Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Adipogenic Factor-Loaded Microspheres Increase Retention of Transplanted Adipose Tissue.
• New contender for 'fat gene' (alternative to FTO) found.
• Taste hedonics–either unconditioned or conditioned aversive tastes–influence fat disposition by altering gastric emptying in rats.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Economic modeling suggests that concentrating on older subpopulations could maximize cost effectiveness of obesity treatment.
• Observational analysis suggests that moderators occurring after childhood will nearly as often make the well off large and the poor slender as what the conventional wisdom might dictate.
• Non-linear [projected] effects of soda taxes on consumption and weight outcomes.
• Contrary to the hypothesis that BMI would be inversely related to performance on tests of emotion recognition, results indicated that as BMI increases, reaction time to complete these tasks decreases.
• RCT: If people engage in an initial task that requires self-control (that is, if people are depleted), priming health-related words has no positive influence on self-control.
• Small for gestational age babies are not related to changes in markers of adipose tissue dysfunction during reproductive age.
• RCT: No significant difference in effects on VO2peak in obese/overweight men with three different exercise approaches: high intensity interval training, continuous training, and resistance training.

Clinical

• Review: Epicardial and Perivascular Adipose Tissues and Their Influence on Cardiovascular Disease: Basic Mechanisms and Clinical Associations.
• Time-of-day of meals modifies plasma glucose and insulin response in overweight males.
• RCT: Role of a prudent breakfast in improving cardiometabolic risk factors in subjects with hypercholesterolemia.
• RCT: Weight loss improves reproductive outcomes in obese women undergoing fertility treatment.
• RCT: Hypnosis vs CBT for weight loss.
• The Hope (Heart, Obesity, Prevention, Education) Program For Former NFL Players.
• Weight gain among breast cancer survivors prior to enrolling into a behavioral weight loss intervention.
• Higher HbA1c may best identify CV risk in patients with prediabetes.
• Effects of Long-Term Testosterone Therapy on Patients with “Diabesity”.
• Lack of Sleep Compounds Health Problems for Obese Teens.

Food

• RCT: Comparison of a very low-calorie-ketogenic diet with a standard low-calorie diet in the treatment of obesity.
• Canned Fruits And Vegetables May Be As Nutritious As Their Fresh Counterparts.
• Cereal purchases made with coupons have higher average sodium and sugar content than purchases made without coupons.
• Vegetarian or omnivore: The environmental implications of diet.

Aging/Caloric Restriction

• MTOR and autophagy in normal brain aging and caloric restriction ameliorating age-related cognition deficits.
• The Ratio of Macronutrients, Not Caloric Intake, Dictates Cardiometabolic Health, Aging, and Longevity in Ad Libitum-Fed Mice.
• A holidic medium for Drosophila melanogaster.
• The fine line between lifespan extension and shortening in response to caloric restriction.
• Enhanced protein diet accelerates the rate of development -A study in Drosophila nasuta nasuta.
• Video: Carol Boggs: "Life history & population responses to nutritional stress in insects."

Exercise

• Increased Skeletal Muscle Capillarization After Aerobic Exercise Training and Weight Loss Improves Insulin Sensitivity in Adults With IGT.
• RCT: The Contributions of Diet and Exercise to Improving Knee Osteoarthritis in Overweight Adults.

Psychology

• Effects of licensed characters on children's taste and snack preferences in Guatemala, a low/middle income country.
• RCT: Menu Labels Displaying the Kilocalorie Content or the Exercise Equivalent: Effects on Energy Ordered and Consumed in Young Adults.
• RCT: Group is more effective than Single Mindfulness Meditation for Weight Management.

Stigma

• Weighing the stigma of weight: An fMRI study of neural reactivity to the pain of obese individuals.
• Can Fat Only Be Funny? A Content Analysis of Fat Stigmatization in Mike and Molly.
• Fat Pedagogy and Environmental Education.

Network Modelling

• An efficient graph theory based method to identify every minimal reaction set in a metabolic network.
• Constructing regulatory networks to identify biomarkers for insulin resistance.
• Functional network analysis of obese and lean Göttingen minipigs elucidates changes in oxidative and inflammatory networks in obese pigs.

Epidemiology

• Delivery Timing and Cesarean Delivery Risk in Women with Mild Gestational Diabetes.
• Race, Regionality and Pre-diabetes in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Study (REGARDS).
• Sleep cyclic alternating pattern in otherwise healthy overweight school-age children.
• Obesity top 10 lists — the fattest and leanest states.

Ecology, Evolution, and Energetics

• Sugar Feeding Affects the Male Contribution in Reproduction in Aedes Aegypti.
• Risk-sensitive reproductive allocation: fitness consequences of body mass losses in two contrasting environments.
• SEDESTACTIV - intervention to reduce sitting time in overweight and obese patients.

Economics

• Mother’s labour market participation significantly predicts obesity among boys but not among girls.
• The Impact of Four Alternative Policies to Decrease Soda Consumption.

Sugar

• UK panel has stricter criteria for evaluating evidence than those used by the WHO committee.
• RCT: Sugar ingestion and dichotic listening: Increased perceptual capacity is more than motivation.
• Effect of fructose on markers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD): a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled feeding trials.
• WHO says halving sugar target has extra benefit.

Basic Science

• Review: SIRT1 and other sirtuins in metabolism.
• Review: Mechanisms and effects of “fat taste” in humans.
• Scientists Establish Critical Link Between Obesity and Diabetes.
• The potential role of leptin in the vascular remodeling associated with obesity.
• Ectopic expression of RBP4 impairs the insulin pathway and inguinal fat deposition in mice.
• Reduction of adenovirus 36-induced obesity and inflammation via the use of mulberry extract.

Commentary

• Diet Myth: Eat Healthy Foods, and You'll Lose Weight.
• The Fat Drug (antiobiotics).
• Vegetarian or omnivore: The environmental implications of diet.
• Metabolism: Tick, tock, a high-fat clock.
• Critical Analysis of study which generated headlines suggesting that High Protein Diets Cause Cancer.
• Type 2 diabetes as a redox disease.
• Globalization and children’s diets: The case of Maya of Mexico and Central America.
• Diabesity: Palliating, curing or preventing the dysmetabolic diathesis.
• The cardiometabolic consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or ?-6 polyunsaturated fats: Do the dietary guidelines have it wrong?
• David Katz: Improving Nutrition Labels: Is ‘Better’ Good Enough?
• Critical analysis of report suggesting seaweed could help in weight loss. .
• Multimorbidity, Guidelines, and Clinical Inertia.
• So Much Insulin, So Much Hypoglycemia.
• Surviving as an Outed Whistleblower - Paul Brookes.

General Science

• Evolutionary biology: Sex, lies and butterflies.
• Zebrafish for a Cleaner Food Supply.
• Unveiling Research Data Stocks: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Leads by Example.
• Rare Double Infection: Lupus Patient Makes Antibodies to Fight HIV.
• Study Identifies Gene Important to Breast Development and Breast Cancer.
• Early Animals Oxygenated Oceans.

Announcements

• SCOPE School 2014 Integrating Primary and Private Care into Obesity Management, 27 - 28 October 2014, London, UK.
• Probiotics and Immunology - From Fashionable Concepts to Substantiated Health Claims, 23rd June 2014, Hotel InterContinental, Budapest.
• The Irish Section of the Nutrition Society will be hosting a meeting titled Changing dietary behaviour: physiology through to practice, 18–20 June 2014, University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland.

Featured

• When less is more: Like humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) misperceive food amounts based on plate size.
• When Research Should Come with a Warning Label.
• RCT: Comparative effects of TV watching, recreational computer use, and sedentary video game play on spontaneous energy intake in male children.
• RCT: High calorie diet could slow progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Eating large amounts of meat, cheese may be as deadly as smoking.
• Study: Low Protein Intake Is Associated with a Major Reduction in IGF-1, Cancer, and Overall Mortality in the 65 and Younger but Not Older Population.
• Commentary: Now we can't eat protein. What can we eat?

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: Over 500 kcal/day of SSB consumption over 8 days led to no discernable effects on body weight.
• RCT: A low-intensity dietary intervention with a Low GI diet compared with an HE diet in pregnancy did not result in any significant differences in birth weight, fetal percentile, or ponderal index.
• BMI not significantly associated with sperm quality.
• Evidence on built environment/adiposity relationships remains modest and could be strengthened through improvements in measurement methods and with further evidence from prospective studies.
• Green coffee polyphenols do not attenuate features of the metabolic syndrome and improve endothelial function in mice fed a high fat diet.

Temperature

• Impacts of Moderate Cold Exposure on Energy Metabolism, Obesity, and Cardiovascular Function.
• Overcompensation of Circulating and Local Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 During Catch-up Growth in Hybrid Striped Bass (Morone chrysops X Morone saxatilis) Following Temperature and Feeding Manipulation.
• Fuel selection during short-term submaximal treadmill exercise in the cold is not affected by pre-exercise low-intensity shivering.

Sugar

• New Book: Fructose, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sucrose and Health.
• Sugar, Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, and Obesity: Separating Supposition from Demonstrated Fact, from Misinformation.
• WHO cuts sugar intake advice to 5 percent of daily energy.
• The reward value of sucrose in leptin-deficient obese mice.
• RCT: Hydration status when increasing daily fluid intake with various beverages.
• RCT: Glycemic and insulinemic response to four different sweeteners in healthy individuals.

Methods

• Objective measurement of minimal fat in normal skeletal muscles of healthy children using T2 relaxation time mapping (T2 maps) and MR spectroscopy.
• Adjusting Body Mass for Measurement Error with Invalid Validation Data.

Intergenerational Effects

• Maternal nutrition and risk of obesity in offspring: The Trojan horse of developmental plasticity.
• Maternal tract factors contribute to paternal seminal fluid impact on metabolic phenotype in offspring.

Food

• Low-protein diets are linked to longer life spans in mice and humans.
• Low-fat yoghurt intake in pregnancy associated with increased child asthma and allergic rhinitis risk: a prospective cohort study.
• What Are We Putting in Our Food That Is Making Us Fat? Food Additives, Contaminants, and Other Putative Contributors to Obesity.
• Review: Probiotics for preventing gestational diabetes.

Epidemiology

• Nutritional Risk and BMI Predict Hospitalization, Nursing Home Admissions, and Mortality in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Results From the UAB Study of Aging With 8.5 Years of Follow-Up.
• Mode of Delivery and Offspring BMI, Overweight and Obesity in Adult Life: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
• Causal Effects of BMI on Cardiometabolic Traits and Events: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis.
• Cardiorespiratory fitness in older adult women: relationships with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D.
• Gonadal dysfunction in morbidly obese adolescent girls.
• Is very high C-reactive protein in young adults associated with indicators of chronic disease risk?
• Obesity in show cats.
• Which weight-loss programmes are as effective as Weight Watchers®? Non-inferiority analysis.
• Systematic Review: Little evidence for an effect of the retail food environment surrounding schools on food purchases and consumption.
• Casinos Associated With Lower Rate of Overweight Children in that Community.
• Nutritional Risk and BMI associated with Hospitalization and Mortality.
• Adiposity and breast cancer recurrence and survival.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Allometries of Maximum Growth Rate versus Body Mass at Maximum Growth Indicate That Non-Avian Dinosaurs Had Growth Rates Typical of Fast Growing Ectothermic Sauropsids.
• Scaled body-mass index shows how habitat quality influences the condition of four fish taxa in north-eastern Spain and provides a novel indicator of ecosystem health.

Drugs

• Factors affecting the ability of baclofen to reduce fat intake in rats.
• RCT: Effect of liraglutide on adipose insulin resistance and hepatic de-novo lipogenesis in non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis.
• Therapeutic use of a clinical stage CCR2 inhibitor, CCX872, in obesity-associated Steatohepatitis in mice.
• RCT: Melatonin for prevention of metabolic side-effects of olanzapine in patients with first-episode schizophrenia.
• RCT: A 12-Week Weight Reduction Intervention for Overweight Individuals Taking Antipsychotic Medications.

Cocoa

• Oligomeric cocoa procyanidins possess enhanced bioactivity compared to monomeric and polymeric cocoa procyanidins for preventing the development of obesity, insulin resistance, and impaired glucose tolerance during high-fat feeding in mice.
• RCT: The effects of polyphenol rich chocolate on cardiovascular risk and glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• Anxiety behaviour displayed in C57BL/6J mice consuming coffee and cocoa, but not observed in mice consuming Japanese green tea in a high fat diet induced obesity model.

Clinical

• Liver but not adipose tissue is responsive to the pattern of enteral feeding.
• RCT: Effects of Exercise Training on Outcomes in Women With Heart Failure.
• RCT: The impact of a low glycemic index (GI) diet on BMI in obese adolescents.
• Transfusion of older stored blood may be harmful.

Brown Fat

• Genetic variation in brown fat activity and body weight regulation in mice: Lessons for human studies.
• Brown Adipose Tissue in the Buccal Fat Pad during Infancy.

Basic Science

• Carboxylated and Uncarboxylated Forms of Osteocalcin Directly Modulate the Glucose Transport System and Inflammation in Adipocytes.
• Changes in Dopamine Release and Dopamine D2/3 Receptor Levels with the Development of Mild Obesity.
• SIRT1 Activator SRT1720 Extends Lifespan and Improves Health of Mice Fed a Standard Diet.
• MicroRNA-196a and the regulation of body-fat distribution in man.
• Inhibiting C-reactive protein for the treatment of cardiovascular disease: Promising evidence from rodent models.
• Peripheral monocytes of obese women display increased chemokine receptor expression and migration capacity.
• Rapamycin Inhibits Murine Adipocyte Differentiation and Reduces Fat Mass of C57BL/6J Mice despite High Fat Diet.
• New insights into the mechanisms of polyphenols beyond antioxidant properties; lessons from the green tea polyphenol, epigallocatechin 3-gallate.
• Review: Update on human health concerns of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) use in dairy cows.

Aging/Longevity

• Aging genomes: A necessary evil in the logic of life.
• BMI categories and mortality risk in US adults: The effect of overweight and obesity on advancing death.
• Increased production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species and reduced adult life span in an insecticide-resistant strain of Anopheles gambiae.
• Compound That May Mimic Calorie Restriction Extends Life Span in Mice.

Stigma

• The stress of stigma: exploring the effect of weight stigma on cortisol reactivity.
• Obese fans will have special seats at the World Cup.

Video

• Steven N. Blair: Fitness Trumps Fatness.
• James Hill: Physical Activity: The Other Side of Energy Balance.
• Joseph Houmard: Severe Obesity: Is there a Metabolic Program?
• Double Feature from NIDDK: (1) Kevin Hall - The Calculus of Calories: What Mathematics Can Teach Us About Obesity (2) Kristina I. Rother - Artificial Sweeteners and Obesity: More than an Association?
• Dennis Bier: ILSI RF: Junk Food for Thought.
• David Moher: ILSI RF: Fidelity and Transparency of Research Reporting.
• Andrew W. Brown: ILSI RF: Recent Initiatives to Improve Research Fidelity.
• Kevin Coombes: ILSI RF: Methods to improve public data sharing.
• David Allison: ILSI RF: Discussant Remarks.
• Eugeni Roura: Taste and the control of appetite.

Commentary

• The fallacy of impartiality: competing interest bias in academic publications.
• US Youth Should Get Moving.
• A Social Connection Approach to Corporate Responsibility: The Case of the Fast-Food Industry and Obesity.
• First Look: The FDA's Nutrition Label Gets A Makeover.
• David Katz: Have we turned the tide on childhood obesity?
• Book Review: ‘A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic — and How We Can End It’ by Deborah Cohen.
• Alternative Review: A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic—and How We can End It.
• Diet Myth: Cut or Burn 3,500 Cals, Lose a Pound?

General Science

• Improving My Lab, My Science With the Open Science Framework.
• Mathematics: The Missed Opportunity in STEM Education.
• Public's Right to Access Medical Discoveries Based on Federally Funded Research?
• How Academia and Publishing are Destroying Scientific Innovation: A Conversation with Sydney Brenner.
• Britain sets out plans for first 3-parent IVF babies.

Announcements

• Risk, Perception, and Response Conference – Boston, March 20-21, 2014.
• Analyzing Risk: Principles, Concepts, and Applications - March 10–13, 2014, Boston.
• The 2014 Pennington Biomedical Research Center Childhood Obesity & Public Health Conference.
• 29th Annual Clinical Conference on Diabetes, May 22-25, 2014, Marco Island.

Featured

• Binding of Adenovirus Type 36 to Human Adipocytes (SGBS Cells).
• Whole Foods: America's temple of pseudoscience.
• More research is required to establish whether or not the relationship between family dinners and risky adolescent behaviors is an artifact of underlying confounders.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline 1: Obesity rate for young children plummets 43% in a decade.
• Study Authors' Conclusion: Overall, there have been no significant changes in obesity prevalence in youth or adults between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012. Obesity prevalence remains high and thus it is important to continue surveillance.
• Headline 2: Obese women only get an average of 1 hour of exercise a year, study says.
• Study: Validation of a Novel Protocol for Calculating Estimated Energy Requirements and Average Daily Physical Activity Ratio for the US Population: 2005-2006.
• Commentary 1: Media coverage of obesity and exercise study leaves out many findings.
• Commentary 2: Not So Fast: Only One Hour of Exercise Per Year?

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Glucose uptake in the brain did not vary significantly among men on a high protein/low carbohydrate diet and high protein/moderate carbohydrate diet.
• Meta-analysis: The evidence from available RCTs does not show that glucomannan intake generates statistically significant weight loss.
• Combination of low dose of the anti-adipogenic agents resveratrol and phenelzine in drinking water is not sufficient to prevent obesity in very-high-fat diet-fed mice.
• RCT: No significant effect of an early childhood obesity intervention on father’s obesity risk behaviors: the Melbourne InFANT Program.
• Study findings suggest that a BMI of 22.5-24.9 was associated with the most favorable mortality risk.

Clinical

• Impact of Computer-Mediated, Obesity-Related Nutrition Education Interventions for Adolescents: A Systematic Review.
• RCT: A primary-school-based study to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity – the EdAl (Educació en Alimentació) study.
• RCT: Findings suggest that though labeling obesity as a disease lowers body-image dissatisfaction, it can lead to selection of higher calorie foods.

Basic Science

• Adipocytes under assault: Environmental disruption of adipose physiology.
• A Drosophila In Vivo Screen Identifies Store-Operated Calcium Entry as a Key Regulator of Adiposity.
• Metabolomics Yield a Novel Biomarker for Predicting Diabetes Mellitus Risk in Humans.
• Autonomic nerves and perivascular fat: Interactive mechanisms.
• Molecular and metabolic profiles suggest that increased lipid catabolism in adipose tissue contributes to leanness in domestic chickens.
• Diesel Exhaust Particle-Induced Airway Responses are Augmented in Obese Rats.

Caloric Restriction

• Caloric restriction reduces sympathetic activity similar to beta-blockers but conveys additional mitochondrio-protective effects in rats.
• Caloric restriction and CB1 blockade activate AMP-activated protein kinase and mediate cardio-protection in a model of premature cardiac senescence in rats.

Food

• The Paleo Diet: What Does the Science Say?
• RCT: Overfeeding Polyunsaturated and Saturated Fat Causes Distinct Effects on Liver and Visceral Fat Accumulation in Humans.
• Food quality and motivation: A refined low-fat diet induces obesity and impairs performance on a progressive ratio schedule of instrumental lever pressing in rats.
• Associations between dairy foods, diabetes, and metabolic health: potential mechanisms and future directions.

Drugs

• Combating the dual burden: therapeutic targeting of common pathways in obesity and type 2 diabetes.
• Olanzapine reduced brown adipose tissue thermogenesis and locomotor activity in female rats.
• RCT: Weight changes in obese adults 6-months after discontinuation of double-blind zonisamide or placebo treatment.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Palaeobiogeography and evolution of insular bovids: ecogeographic patterns of body mass variation and morphological changes.
• Fattening strategies and social status in Willow Tits Poecile montanus during the non-breeding season: support for the optimal body mass hypothesis.
• Study calls into question the validity of using maximum recorded longevity as a proxy for different species’ maximum longevities in comparative studies investigating the evolution of lifespan.
• Researchers discover a Bergmann's rule association between obesity-related human gut microbial composition and geographical latitude using data from over 1,000 participants world-wide.

Epidemiology

• BMI and the risk of injury in adults: A cross-sectional study.
• Oral fat perception is related with BMI, preference and consumption of high-fat foods.
• Cohort Trends in the Body Mass–Mortality Association.
• Substantial discordance exists between high non-HDL cholesterol and high LDL-cholesterol among US adults.

Brown Fat

• Adiponectin reduces thermogenesis by inhibiting brown adipose tissue activation in mice.
• Brite/beige fat and UCP1 — is it thermogenesis?

Stigma

• “No More Name-Calling” (Person First Language).
• Association of Obesity with Self-esteem, Peer Victimization and Behavior Problems in Adolescents.

Technology

• A clinical and biological evaluation of a novel, noninvasive radiofrequency device for the long-term reduction of adipose tissue.
• Glooko unveils population health tool.

Exercise

• RCT: Effects of high-intensity interval exercise versus continuous-moderate intensity exercise on postprandial glycemic control assessed by continuous glucose monitoring in obese adults.
• Study calculates correction factors for the calculation of metabolic equivalents in overweight to extremely obese individuals.

Genetics

• Gene-BMI Interactions Associated with Methotrexate Toxicity Evaluated by UAB.
• Correlation analysis of genetic admixture and social identification with BMI in a Native American Community.
• Loss of Mpzl3 Function Causes Various Skin Abnormalities and Greatly Reduced Adipose Depots in mice.

Policy Related

• Legal Largesse or Big, Fat Failure: Do Weight Discrimination Laws Improve Employment Outcomes of the Obese?
• Projected Employment Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes.
• USDA and White House announces proposed rules to limit marketing of unhealthy foods in schools.
• FDA proposes updates to nutrition facts label on food packages.

Mathematics

• A model of social influence on BMI.
• Weight loss composition is one-fourth fat-free mass: a critical review and critique of this widely cited rule.

Methods

• In vitro and in vivo comparison of two, three and four point Dixon techniques for clinical intramuscular fat quantification at 3T.
• Development of automatic visceral fat volume calculation software for CT volume data.
• Validation study of a pooled electronic healthcare database: the association of obesity with the revision rate of total knee arthroplasty.

General Science

• Sleep apnea during REM associated with poor glucose control.
• Why is academic writing so academic?
• Twelve tips on how to not get your paper published.
• Sun unleashes monster solar flare, biggest of 2014.
• Monkey brains wired to share.
• Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers.
• Resting energy expenditure is independently associated with systolic blood pressure in longitudinal analysis of overweight African American and European American women.
• Strapped scientists abandon research and students.

Video

• On Value of Basic Science and How to Convey to Public.
• Prof Jim Hill: Can physical activity prevent obesity?
• World Anti-Bullying Day - Short anti-fat-bullying video.
• Why do we overeat? A neurobiological perspective.

Commentary

• UAB research paper on obesity was a top read in medical community.
• Improving diet and physical activity to reduce population prevalence of overweight and obesity: An overview of current evidence.
• FGF21 Holds Promises for Treating Obesity-related Insulin Resistance and Hepatosteatosis.
• The puzzling condition of pre-diabetes.

Announcements

• Fourth International Conference on Food Studies being held at Monash University Prato Centre in Prato, Italy from 20-21 October 2014.
• Obesity Week 2013 presentation recordings available.
• Funding campaign to support activities against bullying.
• UAB School of Public Health is hosting a short course on the mathematical sciences in obesity research from May 12-16, 2014.

Featured

• RCT: Does Portion Size Matter? Among subjects given free lunch for 6 months, there was no significant difference in weight by portion size of the free lunch given.
• Video: John Sievenpiper - Sugars and cardiometabolic health: A story lost in translation?
• Optimal Defaults in the Prevention of Pediatric Obesity: From Platform to Practice.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Vitamin C and E supplementation hampers cellular adaptation to endurance training in humans.
• “…Exergaming can be considered a highly relevant strategic tool for the adoption of an active and healthy lifestyle and may be useful in the fight against childhood obesity. However, we believe that such a conclusion is premature and not supported by the current state of knowledge on this topic.”
• RCT: For women who were overweight or obese, antenatal lifestyle advice did not reduce the risk delivering a baby weighing above the 90th centile for gestational age and sex or improve maternal pregnancy and birth outcomes.
• Recommended fasting blood glucose rates not in line with levels observed among those with recommended A1C rates.

Headaches

• Obesity and Headache: Part I – A Systematic Review of the Epidemiology of Obesity and Headache.
• Obesity and Headache: Part II – Potential Mechanism and Treatment Considerations.

Genetics

• Activation of AKT by O-GlcNAcylation Induces Vascular Calcification in Diabetes.
• Calico Cat's Patchwork Fur May Help Humans Beat Obesity in Genetics Study.

Clinical

• Use of HbA1c for Diagnoses of Diabetes and Prediabetes: Comparison with Diagnoses Based on Fasting and 2-Hr Glucose Values and Effects of Gender, Race, and Age.
• Nutritional Strategies for the Preservation of Fat Free Mass at High Altitude.
• Feasibility of a virtual learning collaborative to implement an obesity QI project in 29 pediatric practices.
• Metabolic profile before and after short-term overfeeding with a high-fat diet: a comparison between South Asian and white men.
• The Effect of Eight Weeks of Whole Body Vibration Training on Body Composition and Adipose Tissue Localized in Overweight Women.
• A systematic review and meta-analysis of whole of community interventions to prevent excessive population weight gain.

Food

• Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention.
• The Full-Fat Paradox: Whole Milk May Keep Us Lean.
• Intake of trans fat and incidence of stroke in the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) cohort.
• High saturated fat and low carbohydrate diet decreases lifespan independent of body weight in mice.
• Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart.
• High-fat diet triggers Mallory-Denk body formation via misfolding and crosslinking of excess keratin 8 in mice.
• RCT: Comparative effect of two Mediterranean diets versus a low-fat diet on glycaemic control in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

Drugs

• Suppression of adipogenesis by valproic acid through repression of USF1-activated fatty acid synthesis in adipocytes.
• RCT: Effects of growth hormone administration for 6 months on bone turnover and bone marrow fat in obese premenopausal women.
• RCT: Liraglutide improves long-term glycemic control and weight loss compared with insulin aspart.

Exercise

• Obesity and Cardiovascular Diseases – Implications Regarding Fitness, Fatness and Severity in the Obesity Paradox.
• RCT: Success of a new programme for tackling obesity in men.
• Impact of moderate versus mild aerobic exercise training on inflammatory cytokines in obese type 2 diabetic patients.
• RCT: Hormonal adaptations to endurance training versus resistance training in postmenopause obese women.

Psychology

• Dietary restriction reverses obesity-induced anhedonia in rats.
• RCT: Developing self-regulation for dietary temptations: intervention effects on physical, self-regulatory and psychological outcomes.

Stigma

• The Effect of Context on the Evaluation of Obese vs. Average-Weight Children As a Function of Antifat Attitude.
• Perceived judgment about weight can negatively influence weight loss: A cross-sectional study of overweight and obese patients.
• Overweight and obese individuals with internalized weight bias are at risk for impaired health.

Surgery

• RCT: The short-term results of sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass regarding weight loss, resolution of obesity-related comorbidities and complications were not different at 6 months.
• On top of a majority of health plans not providing coverage, only 1% of eligible patients get weight loss surgery.

Methods

• A differential dielectric affinity glucose sensor.
• A Novel Procedure for Evaluating the Reinforcing Properties of Tastants in Laboratory Rats: Operant Intraoral Self-administration.
• Feasibility of Ecological Momentary Assessment to Characterize Adolescent Postoperative Diet and Activity Patterns Following Weight Loss Surgery.
• Assessment of the Healthy Eating Index-2010 as a Valid and Reliable Measure of Diet Quality According to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
• Feeding and metabolic consequences of scheduled consumption of large, binge-type meals of high fat diet in the Sprague–Dawley rat.
• Bioelectrical impedance analysis results cannot be used in place of DXA without bias and error, when measuring fat-free mass and fat mass in patients with cystic fibrosis.

Epidemiology

• Intermittent fasting during Ramadan associated with a transient increase in total, LDL, and HDL cholesterols and hs-CRP in ethnic obese adolescents.
• Height, adiposity and hormonal cardiovascular risk markers in childhood: how to partition the associations?
• Proximity to 'unhealthy' food outlets associated with prevalence of overweight and obesity among UK children.
• Obesity is associated with higher 4E-BP1 expression in endometrial cancer.
• A heartier appetite in early infancy is prospectively associated with more rapid growth up to age 15 months, suggesting appetite as an early marker for risk of weight gain.

Aging

• Nucleolar GTPase NOG-1 Regulates Development, Fat Storage, and Longevity through Insulin/IGF Signaling in C. elegans.
• Attribution of Causes of Weight Loss and Weight Gain to 3-Year Mortality in Older Adults: Results from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam.
• Protein intake protects against weight loss in healthy community-dwelling older adults.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Population genomics of eusocial insects: the costs of a vertebrate-like effective population size.
• Competition, virulence, host body mass and the diversification of macro-parasites.
• Chronic exposure to hypercapnic conditions alters nutrient allocation to organ systems and functions, leading to changes in somatic and reproductive production, in the sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus.

Sperm

• In Subfertile Couple, Abdominal Fat Loss in Men Is Associated with Improvement of Sperm Quality and Pregnancy: A Case-Series.
• Sustained High Protein-Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B Activity in the Sperm of Obese Male Impairs the Sperm Acrosome Reaction.

Intergenerational Effects

• In Utero Exposure to Diesel Exhaust Air Pollution Promotes Adverse Intrauterine Conditions, Resulting in Weight Gain, Altered Blood Pressure, and Increased Susceptibility to Heart Failure in Adult Mice.
• Animal mothers’ milk differs by infant’s sex.
• Inadequate weight gain in overweight and obese pregnant women: what is the effect on fetal growth?
• Maternal and postweaning high-fat diets disturb hippocampal gene expression, learning and memory function in rats.

Policy Related

• “Natural” Class Action Against Dietary Supplements.
• California law proposal would put health warning labels on soda.

Basic Science

• Micro-architectural changes in cancellous bone differ in female and male C57BL/6 mice with high-fat diet-induced low bone mineral density.
• Endogenous ways to stimulate brown adipose tissue in humans.
• A Functional, Genome-wide Evaluation of Liposensitive Yeast Identifies the “ARE2 Required for Viability” (ARV1) Gene Product as a Major Component of Eukaryotic Fatty Acid Resistance.
• Obesity interferes with the orosensory detection of long-chain fatty acids in humans.
• Chronic exposure to low doses of pharmaceuticals disturbs the hepatic expression of circadian genes in lean and obese mice.
• Differentiated human stem cells resemble fetal, not adult, beta cells.
• Regulation of Hepatic Energy Metabolism and Gluconeogenesis by BAD.
• Mechanisms of the Munchies: Using mice to explore cannabinoid type-1 receptors in hunger, olfaction, and food intake.
• RAGE Regulates the Metabolic and Inflammatory Response to High Fat Feeding in Mice.
• Islet number rather than islet size is a major determinant of beta and alpha cell mass in humans.

Commentary

• 3 Factors Obscure Breastfeeding’s Effect on Obesity.
• If fast food is addictive, cheap and available, and almost all of us eat it, then why aren’t we all obese?
• Comment on letter to the editor from F. Lapostolle: ‘Worldwide relation between the number of McDonald's restaurants and the prevalence of obesity’.
• David Katz: Gills, Pills, and Obesity Genes.
• Healthy snacking recommendations: One size does not fit all.
• Readers of the NYT respond to Gary Taubes' "Why nutrition is so confusing".
• In search of a righteous diet.
• The FDA, 23andMe, 'unverified health claims' and the future of direct-to-consumer genetic testing.

Video

• Intraoral self-administration for studying the acquisition and maintenance of response to sweet solutions in rodents.

General Science

• Tracing Ancestry, Researchers Produce a Genetic Atlas of Human Mixing Events.
• The ethics of big data.
• Approaches and Costs for Sharing Clinical Research Data.
• Admixture facilitates genetic adaptations to high altitude in Tibet.
• Professors, We Need You!
• NSF Survey: Americans struggle with science, but respect scientists and are interested in hearing about the latest scientific breakthroughs.
• Did the model for da Vinci's Vitruvian Man die of a hernia?

Announcements

• Full/Associate/Assistant Member in Obesity & Cancer in Public Health Sciences.