in protein and fat improves glycemic control in type 2 diabetics.
• Roles for central leptin receptors in the control of meal size.

Fatty Liver

• RCT: The Effect of Helicobacter Pylori Eradication on Liver Fat Content in Subjects With Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
• Betaine attenuates hepatic steatosis by reducing methylation of MTTP promoter & elevating methylation in mice on high fat diet.
• Initial clinical application of modified Dixon with flexible echo times: hepatic & pancreatic fat assessments in comparison with 1H MRS.
• Treating fatty liver and insulin resistance.
• Surgical Management of Obesity in Patients with Morbid Obesity and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
• Review: Obesity and Liver Disease: The Epidemic of the Twenty-First Century.

Epidemiology

• BMI and Early Kidney Function Decline in Young Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis of the CARDIA Study.
• Inverse association between BMI and suicide?
• The differential gender effect of internalized racism on abdominal obesity in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
• Association between leisure time physical activity and metabolic syndrome: meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
• Mortality Risk of Obesity and Underweight Is Overestimated with Self-Reported BMI.
• Ambient indoor temperature inversely associated with BMI.

Reader Suggestion

• Last week we ran: New Dietary Guidelines in Sweden.
• Reader suggests better link is: Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment - Diets among obese individuals.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Assessing the role of body mass and sex on apparent adult survival in polygynous passerines: a case study of cetti's warblers in central Portugal.
• Effect of photoperiodism on metabolism of male and female redheaded bunting under natural day length.
• Stature, body mass, and brain size: A two-million-year odyssey.

Drugs

• The Paradox of Obesity Drugs.
• Metformin trims fats to restore insulin sensitivity.
• RCT: Efficacy and safety of canagliflozin in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus inadequately controlled with metformin and sulphonylurea.
• RCT: Acute effects of single-dose olanzapine on metabolic, endocrine, and inflammatory markers in healthy controls.
• Review: New Antiobesity Agents: Lorcaserin (Belviq) and Phentermine/Topiramate ER (Qsymia).

Clinical

• RCT: Impact of timing of serving vegetable salad and yogurt on anthropometric measures and cardiovascular risks.
• Preventing binge eating with deep brain stimulation – can compulsive eating be switched-off?
• Review: Long-term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?
• The views and attitudes of health professionals providing antenatal care to women with a high BMI.
• The Effect of an Automated Clinical Reminder on Weight Loss in Primary Care.
• Peer-delivered physical activity interventions: An overlooked opportunity for physical activity promotion.
• RCT: Use of the community-based behavioral weight loss program yields significantly greater weight loss than a self-help approach.
• ​Review: Can inflammatory status define metabolic health?

Pediatric

• Behavioral Mediators of Treatment Effects in the Weight Loss Maintenance Trial.
• How to Screen Obese Children at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus?
• Exercise and Insulin Resistance in Youth: A Meta-Analysis.
• What factors influence uptake into family-based obesity treatment after weight screening.
• Pass the popcorn: “Obesogenic” behaviors and stigma in children's movies.
• Exergaming as a Strategic Tool in the Fight against Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review.
• Association between low IQ and obesity is strongest among adolescents from high SES backgrounds.
• Parental stress increases BMI trajectory in pre-adolescents.

Aging

• In case of obesity, longevity-related mechanisms lead to anti-inflammation.
• Review: Caloric restriction, caloric restriction mimetics, and healthy aging in Okinawa: controversies and clinical implications.
• Rates of Complications and Mortality in Older Patients With Diabetes Mellitus.

Chocolate

• Non-randomized trial: Realistic intake of a flavanol-rich soluble cocoa product associated with HDL-cholesterol increases, but not without anthropometric changes in healthy and moderately hypercholesterolemic subjects.
• RCT: Dark chocolate consumption improves leukocyte adhesion factors and vascular function in overweight men.

Surgery

• Bariatric surgery benefits in type 2 diabetes linked to disease duration.
• RCT: Aspiration therapy leads to weight loss in obese subjects: A pilot study.

Genetics

• Common genetic variation in sFRP5 is associated with fat distribution in men.
• The bigger picture of FTO—the first GWAS-identified obesity gene.
• Commentary: A century after Fisher: time for a new paradigm in quantitative genetics.

General Science

• The Hidden Geometry of Complex, Network-Driven Contagion Phenomena.
• 15% of human codons are dual-use codons (“duons”) that simultaneously specify both amino acids and transcription factor recognition sites.
• Genetics and Genomics for the Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease: Update: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.
• First flight of Lunar plant growth experiment.
• The skin communicates with the liver.
• The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting.
• Age-Related Cognitive Decline Linked to Energy Available to Synapses in Prefrontal Cortex.
• How to Read About Science.
• NIH to experiment with high-risk grants.
• Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram.

Scientific Integrity

• Conflicts of Interest in Approvals of Additives to Food Determined to Be Generally Recognized as Safe: Out of Balance.
• Commentary: Conflicts of Interest in the Regulation of Food Safety A Threat to Scientific Integrity.

Commentary

• Fattening Foods: When is a Calorie Not a Calorie?
• 3 Reasons Objectivity Is Scarce on “Healthy Obesity”.
• Science, policy and politics cannot be separated: they are inextricably intertwined.
• How journals like Nature, Cell and Science are damaging science.
• Statins, Static, and the Status Quo: Is Anyone Getting the Signal?
• Is the Food Guide Pyramid and MyPlate Making Your Family Fat?

Announcements

• New Book: Satiation, satiety and the control of food intake: Theory and practice.
• The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States - A Workshop.
• 3rd International Conference on Food Digestion, Wageningen, The Netherlands, 11-13 March 2014.
• 3rd International Conference on Recent Advances and Controversies in Measuring Energy Metabolism (RACMEM), October, 2014.