Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Subordinate mice get fatter.
• RCT: Eating an extra 2 donuts per day (~11,600 kcal over three weeks) caused weight gain, but 4 exercise sessions per week were sufficient to prevent the gain in body weight and fat mass, and also improve some measures of cardiometabolic risk.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: No significant anthropometric changes were observed between groups following intervention of daily grapefruit intake after controlling for baseline values.
• RCT: Daily consumption of grapefruit for 6 weeks reduces urine f2-isoprostanes in overweight adults with high baseline values but has no effect on plasma high-sensitivity C-reactive protein or soluble vascular cellular adhesion molecule 1.
• Genetic Risk Score Does Not Predict the Outcome of Obesity Surgery.
• Morbid Obesity Is Not an Independent Predictor of Graft Failure or Patient Mortality After Kidney Transplantation.
• RCT: These findings suggest that weight loss has neither a positive nor a negative effect on cognitive function and that L-CHO and H-CHO weight-loss diets have similar effects on cognitive performance.
• Food availability of glucose and fat, but not fructose, increased in the US between 1970 and 2009: analysis of the USDA food availability data system.
• Exercise training, despite increasing cardiorespiratory fitness, is unable to improve obesity-associated decreases in LV diastolic myocardial function.
• RCT: 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.
• Despite being associated with walking and physical activity, dog ownership was not associated with weight status.
• Increasing the percentage of energy from dietary sugar, fats, and alcohol in adults is associated with increased energy intake but has minimal association with biomarkers of cardiovascular risk.
• Despite their reputation, canned fruits and vegetables retain many of their nutrients, in some cases better than fresh produce does.

Food

• RCT: Dietary protein and weight in midlife adults.
• Prevention of diet-induced obesity in C57BL/BJ mice with addition of 2 % dietary green tea but not with cocoa or coffee to a high-fat diet.
• RCT: Acute Effect of Oatmeal on Subjective Measures of Appetite and Satiety Compared to a Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereal: A Randomized Crossover Trial.
• RCT: Positive effect of mushrooms substituted for meat on body weight, body composition, and health parameters.
• Deconstructing a Fruit Serving: Comparing the Antioxidant Density of Select Whole Fruit and 100% Fruit Juices.
• Effect of oral processing behaviour on food intake and satiety.
• Twizzlers as a cost-effective and equivalent alternative to the glucola beverage in diabetes screening.

Aging

• Aged mice given modified TFAM showed improvements in memory and exercise performance compared with untreated mice.
• RCT: Improvement of metabolic parameters in healthy older adult men following a fasting calorie restriction intervention.

Drugs

• RCT: The once-daily human GLP-1 analogue liraglutide impacts appetite and energy intake in patients with type 2 diabetes after short-term treatment.
• RCT: Effect of metformin versus placebo on weight and metabolic factors in initial patients enrolled onto NCIC CTG MA.32 in early-stage breast cancer.
• RCT: Empagliflozin improves glycaemic and weight control as add-on therapy to pioglitazone or pioglitazone plus metformin in patients with type 2 diabetes over 24 week.
• RCT: Weight reduction and maintenance with IQP-PV-101: A 12-week randomized controlled study with a 24-week open label period.
• Gastric injections of Botox might curb obesity.
• Long-term inhibition of intestinal lipase by orlistat improves release of gut hormones increasing satiety in obese women.
• Systematic review of metformin use in obese nondiabetic children and adolescents.
• New and Emerging Drug Molecules Against Obesity.

Exercise

• RCT: Among overweight and obese adults with knee OA, after 18 months, participants in the diet + exercise and diet groups had more weight loss and greater reductions in IL-6 levels than those in the exercise group; those in the diet group had greater reductions in knee compressive force than those in the exercise group.
• RCT: Physical activity intervention assessed by pedometer with or without dietary follow-up reduced gestational weight gain compared to control in obese pregnant women.
• Exercise May Be as Effective as Drugs in Treating Disease.

Surgery

• Response to glucose tolerance testing and solid high carbohydrate challenge: comparison between Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, vertical sleeve gastrectomy, and duodenal switch.
• Promises and Ethical Pitfalls of Surgical Innovation: the Case of Bariatric Surgery.
• Obesity ops 'no help' for those who have already developed diabetes.

Economics

• Obesity has a negative association with employment probability in women.
• Suggestive evidence that having trouble paying bills may be a cause of obesity for women.
• Who Pays For Obesity? Evidence From Health Insurance Benefit Mandates.

Psychology

• Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: an Evaluation of Temptation Bundling.
• Authors conclude that in real-life non-experimental settings “light” claims are not associated with increased consumption of the “light” products.
• Relationships among grocery nutrition label users and consumers' attitudes and behavior toward restaurant menu labeling.
• Is obesity contagious by way of body image? A study on Japanese female students in the United States.
• Perceived Social-Ecological Factors Associated with Fruit and Vegetable Purchasing, Preparation, and Consumption among Young Adults.

Mathematics

• Examining the Mathematics Teachers' Design Process of the Model Eliciting Activity: Obesity Problem.
• Math can carry weight in the battle against obesity.
• Intake of food and the expenditure of calories is modelled by a system of differential equations.
• Body mass control and unresolved sociocultural stress: application of the generalized Data-Rate Theorem.
• A cure for the plague of parameters: constraining models of complex population dynamics with allometries.

Epidemiology

• Overweight/Obesity and Risk of Seasonal Asthma Exacerbations.
• A history of childhood abuse and neglect retrospectively reported is related to overall elevated inflammation in mid-life women, perhaps through obesity.

Genetics and Epigenetics

• Obesity susceptibility loci and uncontrolled eating, emotional eating and cognitive restraint behaviors in men and women.
• Changes in plant flowering time and other traits were the result of epigenetics alone, unaided by any sequence changes.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Life history traits associated with body size covary along a latitudinal gradient in a generalist grasshopper.
• Homeostasis: An underestimated focal point of ecology and evolution.
• Honeybees prefer warmer nectar and less viscous nectar, regardless of sugar concentration.
• To kill a kangaroo: understanding the decision to pursue high-risk/high-gain resources.
• Robustness of empirical food webs with varying consumer's sensitivities to loss of resources.
• A review of the energetics of pollination biology.
• Temporal variation in site fidelity: scale-dependent effects of forage abundance and predation risk in a non-migratory large herbivore.
• Predation selects for low resting metabolic rate and consistent individual differences in anti-predator behavior in a bettle (Tenebrio molitor).
• Late-moulting Black-necked Grebes Podiceps nigricollis show greater body mass in the face of failing food supply.

Clinical

• Divergent Effects of Obesity on Bone Health.
• RCT: High-Dose Resveratrol Treatment for 2 Weeks Inhibits Intestinal and Hepatic Lipoprotein Production in Overweight/Obese Men.
• RCT: Reduced energy density eating without meal replacements aids weight loss maintenance in primary care patients.
• RCT: Comparison of COPE (Creating Opportunities for Personal Empowerment) and Healthy Lifestyles TEEN (Thinking, Emotions, Exercise, Nutrition): Former superior in improving healthy lifestyle behaviors and BMI.
• The body adiposity index (BAI) over-estimates the percent body fat in children.
• RCT: Physical activity intervention assessed by pedometer with or without dietary follow-up reduced gestational weight gain compared to control in obese pregnant women.

Sugar

• Sugar, Uric Acid, and the Etiology of Diabetes and Obesity.
• Commentary: Obesity: Metabolic effects of fructose.
• Sweetened Beverages and Health: Current State of Scientific Understandings.
• The total sugar and free sugar content in beverages categorized according to recipes at coffee and beverage stores.
• Dextrose gel for neonatal hypoglycaemia (the Sugar Babies Study): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.
• Modifying influence of dietary sugar in the relationship between cortisol and visceral adipose tissue in minority youth.

Sugar Sweetened Beverages

• No harmful effect of different Coca-cola beverages after six months of intake on rat testes.
• Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in the U.S. is higher than previously reported when using a novel assessment methodology.

Pregnancy and Transgenerational Effects

• Mom's pregnancy weight gain tied to kid's obesity.
• Mom's obesity linked to extreme preemies.
• Childbearing is not associated with young women's long-term obesity risk.
• Parental dietary fat intake alters offspring microbiome and immunity.

Stigma

• BMI and depressive symptoms: The role of media pressures.
• Video clips for YouTube: Collaborative video creation as an educational concept for knowledge acquisition and attitude change related to obesity stigmatization.
• The relationship between selective visual attention and the maintenance of anti-fat prejudice.
• The relationship between physical appearance concerns, disgust, and anti-fat prejudice.
• Weight and Gender Discrimination among Job Applicants.
• Eating behaviors, victimization, and desire for supportive intervention among adolescents in weight-loss camps.
• Obese people residing in counties with higher levels of BMI may have better physical and mental health than obese people living in counties with lower levels of BMI by some measures, but these improvements are modest.

Policy Related

• Forbes: Shutdown stops funding for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
• An Attributional Explanation of Consumers' Responses to Government Regulations and Corporate Social Responsibility, with Implications for Childhood Obesity.
• RCT: Misinterpretation of the low endpoint of a calorie range biases calorie estimates of customized food products.
• Punishing Maternal Behavior: Potential Legal Consequences for Obesity-Associated Poor Fetal Outcome in the United States.
• The Affordable Care Act’s Impact on Persons with Obesity: The Full Report.
• School lunch debit card payment systems without a cash option are associated with lower nutrition and higher calories.
• NIH Closes Science Education Office.
• Recruits dismissed for obesity cost $1.1 billion a year.

Basic Science

• Obesity can be either spurred or stopped by key cellular mechanism in mitochondria.
• A network of neurons in the hypothalamus can turn feeding behavior on or off with the flip of an optogenetic switch in mice.
• Drowsy Drosophila shed light on sleep and hunger.
• Ghrelin-induced food intake and adiposity depend on central mTORC1/S6K1 signaling.
• Diet-induced obesity suppresses expression of many proteins at the blood-brain barrier.
• Study unlocks origin of brown fat cells important in weight maintenance.

Commentary

• Coffee and tea: perks for health and longevity?
• The Scarcity Response Linking Poverty, Hunger, and Obesity.
• How we fail fat people.
• School Lunch: Hazardous to Your Weight?
• Media reporting on no-calorie sweeteners: Good, Bad, or Biased?

Video

• Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey - Childhood Obesity 2013 Summit Sponsor Remarks.
• Einstein On: Childhood Obesity, Dr. Keith Ayoob.
• We're Going To Attack Your Donut Eating On All Fronts: How Health Propaganda Will Play Out In The Years Ahead.

General Science

• TED Talk - Elizabeth Loftus: The fiction of memory.
• Science reporter spoofs hundreds of open access journals with fake papers.
• Reflections on a Life in Biomedicine: Leading change.
• Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?
• Easter Island settlers ate predominately rats, not seafood.
• World first as woman gets pregnant seven years after ovaries removed.
• Building a fearless mind: Researchers have successfully erased frightening memories in the lab.

Announcements

• Swiss Winter Conference on Ingestive Behavior, March 1-6, 2014.
• 4th International Conference on Food Studies, Prato, Italy, Oct 20-21, 2014.
• Advances and Controversies in Clinical Nutrition 2013: Addressing gut to foods and all in between.
• Allyn L. Mark MD to be recognized as Distinguished Mentor on October 16th.
• UAB biologist Mike Sandel successfully petitions for rare Alabama fish to be protected Under the Endangered Species Act.
• Montclair State University is advertising four tenure track positions as part of an obesity cluster hire.
• Free Exercise Is Medicine event in Kingston, Ontario featuring Dr. Steve Blair

Featured

• Mystery over obesity ‘fraud’ - Researcher baffled after his results appear in bogus paper.
• Can Diabetes Be Surgically Cured? Long-Term Metabolic Associations of Bariatric Surgery in Obese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
• Home-Schooled Children are thinner, leaner, and report better diets relative to traditionally-schooled children.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Artificial sweeteners actually lead to piling on the pounds.
• Study: A rodent study with no assessment of effects on body weight.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Density of fast food restaurants and convenience stores not associated with individual sugar sweetened beverage consumption.
• Risk of overweight and obesity was not associated with parental support of physical activity and children's physical activity.
• Fast food restaurant density and BMI were not correlated in modest sized sample of patients.
• The density of fast food outlets, supermarkets, physical activity facilities, or ethnic density was not associated with allostatic load (including BMI as a component).
• Depressive symptoms in adolescence is a poor indicator of increases in BMI.
• Insufficient evidence to support that menu labels impacts consumers' food choice.
• No difference in total energy expenditure was detected between the school year and the summer months among youth.

Basic Science

• Possible new mechanism connecting obesity and insulin production in mice using human islets: the "incretin effect".
• AMG 076, a potent and selective MCHR1 antagonist, is associated with decreases in food intake and increases in energy expenditure in mice.
• Nutritional manipulations in the perinatal period program adipose tissue in offspring.
• Mice lacking ANGPTL8 (Betatrophin) manifest disrupted triglyceride metabolism without impaired glucose homeostasis.
• Intermittent hypoxia induces significant alterations to body energy balance through changes in the secretion of leptin in rats.

Food

• RCT: Comparison of 2 weight-loss diets of different protein content on bone health.
• School breakfast program associated with greater caloric intake.
• Food and Nutrition Board Update: What Do SNAP Allotments, Physical Fitness, and Obesity Prevention Have in Common.
• Researchers found a consistent positive relationship between BMI and the percentage of calories obtained from fast food.

Caloric Restriction

• Update on Human Calorie Restriction Research.
• Improvement of metabolic parameters in healthy older adult men following a fasting calorie restriction intervention.
• Dietary restriction extends lifespan in wild-derived populations of drosophila melanogaster.
• Rats perinatally exposed to food restriction and high-fat diet show differences in adipose tissue gene expression under chronic caloric restriction.

Clinical

• Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' position on interventions aimed at pediatric obesity.
• Stress-induced and emotional eating in animals: A review of the experimental evidence and implications for companion animal obesity.
• New options for the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• Sleep patterns, diet quality and energy balance.
• Compared to a sham procedure, ultrasound-induced cavitation caused a significant reduction of abdominal fat in a small sample of patients.
• RCT: Cognitive–behavioral skills-building intervention with a physical activity component, promoted lower levels of BMI among high school adolescents.
• RCT: African American participants of a community diet and lifestyle intervention had significant reductions in c-reactive protein levels and waist-to-hip ratio.
• Ghrelin suppression is associated with weight loss and insulin action following gastric bypass surgery at 12-months in obese adults with type 2 diabetes.
• RCT: Mobile health messages help sustain recent weight loss.
• RCT: Among overweight and obese adults with osteoarthritis, participants in the diet groups experienced greater weight loss and had lower interleukin-6 levels than those that only exercised.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Home range scaling across individuals of L. gigantea exhibits the same isometric relationship that is often found across endothermic species.
• Energetics and metabolite profiles during early flight in American robins (Turdus Migratorius).
• Seasonal Resting Metabolic Rate and Food Intake of Captive Pacific White-Sided Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens).

Stigma

• Visual attention may be an important mediator of stereotyping and prejudice.
• When Overweight Is the Normal Weight: An Examination of Obesity Using a Social Media Internet Database.
• Individuals living in Germany with a migrant background have higher odds of being discriminated because of their weight.

Exercise

• RCT: Aerobic exercise but not resistance exercise reduces intrahepatic lipid content and visceral fat and improves insulin sensitivity in obese adolescent girls.
• Review of randomized controlled trials focused on family-based interventions for reducing sedentary time in youth.
• RCT: Moderate-intensity exercise more effective than activities of daily living on 24-hour blood glucose homeostasis in male patients with type 2 diabetes.
• RCT: Moderately overweight men more compliant to moderate endurance exercise than high endurance exercise because the association of more positive attitude towards moderate endurance exercise.
• RCT: Investigation of the effects of aerobic and resistance training on obesity markers and morphological, functional and genetic changes in the skeletal muscle among Polynesian New Zealanders with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• RCT: Resistance training may reduce the metabolic syndrome Z-score with concomitant decreases in fasting blood glucose, improvements in body composition, and muscle strength in postmenopausal women.
• A school driven by phys ed.
• A short bout of physical activity reduces cravings and attentional bias to chocolate cues, relative to control, irrespective of BMI.

Gut Microbiota

• Overselling the microbiome award: VIB press release saying "Intestinal flora determines health of obese people".
• Study on tempol impacted gut bacteria may lead to new treatments for obesity.
• Review of modulating the human gut microbiome as an emerging therapeutic paradigm.
• Community dynamics and nutritional benefits of the drosophila gut microbiota.
• Adjusting bacteria in intestines may lead to obesity treatments.

Psychology

• White men experience the greatest decrease in happiness as their relative BMI increases.
• Review of metabolic disturbances connecting with obesity and depression.
• RCT: Witnessing fat talk on Facebook is associated with body satisfaction and psychological well-being among Korean women, but not among US women.
• Episodic future thinking is associated with reduced impulsive decision making and ad libitum energy intake in overweight and obese women.
• Case report on eating disorders in adolescents with a history of obesity.

Economics

• Blood and Bone: Body Mass, Gender and Health Inequality in 19th Century British Families.
• Retail investment: A barometer for teen obesity?
• Low Income More To Blame For Obesity Than Food Deserts, Study Finds.
• Simulations suggest a tax on sugar sweetened beverages in Ireland would have a small but meaningful effect on obesity among young adults.
• Generating better evidence to engage local food outlets in obesity prevention research.

Methods

• Finding suggests that indirect calorimetry is the preferred suggested measurement of rested energy expenditure for middle-aged Overweight and Obese Individuals.
• Self-reported TV and computer time do not represent accelerometer-derived total sedentary time in 10 to 12-year-olds.
• Next-generation sequencing provides an efficient means of highly sensitive screening for mutations in genes associated with monogenic forms of diabetes and obesity.
• Use of quantile regression to investigate the longitudinal association between physical activity and BMI.
• Merging supermarket food prices with standard dietary assessment tools can provide estimates of individual diet cost that are more closely associated with actual food consumption.

General Science

• Is epidemiology correcting its vision problem? A perspective on our perspective.
• Video: Fail Lab: Episode One - Evolution, featuring Ted Garland.
• Bias in research: the rule rather than the exception?
• Public-Private Partnerships: The Evolving Role of Industry Funding in Nutrition Research.
• Scientific misconduct and research integrity.
• What to Do About “Clare Francis”: Does the identity of the research misconduct whistleblower matter?
• Preterm birth, larger babies tied to greater diabetes risk in women.
• Scientists Create Never-Before-Seen Form of Matter.
• Effectiveness of Booster Seats Compared With No Restraint or Seat Belt Alone for Crash Injury Prevention.

Transgenerational Effects

• Maternal obesity induced by a high fat diet causes brain development in offspring suggestive of a predisposition to obesity and neurological disorders in later life among mice.
• Maternal ileal interposition surgery confers metabolic improvements to offspring independent of effects on maternal body weight in UCD-T2DM rats.

Temperature

• Inappropriate heat dissipation ignites brown fat thermogenesis in mice with a mutant thyroid hormone receptor.
• Fuel selection during short-term submaximal treadmill exercise in the cold is not affected by pre-exercise low-intensity shivering.

Sugar

• 'Sugar gel' helps premature babies.
• The Power of Sugar.
• Obesity: Fatty liver and the metabolic syndrome—fructose at fault?
• Increased in-store advertising of sugary drinks in New York City neighborhoods is associated with higher levels of drink consumption compared to lower-consumption neighborhoods.
• Examination of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption using an "all-encompassing" methodology shows Americans consume more calories from SSB than previously reported.

Commentary

• Sodium: How and How Not to Set a Nutrient Intake Recommendation.
• The evidence in favor of reducing sodium intake is less than conclusive.
• Why Activists Shouldn't Be Hosing The First Lady's 'Drink Up' Campaign.
• Drinking the Kool-Aid in Food Policy.
• Are we shopping for obesity: food overproduction and its connection with the obesity epidemic.
• Importance of the routine collection of fiscal indicators in obesity prevention studies.
• How economic development might influence teen obesity, public health.
• Obese cancer patients often shorted on chemo doses.

Popular Press

• Obesity is a byproduct of the success of both the free market and big government.
• Doggie obesity treatment.
• Income, not food deserts, more to blame for US obesity.
• "Obesity is America's problem, not hunger": opinions about food stamps from an economist.

Announcements

• 9th IANA (International Academy on Nutrition and Aging) meeting is being held at Albuquerque July 10-11, 2014.
• Kenneth Kell selected as a winner of the first annual Poster of Excellence Award in the Pediatric Obesity Section of The Obesity Society.
• Birmingham-Jefferson County Food Policy Council Hosts 2013 Food Summit.
• Patrice Capers and Chelsea Singleton win travel award to Institute on Teaching and Mentoring.
• Winners of 2013 Ig Nobel Prize announced.

Featured

• Dr. Rudolph Leibel Honored at Columbia University Symposium.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• “We observed no evidence that obesity contributed to a decline in IQ, even among obese individuals who displayed evidence of the metabolic syndrome and/or elevated systemic inflammation.”
• RCT: No significant effects of a multi-component universal intervention to improve diet and physical activity among adults with intellectual disabilities on BMI.
• RCT: No significant effect of supplementation on BP, pregnancy weight gain, weight postpartum, or infant weight, length, and other measures of growth.
• 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.
• Injury severity scores in the restrained obese and morbidly obese patients were higher than the [seatbelt] unrestrained motorists within the same weight cohort.
• RCT: No Effect of an Energy Restricted Low Glycemic Index Diet on Blood Lipids, Apolipoproteins and Lipoprotein (a) Among Adolescent Girls with Excess Weight.
• RCT: No effects of chewing were observed for appetitive sensations or gut peptide concentrations.

Video

• Julian Alston: Food & Farm Policy and Obesity.
• Cara Ebbeling: Dietary Interventions for Obesity: Is Macronutrient Composition Important?
• Rick Weiss: Recent Advances in Personalized Nutrition Technology.

Basic Science

• The challenge of two year follow-up after intervention for weight loss in primary care.
• Why One Cream Cake Leads to Another -  Continuously eating fatty foods perturbs communication between the gut and brain, which in turn perpetuates a bad diet.
• Impaired paraoxonase-1 status in obese children.
• The effects of feeding frequency on growth and reproduction in zebrafish (Danio rerio).
• Ghrelin agonist JMV 1843 increases food intake, body weight and expression of orexigenic neuropeptides in mice.
• Mice exposed to dim light at night exaggerate inflammatory responses to lipopolysaccharide and exhibit increased weight.
• Scientists develop a new way to identify good fat.
• Ghrelin-induced food intake and adiposity depend on central mTORC1/S6K1 signaling.
• Obesity was an independent predictor of higher diurnal leg volume increase.
• Evidence for novel genetic loci associated with metabolic traits in Yup'ik people.

Food

• Skipping Breakfast: No Proof, Plenty of Conviction.
• RCT: Consuming dietary protein at levels exceeding the RDA may protect fat-free mass during short-term weight loss.
• Effect of Carbonation on Brain Processing of Sweet Stimuli in Humans.
• RCT: One year of treatment with genistein improves risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women with MetS.
• RCT: Glucose uptake by the brain on chronic high-protein weight-loss diets with either moderate or low amounts of carbohydrate.
• Secondary Analysis: Weight loss is more important than the diet type in improving adiponectin levels among overweight/obese adults.

Supplements

• RCT: Effects of 30 days resveratrol supplementation on adipose tissue morphology and gene expression patterns in obese men.
• Evidence for a potential role of dietary or supplemental calcium in the prevention of CVD remains insufficient and inconclusive.

Longevity

• Mice on a low-calorie diet harbor a distinct population of gut microorganisms that helps prolong life.
• Reducing the levels of mTOR in rodents extends their lifespan by about 20 percent, though not without consequences.

Meat

• No association between meat intake and cause-specific mortality in Asian countries.
• Making Meat: animation explains the process researchers used to make a lab-grown hamburger patty, which was served up for the first time in early August, 2013.
• RCT: Recommendations including higher red meat intake improved hemoglobin and hematocrit in Colombia.

Lipid Metabolism

• Expression of lipolytic genes in adipose tissue is differentially regulated during multiple phases of dietary intervention in obese women.
• Adipocyte triglyceride turnover and lipolysis in lean and overweight subjects.
• RCT: Liquid meals rich in MUFAs elicited weaker satiety responses compared to PUFAs or SFAs.
• Oxidized lipids activate autophagy in a JNK-dependent manner by stimulating the endoplasmic reticulum stress response.

Pets

• Pet Obesity Rates Rise, Cats Heavier Than Ever.
• Dog obesity - The need for identifying predisposing genetic markers.
• Prevalence and Risk Factors for Owner- Reported Obesity in Horses and Ponies in Great Britain.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Tiger Genome Sequenced, Shows Big Cats Evolved to Kill.
• Environmental, biological and anthropogenic effects on grizzly bear body size: temporal and spatial considerations.
• Role of nutritional reserves and body size in Anopheles gambiae males mating success.
• Origin and development of homoiothermy: A case study of avian energetics.

Energy Balance

• Long-term calorie restriction has minimal impact on brain metabolite and fatty acid profiles in aged rats on a Western-style diet.
• Long-term calorie restriction decreases metabolic cost of movement and prevents decrease of physical activity during aging in rhesus monkeys.
• Prenatal programming in an obese swine model: sex-related effects of maternal energy restriction on morphology, metabolism and hypothalamic gene expression.
• Human beings show corrective responses to deviations from average energy and macronutrient intakes with a lag time of 3 to 6 days, but not 1 to 2 days, responses plausibly playing a role in weight stability.
• Nutrient displacement associated with walnut supplementation in men.

Stigma

• Individuals judge overweight white men more negatively than they do overweight black men.
• The role of beliefs of controllability in fat stigma.

Psychology

• RCT: Episodic future thinking reduces impulsive decision making in obese and lean individuals.
• Exposure to obesity changes perception of the weight status of others.
• The effects of food-related attentional bias training on appetite and food intake.
• Facial affective reactions to bitter-tasting foods and BMI in adults.
• Food addiction: its prevalence and significant association with obesity.

Technology

• How 'Smart Teeth' Could Detect Health Habits.
• A handheld indirect calorimeter was not equivalent to a standard indirect calorimeter.
• A peptide probe for targeted brown adipose tissue imaging.
• Comparison of DXA, air displacement plethysmography and BIA in morbidly obese women.

Exercise

• RCT: Rapid weight-loss impairs simulated riding performance and strength in jockeys: implications for making-weight.
• Systematic Review: Physical activity appears to have a positive long-term influence on noncommunicable diseases.
• Effect of Short-term Exercise on Appetite, Energy Intake and Energy-regulating Hormones.

Muscle

• High cortisol responses identify propensity for obesity that is linked to thermogenesis in skeletal muscle.
• ß-hydroxy-ß-methylbutyrate (HMB) preserves lean mass during 10 days of bed rest.
• The anticancer agent doxorubicin disrupts mitochondrial energy metabolism and redox balance in skeletal muscle.

Gut Microbiota

• Lactobacillus reuteri and Escherichia coli in the human gut microbiota may predict weight gain associated with vancomycin treatment.
• Auto-brewery syndrome - Man becomes drunk when stomach turns into brewery.

Clinical

• Feasibility of protein-sparing modified fast by tube (ProMoFasT) in obesity treatment.
• RCT: Aspiration Therapy Leads to Weight Loss in Obese Subjects: a Pilot Study.
• RCT: therapist-led v. self-help parental intervention for treating childhood obesity.
• Obesity and Mortality Risk: New Findings From Body Mass Index Trajectories.

Institute of Medicine

• Leveraging Action to Support Dissemination of Pregnancy Weight Gain Guidelines - Workshop Summary.
• Webinar: Understanding and Implementing Recommendations from the IOM Report Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School.

Commentary on the Research Enterprise

• I've got nothing to lose by trying it. Weighing up claims about cures and treatments for medical conditions.
• Take It From Tony: Investing in NIH Research Saves Lives.
• Medical Research: Don't Let This Pillar of National Pride Crumble.
• Animal testing advances medical field progress.

Commentary

• JAMA 100 Years Ago: Sugar as Food.
• When Science Coverage Goes Wrong.
• Linking obesity to military readiness broadens support for child-health policies.
• Framing the Consequences of Childhood Obesity to Increase Public Support for Obesity Prevention Policy.

Announcements

• Obesity and Obamacare: A Practical Guide
• Childhood Obesity Prevention Programs: Comparative Effectiveness Review and Meta-Analysis.
• UAB Graduate and Former Surgeon General returns to Xavier NO. 

Featured

• RCT: Breastfeeding promotion program increases breastfeeding but has no effect on offspring growth at 6 months.
• Has obesity made driving safer?

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Review concludes that saturated fat intakes are now close to guideline amounts and further reductions may only have a minor impact on CVD.
• Obese people pay for all of their own increased health costs in the form of lower wages, rather than passing them on to employers, insurers, and co-workers.
• In contrast to previous research, we find little indication of a relationship between maternal employment and adolescent obesity.
• College Weight Gain: Debunking the Myth of the 'Freshman 15'.
• Lack of Correlation Between Morbid Obesity and Severe Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease in Candidates for Bariatric Surgery.
• AthenaHealth not seeing declines in childhood obesity as the CDC recently reported.

Special Collections

• Researcher Responses to IOM Sodium Intake Report.
• Childhood Overweight and Obesity Collection.

Basic Science

• Effect of adenovirus and influenza virus infection on obesity.
• Orexin: Pathways to obesity resistance?
• Fruit Flies Demonstrate That Diet Experience Can Alter Taste Preferences.
• Gut health and obesity: Human gut bacteria can alter mouse metabolism, depending on diet, says new study.
• A novel chemical uncoupler ameliorates obesity and related phenotypes in mice with diet-induced obesity by modulating energy expenditure and food intake.
• Expression patterns of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma 1 versus gamma 2, and their association with intramuscular fat in goat tissues.
• Thermogenesis is involved in the body-fat lowering effects of resveratrol in rats.
• Modelling adipocytes size distribution.
• Liver fructose production and metabolism contributes to the development of metabolic syndrome.
• Tracking adipogenesis in the AdipoChaser mouse.

Economics

• Obesity and the Labor Market: A Fresh Look at the Weight Penalty.
• Forward Looking Decision Making: The Effects of the Food Stamp Program Participation on Women’s Obesity in the NLSY.

Behavioral

• RCT: Improvement of household routines for the prevention of obesity in preschool aged children.
• Obese And Overweight Teens Losing Weight May Be At Risk For Eating Disorders.
• Program boosts some healthy habits in kids.

Caloric Restriction

• Effect of long-term feed restriction on the health status and welfare of a robust horse breed, the Shetland pony (Equus ferus caballus).
• Calorie restriction in overweight males ameliorates obesity-related metabolic alterations and cellular adaptations through anti-aging effects, possibly including AMPK and SIRT1 activation.
• Fasting or caloric restriction for Healthy Aging.
• Resveratrol vs. calorie restriction: Data from rodents to humans.
• Calorie restriction (CR) and CR mimetics for the prevention and treatment of age-related eye disorders.
• Genetic variation in responses to dietary restriction - An unbiased tool for hypothesis testing.
• Facts and controversies in our understanding of how caloric restriction impacts the mitochondrion.
• Utilizing Calorie Restriction to Evaluate the Role of Sirtuins in Healthspan and Lifespan of Mice.

Food

• Dark Chocolate: An Obesity Paradox or a Culprit for Weight Gain?
• Eat a Healthy Diet and Drink Wisely to Postpone Dying If You Survived a Myocardial Infarction?: Yes, but Randomized Clinical Trials Are Needed.
• RCT: liquid meals rich in MUFAs may elicit a weaker satiety response based on PYY levels compared to liquid meals rich in PUFAs or SFAs in normal weight women.
• RCT: Effects of caloric intake timing on insulin resistance and hyperandrogenism in lean women with polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Projected Effects on Milk Consumption and Nutrient Intakes From Eliminating Flavored Milk in Elementary Schools.
• Research Opportunities Concerning the Causes and Consequences of Child Food Insecurity and Hunger: A Workshop Summary (2013).
• Food Addiction: Its Prevalence and Significant Association with Obesity in the General Population.
• The Effect of Fat Replacers on Batter and Cake Properties.

Drugs

• RCT: The effects of anti-obesity intervention with orlistat and sibutramine on microvascular endothelial function.
• RCT: Effects of the once-daily GLP-1 analog liraglutide on gastric emptying, glycemic parameters, appetite, and energy metabolism in obese, non-diabetic adults.
• RCT: Mineralocorticoid receptors modulate vascular endothelial function in human obesity.
• Rosiglitazone-loaded nanospheres for modulating macrophage-specific inflammation in obesity.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Effect of exposing the mother, but not her pups, to a cold environment during lactation in mice.
• Age-related variation in energy expenditure in a long-lived bird within the envelope of an energy ceiling.

Exercise

• RCT: Effects of resistance training on central blood pressure in obese young men.
• RCT: Effects of high-intensity circuit training, low-intensity circuit training and endurance training on blood pressure and lipoproteins in middle-aged overweight men.
• Post-exercise energy load and activities may affect subsequent ad libitum energy intake.

Genetics

• RCT: Role of G308 promoter variant of tumor necrosis factor alpha gene on weight loss and metabolic parameters after a high monounsaturated versus a high polyunsaturated fat hypocaloric diets.
• IRS1 Genotype Modulates Metabolic Syndrome Reversion in Response to 2-Year Weight-Loss Diet Intervention.

Gut Microbiota

• Gut microbiota from twins discordant for obesity modulate metabolism in mice.
• Fighting Obesity with Bacteria.

Methods

• Comparison of steps and energy expenditure assessment in adults of Fitbit Tracker and Ultra to the Actical and indirect calorimetry.
• Chemical shift-based MRI to measure fat fractions in dystrophic skeletal muscle.
• Feasibility of a SenseCam-assisted 24-h recall to reduce under-reporting of energy intake.
• Fundamental approaches to the study of zebrafish nutrition.
• Real-time monitoring of adipocyte differentiation using a capacitance sensor array.
• Imaging Cold-Activated Brown Adipose Tissue Using Dynamic T2*-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging and 2-Deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose Positron Emission Tomography.
• Guide for evaluating literature findings uses low calorie sweeteners as an example.
• New Tools for Weight Loss Therapy Enable a More Robust Medical Model for Obesity Treatment.

Mortality

• Changes in Body Weight and Subsequent Mortality: Are We Any Closer to Knowing How to Deal with Obesity in ESRD?
• Is Mortality Risk Reduced in Overweight or Obese Diabetics?
• The "Obesity Paradox," Frailty, Disability, and Mortality in Older Men.

Policy Related

• Freedom of Information Act, privacy and ethical concerns.
• AHA Scientific Statement: Severe obesity in children and adolescents.

Pregnancy

• Pre-pregnancy BMI was negatively predictive of both cord and three-year DNA methylation.
• Gestational weight gain had long-term effects on BMI in a minority adolescent population.
• Maternal Overweight Induced by a Diet with High Content of Saturated Fat Activates Placental mTOR and eIF2alpha Signaling and Increases Fetal Growth in Rats.

Psychology

• RCT: The effect of learning climate on snack consumption and ego depletion among undergraduate students.
• The moderating role of regulatory focus on the social modeling of food intake.
• Perception may be more important than measured weight in the relationship between obesity and depression.

Taste

• Variation in bitter receptor mRNA expression correclated with taste preception.
• TAS1R1 variation associates with differences in overall taste intensity.

General Science

• Do simple screening statistical tools help to detect reporting bias?
• The presence and effect of bias in trials of early enteral nutrition in critical care.
• Questioning the scientific basis of anti-GMO criticisms.
• The Social Life of Genes.
• Stem cells created in living mice.
• Vast supplies of groundwater found under Kenya.
• Voyager 1 Leaves Solar System.

Commentary

• Neglecting Kids with Severe Obesity?
• Program Boosts Some Healthy Habits in Kids.
• Obesity Interventions Can Improve More Than Just BMI.
• Breastfeeding and Childhood Obesity. Where Do We Go From Here?
• Severe Obesity in Children and Adolescents: Identification, Associated Health Risks, and Treatment Approaches.
• What bugs you: Top five flawed obesity thinking.
• Looking at biomedical funding structure.
• Six guidelines for interesting research.
• Innovative Treatment and Prevention Programs for Pediatric Overweight and Obesity.
• Truth about saturated fatty acids.

News Coverage of UAB Breakfast Paper

• Skipping Breakfast Makes You Fat? Not So Fast.
• Myths Surround Breakfast and Weight.
• Why are we so sure that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?

Announcements

• John Dawson UAB post-doc finalist for Obesity Society award.
• Conference: Metabolism, Diet and Disease 2014: Cancer and metabolism.
• USDA Webinar: Balancing Sodium and Potassium Intake for Disease Prevention and Optimal Health.
• Symposium | Metabolic Origins of Disease. Orlando, Florida, March 3-5, 2014.
• The Food Police: From Menu Labeling to Soda Bans.
• Conference: Advances and Controversies in Clinical Nutrition.
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellows call for applications.