Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• RCT: The liberating effect of weight loss supplements on dietary control.
• A Farm to School Program increased children’s fruit and vegetable intake, but did not decrease energy intake or BMI  z-scores,
• Hawthorne effect with transient behavioral and biochemical changes in a sleep extension RCT of chronically short-sleeping obese adults: implications for the design and interpretation of clinical studies.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Feelings of energy are associated with physical activity and sleep quality, but not adiposity, in middle-aged postmenopausal women.
• BMI is not associated with eosinophilic airway inflammation.
• No association between body size and frequency of sexual intercourse among oral contraceptive users.
• Vibration training at 45 Hz and 0.6 g did not significantly impact the tibial bone and the surrounding musculature, but affected fat distribution in mice.
• “The health advantage generally attributed to higher SES does not appear consistently across racial/ethnic groups for obesity in youth”.

Basic Science

• Chronic activation of central AMPK attenuates glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and exacerbates hepatic insulin resistance in diabetic rats.
• Cardiolipin profiles as a potential biomarker of mitochondrial health in diet-induced obese mice subjected to exercise, diet-restriction and ephedrine treatment.
• Adipocytes in both brown and white adipose tissue of adult mice are functionally connected via gap junctions: Implications for Chagas disease.
• Evaluating the number of mitochondrial DNA copies in leukocytes and adipocytes from metabolic syndrome patients.
• Applications of computational modeling in metabolic engineering of yeast.

Clinical

• Dash of salt does no harm. Extremes are the enemy.
• Obesity increases the risk of persistent moderate or severe overall pain 6 months and 1 year after motor vehicle collision.

Drugs, Pills & Potions

• RCT: Administration of resveratrol significantly decreases weight, BMI, fat mass, WC, AUC of insulin, and total insulin secretion.
• St. John's wort has metabolically favorable effects on adipocytes in vivo.
• Cocaine cues activate similar, though not identical, pathways to those activated by food cues and that striatal D2/D3 receptors modulate these responses, suggesting that chronic cocaine exposure might influence brain sensitivity not just to drugs but also to food cues.
• Rosiglitazone reduces body wasting and improves survival in a rat model of cancer cachexia.
• RCT: Body weight loss, reduced urge for palatable food and increased release of GLP-1 through daily supplementation with green-plant membranes for three months in overweight women.
• New estrogen-based compound suppresses binge-like eating behavior in female mice.
• Drug Modulation via the quality control theory of aging.

Epidemiology

• The relationship between obesity and exposure to light at night: Cross-Sectional analyses of over 100,000 women in the Breakthrough Generations Study.
• The effect (association) of gender and social capital on the dual burden of malnutrition: A multilevel study in Indonesia.
• “There is an association between the presence of type unspecific anti-AdV antibodies in the serum and elevated body weight, BMI, WHR and waist circumference in lean and non-obese subjects from the Polish population”.
• Webcast: Moving beyond traditional epidemiologic research.

Methods

• The relationship between appetite scores and subsequent energy intake: An analysis based on 23 randomized controlled studies.
• Misreporting of dietary intake affects estimated nutrient intakes in low-income Spanish-speaking women.
• When studied in a laboratory environment and energy balance was closely monitored, subjects under-reported their food intake and decreased the actual intake when they were aware that their intake was being monitored.
• Whole animal experiments should be more like human RCTs.

Transgenerational Effects

• The role of placental nutrient sensing in maternal-fetal resource allocation.
• Short- and long-term effects of a maternal low-energy diet ad libitum during gestation and/or lactation on physiological parameters of mothers and male offspring.
• The anthropometry of children and adolescents may be influenced by the prenatal smoking habits of their grandmothers: A longitudinal cohort study.
• Aggressive behavioral phenotype in intrauterine growth restricted (IUGR) baboons exposed to moderate nutrient restriction early in development.
• Don't blame the mothers.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Why hummingbirds love sweets - and detest anything sugar free.
• Seasonal metabolic adjustments and partitioning of evaporative water loss in Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit bat, Epomophorus Wahlbergi.
• Daily torpor and hibernation in birds and mammals.

Food

• Rethinking Eating.
• RCT: Effect of cooked white rice with high ß-glucan barley on appetite and energy intake in healthy Japanese subjects.
• Comparative study of the effects of sweeteners on the blood glucose level and weight of rattus norvegicus.
• RCT: Effects of brown and golden flaxseed on the lipid profile, glycemia, inflammatory biomarkers, blood pressure and body composition in overweight adolescents.
• Resisting chocolate temptation using a brief mindfulness strategy.
• Does increasing fruit and vegetable intake affect weight loss?

Breakfast

• Breakfast downgraded from 'most important meal of the day' to 'meal'.
• RCT: Satiety effects of a whole-grain fibre composite ingredient: reduced food intake and appetite ratings.
• Is a good breakfast key?

Caloric Restriction

• Protein and amino acid restriction, aging and disease: from yeast to humans.
• Growth hormone abolishes beneficial effects of calorie restriction in long-lived Ames dwarf mice.
• The roles of FoxOs in modulation of aging by calorie restriction.
• Effect of Resveratrol as caloric restriction mimetic and environmental enrichment on neurobehavioural responses in young healthy mice.
• Long-term calorie restriction of two laboratory mouse strains caused differential changes in infection susceptibility, reactive oxygen species/antioxidant production and parasite life history traits.
• FGF21 is an endocrine signal of protein restriction.
• Review: The health pros and cons of continuous versus intermittent calorie restriction: More questions than answers.

Diet

• Dietary regimens modify early onset of obesity in mice haploinsufficient for Rai1.
• Dietary effect on immunological energetics in mice.

Exercise

• RCT: Physical exercise reduces body fat in postpartum primiparous, lactating women.
• RCT: Body composition response to lower body positive pressure training in obese children.

Diabetes

• RCT: Impact of an Intensive Lifestyle Intervention on Use and Cost of Medical Services Among Overweight and Obese Adults With Type 2 Diabetes: The Action for Health in Diabetes.
• FDA clears 2 blood glucose monitors from Nipro.
• Exercise lowers type 2 diabetes risk after gestational diabetes.
• New scientific statement from the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association stress heart care for type 1 diabetes patients.

Gut Microbiota

• Microbiome science needs a healthy dose of skepticism.
• A gut microbe that stops food allergies.

Hypoxia

• Oxygen sensing and metabolic homeostasis.
• A genetic mechanism for Tibetan high-altitude adaptation.
• Effects of high-altitude trekking on body composition.

Mathematical

• The potential impact of a 20% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages on obesity in South African adults: A mathematical model.
• Public and health professionals' misconceptions about the dynamics of body weight gain/loss.
• Computer modeling of obesity links theoretical energetic measures with experimental measures of fuel use for lean and obese men.

Obesogens

• Perinatal lead (Pb) exposure results in sex-specific effects on food intake, fat, weight, and insulin response across the murine life-course.
• Association of low-level arsenic exposure in drinking water with cardiovascular disease: A systematic review and risk assessment.
• DDT and obesity.

Attitudes

• A content analysis of weight stigmatization in popular television programming for adolescents.
• “Don’t eat that, you’ll get fat!” exploring how parents and children conceptualise and frame messages about the causes and consequences of obesity.
• Beliefs, attitudes and phobias among medical and psychology students towards people with obesity.
• Obesity in minorities may be affected by demeaning stereotypes.
• Obesity Action Coalition creates petition against fat shaming apps such as Fatify.

Policy Related

• Listening to the experts: Is there a place for food taxation in the fight against obesity in early childhood?
• A systematic review on the affordability of a healthful diet for families in the United States.
• Venezuela battles obesity amid dearth of good food.
• Grants helped state exchanges enroll more people than HealthCare.gov.

Smoking

• A policy statement from the American Heart Association on E-cigarettes.
• Significant smoking-induced increase in arterial stiffness was not observed in physically active adults.

Surgery

• Preoperative dietary restriction reduces intimal hyperplasia and protects from ischemia-reperfusion injury in mice.
• Bariatric surgery and pregnancy outcome - the ultimate solution?
• Peripheral nerve interface applications, obesity.

Psychology

• I’ll drink to that: Differential effect of fat labeling, weight salience and dietary restraint on consumption.
• Can merely learning about obesity genes affect eating behavior?

Technology

• Microsoft partners on mobile-health plan for diabetes patients.
• Many patients don’t understand electronic lab results.

General Science

• Holding a Mirror Up to "White Hat Bias" in Research.
• Tiny twisters whirl around inside drops of helium.
• Research team says migrating fruit bats responsible for Ebola outbreak.
• A whole functional organ has been grown from scratch inside an animal for the first time.
• Dogs play dumb for our sake.
• Sedentary behavior and health outcomes: An overview of systematic reviews.
• RCTs of rheumatoid arthritis registered at clinicaltrials.gov: What gets published and when.

Commentary

• Rich or Poor, Fit or Fat — Beware Generalizations.
• Zafgen CEO: "Treating obesity with dietary prevention and exercise is like putting sunscreen on melanoma."
• What is important to early career researchers?
• Why are we so fat? The multimillion-dollar scientific quest to find out.
• How the world is becoming more equal.
• Should We Really Be Calling Obesity a Disease?
• Obscurity on obesity.

Announcements

• Southern Translational Education and Research Conference, Sept. 25-26 at the Augusta Marriott Hotel, will focus on obesity.
• Call for papers - Weight stigma and eating behaviors.
• Association-funded research database now available.
• Two job opportunities at Sense About Science. Deadline: Monday, September 8.               
• Register now for meeting 5 of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on Sept. 16 and 17.

Featured

• Low sodium intake--cardiovascular health benefit or risk?
• Scientists create implantable device that produces insulin.
• Commentary: The Nutrition Elite - seems focused on supporting many popular ideas despite questionable evidence.
• Use of antibiotics in (mouse) babies is linked to obesity.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Systematic Review: “There is no evidence that interventions delivered within primary care settings by generalist primary care teams trained in weight management achieve meaningful weight loss.”
• No association of local school wellness policy with obesity in school districts within Nebraska.
• "Although breastfeeding has been previously reported to protect against childhood obesity, we were unable to find a significant association between obesity and either longer duration of breastfeeding or later introduction to solid foods in our sample.”

Self-Report

• Self-reported health parameters compared with clinician measurements: methods in practice-based research.
• Two Self-Report Measures to Assess Sedentary Behavior (SB) in Older Adults - Neither should be used as the sole measure of SB in a study.

Basic Science

• ABCD2 Alters PPAR? Signaling in Vitro, but Does Not Impair Responses to Fenofibrate Therapy in a Mouse Model of Diet-induced Obesity.
• The effects of exogenous cortisol on myostatin transcription in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss.
• Foodborne Transmission of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy to Non-Human Primates Results in Preclinical Rapid-Onset Obesity.
• Low birth weight is associated with adiposity, impaired skeletal muscle energetics and weight loss resistance in mice.
• Bugs, Drugs, and Obesity.
• Arginine starvation-associated atypical cellular death involves mitochondrial dysfunction, nuclear DNA leakage, and chromatin autophagy.
• Key protein may be vital for immune cell survival .
• Ribosome stalling induced by mutation of a CNS-specific tRNA causes neurodegeneration.

Methods

• System and method of approximating caloric energy intake and/or macronutrient composition.
• Use of Department of Motor Vehicle records in the study of obesity and breast cancer.
• Accuracy of two Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) systems; a direct comparison in clinical research centre and daily life conditions.

Exercise

• Assessing environmental support for better health: Active living opportunity audits in rural communities in the southern United States.
• Relationship between perceived discrimination and sedentary behavior in adults.

Food

• A Mediterranean-like breakfast affects energy intake and appetite-related feelings.
• RCT: Human Milk Cream as a Supplement to Standard Fortification of an Exclusive Human Milk-Based Diet in Infants 750-1250 g Birth Weight.
• New study questions low salt guidelines.
• Return of hunger following a relatively high carbohydrate breakfast is associated with earlier recorded glucose peak and nadir.

Caloric Restriction

• Calorie restriction and NAD+/sirtuin counteract the hallmarks of aging.
• D-beta-hydroxybutyrate extends lifespan in C. elegans.

Epidemiology

• Maternal Ratings of Child Health and Child Obesity, Variations by Mother’s Race/Ethnicity and Nativity.
• Nutritional Risk and Body Mass Index 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.
• Nineteenth Century Black and Mulatto Physical Activity, Calories, and Life Expectancy.
• Trends in Abdominal Obesity Among US Children and Adolescents.
• The Simultaneous Effects of Obesity, Insurance Choice, and Medical Visit Choice on Healthcare Costs.

Stigma

• Associations of weight stigma with cortisol and oxidative stress independent of adiposity.
• Die Another Day: The Obstacles Facing Fat People in Accessing Quality Healthcare.
• Perceptions Towards Obese Adults and Children Among Senior-level Female Nutrition and Non-nutrition Students.
• Stigma and the perpetuation of obesity.
• Too fat, too thin: Understanding bias against overweight and underweight in an Australian female university student sample.

Drugs

• The effect of ghrelin antagonist (D-Lys3) GHRP-6 on ovariectomy-induced obesity in adult female albino rats.
• Pharmacogenetics of Obesity Drug Therapy.

Surgery

• Metabolic surgery: action via hormonal milieu changes, changes in bile acids or gut microbiota? A summary of the literature.
• Malabsorption Plays a Major Role in the Effects of the Biliopancreatic Diversion with Duodenal Switch on Energy Metabolism in Rats.
• Experience in kidney transplantation without blood transfusion: Kidney transplantation transfusion-free in Jehovah's Witnesses. .

Sweeteners

• Three Views of Added Sugar.
• The effect of non-caloric sweeteners on cognition, choice, and post-consumption satisfaction.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Predators, energetics and fitness drive neonatal reproductive failure in red squirrels.
• Age-related obesity is a heritage of the evolutionary past.
• Inference on energetics of deep-sea fish that cannot be aged: The case of the hagfish.
• Energetics and Migration in Songbirds: Two Case Studies Examining Energetic Condition and Migration at a Northern Stopover Location.
• Reproductive costs in femal olive baboons (Papio anubis).

Clinical

• RCT: Weight loss in overweight mothers with breast cancer and their overweight daughters.
• Process Evaluation of the Enabling Mothers to Prevent Pediatric Obesity Through Web-Based Learning and Reciprocal Determinism RCT.
• Systematic Review: The effectiveness of individual, community and societal level interventions at reducing socioeconomic inequalities in obesity amongst children.
• Association of the degree of adiposity and duration of obesity with measures of cardiac structure and function: The CARDIA Study.
• How much should we weigh for a long and healthy life span?
• Appropriateness of the definition of ‘sedentary’ in young children: Whole-room calorimetry study.

Bone

• Review: Moderate weight loss does not necessarily compromise bone health, especially when exercise training is involved.
• Biomechanical modelling of long bones and body mass estimation in modern and fossil species.
• Is Adipocyte Differentiation the Default Lineage for Mesenchymal Stem/Progenitor Cells after Loss of Mechanical Loading? A Perspective from Space Flight and Model Systems.
• Effects of caloric restriction on nitrogen and carbon stable isotope ratios in adult rat bone.

Sarcopenia

• A healthy body habitus is more than just a normal BMI: Implications of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity.
• Sarcopenia: describing rather than defining a condition.

Psychology

• Do you "like" my photo? Facebook use maintains eating disorder risk.
• The role of both parents’ attachment pattern in understanding childhood obesity.
• Expectancy, Self-Efficacy, and Placebo Effect of a Sham Supplement for Weight Loss in Obese Adults.
• More moms worry about own weight than their children's.

General Science

• Fields Medal mathematics prize won by woman for first time in its history.
• Same Data, Different Conclusion: A statistical re-analysis has led scientists to conclude that mice are a suitable model organism for studying human inflammatory conditions afterall.
• Political Activism is not Mandated by Medical Professionalism.
• Proanthocyanidins from Grape Seeds Inhibit UV Radiation-Induced Immune Suppression in Mice: Detection and Analysis of Molecular and Cellular Targets.
• Epigenome-Wide Association Study of Fasting Blood Lipids in the Genetics of Lipid-Lowering Drugs and Diet Network Study.
• Genetic variation in the JAK/STAT/SOCS signaling pathway influences breast cancer-specific mortality through interaction with cigarette smoking and use of aspirin/NSAIDs: the Breast Cancer Health Disparities Study. .
• Mice win reprieve as genetic model for man.
• Retirement savings and physical health.
• Beyond Conflicts of Interest:  Disclosing Medical Biases.
• Decreasing Rates of Induced Labor.
• Newborn Screening for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency:  Progress and Challenges.
• Brain stimulation 'helps in stroke'.

Computational

• Mathematical model for the contribution of individual organs to non-zero y-intercepts in single and multi-compartment linear models of whole-body energy expenditure.
• A Model-Based Approach to Phenotyping Sleep-Related Breathing Disorders in Pediatric Obesity.

Commentary

• "Fat graft survival: physics matters - "the impact of liposuction cannula size on adipocyte viability".
• Stier: Raising taxes on certain foods, drinks does little to fight obesity.
• Humor: Study Finds 79% Of Statistics Now Sobering.
• Disgusting advertising featuring “grabbable guts” and “toxic fat”

Announcements

• Webinar: Cancer Prevention Through Immunomodulation: Does Diet Play a Role?

Featured

• Intelligence and obesity: which way does the causal direction go?
• Lifestyle interventions for cardiovascular disease risk reduction: a systematic review of the effects of diet composition, food provision, and treatment modality on weight loss.
• Sensory-specific appetite is affected by actively smelled food odors and remains stable over time in normal-weight women.
• RCT: Modified sham feeding of foods with different macronutrient compositions differentially influences cephalic change of insulin, ghrelin, and NMR-based metabolomic profiles.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• “Eating at sit-down restaurants can be worse for you than fast food.”
• RCT: Evidence against a role for GLP-1 in postprandial satiety in humans.
• “From this review, evidence for an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and obesity risk is inconsistent when adjustment for energy balance is made.”
• The results of this meta-analysis do not support an independent association between diets high in total fat and pancreatic cancer risk.
• RCT: No discernable effect of an inpatient weight loss intervention with postdischarge follow-up results in weight loss at 6 months when compared to control.
• Weight loss in initially healthy overweight/obese older adults was not associated with psychological benefit.
• Pharmaceutical pollutants in water seem to benefit at least one species.

Exercise

• Exercise of any kind benefits patients with diabetes and people at risk for diabetes.
• Impact of exercise training without caloric restriction on inflammation, insulin resistance and visceral fat mass in obese adolescents.
• RCT: Effect of a 3-month physical activity program on body composition in African American college females.
• RCT: Additive effects of isoflavones and exercise training on inflammatory cytokines and body composition in overweight and obese postmenopausal women.

Muscle

• Preoperative quality and quantity of skeletal muscle and mortality.
• Sarcopenic obesity: under-recognised and over treated?

Methods

• Scientists use fruit flies to study diabetes.
• Method of assessing parent-child grocery store purchasing interactions using a micro-camcorder.
• Validity of the Bite Counter device in a controlled laboratory setting.
• Just-About-Right and ideal scaling provide similar insights into the influence of sensory attributes on liking.
• Meta-analysis as evidence: building a better pyramid.

Economics

• The impact of wealth on weight.
• Neighborhood deprivation and diagnosed childhood obesity: a nationwide multilevel study from Sweden.

Food

• RCT: Impact of medium and long chain triglycerides consumption on appetite and food intake in overweight men.
• RCT: Effects of a normal protein vs. high protein breakfast on food cravings and reward signals in overweight/obese “breakfast skipping,” late adolescent girls.
• RCT: Effects of varying the inter-meal interval on relationships between antral area, gut hormones and energy intake following a nutrient drink in healthy lean humans.
• RCT: Breakfast replacement with a low-glycaemic response liquid formula in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Epidemiology

• Association between obesity, race and Knee osteoarthritis: The Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study.
• Heavier people, no matter what age, may have less endurance in manufacturing jobs.
• Associations of grandparental schooling with adult grandchildren's health status, smoking, and obesity.
• Moderate to severe obesity is associated with a poorer invasive breast cancer prognosis.
• Body mass index, physical activity, and smoking in relation to military readiness.
• Malaria’s toll in the Peace Corps.
• CDC projects 40 percent of Americans will develop diabetes.

Stigma

• Obese body sizes are associated with perceived laziness, isolation, and negative social stigma in Botswana.
• Physiotherapists demonstrate weight stigma: a cross-sectional survey of Australian physiotherapists.
• Stigma and the perpetuation of obesity.

Drugs

• RCT: oral administration of Gelesis100, a novel hydrogel, significantly decreases body weight in overweight and obese subjects.
• Overview of new antiobesity drugs.
• RCT: effect of a melanocortin receptor 4 (MC4R) agonist, RM-493, on resting energy expenditure (REE) in obese subjects.
• RCT: naltrexone to counteract antipsychotic-associated weight gain: proof of concept.
• Preventing olanzapine-induced weight gain using betahistine: a study in a rat model with chronic olanzapine treatment.
• Nicotine enhances modulation of food-cue reactivity by leptin and ghrelin in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
• FDA-approved medications for the treatment of overweight and obesity.

Surgery

• RCT: preoperative intervention to increase physical activity in bariatric surgery patients.
• RCT: weight loss, adipokines, and quality of life after sleeve gastrectomy in obese patients with stages 3-4 CKD.
• Bariatric surgery for severely obese adolescents.
• Large-volume liposuction and fasting insulin levels.

Sugar

• Commentary: “some of my colleagues have created a cottage industry in the indictment of sugar in general, and fructose in particular, for crimes against humanity.”
• RCT: Dietary Fructose Reduction Improves Markers of Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Hispanic-American Adolescents with NAFLD.
• Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption Among Adults — 18 States, 2012.
• RCT: The Effects of Fructose-Containing Sugars on Weight, Body Composition and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors When Consumed at up to the 90th Percentile Population Consumption Level for Fructose.
• Systematic Review: “Overall, the available evidence is not sufficiently robust to draw conclusions regarding effects of fructose, HFCS, or sucrose consumption on NAFLD.”
• Normal Roles for Dietary Fructose in Carbohydrate Metabolism.
• RCT: No Change in Oral Glucose Tolerance Tests As a Result of Ten Weeks of Consumption of Various Fructose Containing Sugars or Glucose.
• Concrete images of the sugar content in sugar-sweetened beverages reduces attraction to and selection of these beverages.
• Commentary: Uninterpretable results from a meta-analysis of fructose and metabolic syndrome.
• Loneliness, Social Integration and Consumption of Sugar-Containing Beverages: Testing the Social Baseline Theory.
• Editorial: Oh sugar!

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• A thermodynamic theory of microbial growth.
• Energetics, scaling and sexual size dimorphism of spiders.
• Increasing energetic cost of biosynthesis during growth makes refeeding deleterious.
• Senescence or selective disappearance? Age trajectories of body mass in wild and captive populations.

Clinical

• RCT: effects of poly-bioactive compounds on lipid profile and body weight in a moderately hypercholesterolemic population with low cardiovascular disease risk.
• RCT: effects on glycemic control and weight of a widely available weight control program tailored for people with type 2 diabetes: six-month results.
• Obese individuals may require 40% higher vitamin D intake than non-obese individuals.
• Few diabetes patients test glucometers with control solutions and few physicians recommend it.

Obesity Paradox

• Metabolically healthy obesity-does it exist?
• To legitimize the contentious obesity paradox.

Policy Related

• DOE increases public access to research results.
• Put down the cupcake: new ban hits school bake sales.
• A systematic review of the effectiveness of food taxes and subsidies to improve diets: Understanding the recent evidence.
• “Our results suggest that anti-obesity advertising is more effective for overweight subjects and healthy food advertising is more effective for normal-weight subjects.”
• Lawmakers call for details on trial participants’ sex and race.

Commentary

• Advocacy groups take obesity naysayers to task.
• Explaining the obesity paradox.
• Are We Overdoing Salt Restrictions?
• Too much food or too little movement?
• Losing weight is depressing?
• E-cigarettes & sweeteners: who needs facts?
• What’s becoming of the word “Fat”?
• Shocking anti-obesity PSA sparks debate.
• Scientific studies biased by reward systems.
• Is fat shaming OK if you target parents?

Basic Science

• Intrinsic aerobic capacity impacts susceptibility to acute high-fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis.
• Syndecan-1 knockout mice lack proper intradermal fat, and are 60 to 80 percent more resistant to tumors than normal mice.
• Pterostilbene, a dimethyl ether derivative of resveratrol, reduces fat accumulation in rats fed an obesogenic diet.
• Foodborne transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to non-human primates results in preclinical rapid-onset obesity.
• Grizzly Bears, insulin resistance, and hibernation.
• Why Zebrafish?

General Science

• Mapping ecologically relevant social behaviours by gene knockout in wild mice.
• Translational genomics: clues from the resilient.
• Boosting insect aggression by altering brain metabolism.
• Lab-based lucid dreaming (self-awareness in dreams).
• Electron theft, not drug effects, may be how anesthesia knocks people out.
• Covert images and anti-counterfeit drug labels.
• Student could be jailed for posting another scientist’s thesis online.
• Maryam Mirzakhani: first woman to ever win the Fields Medal – known as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics."
• The most realistic fake brain tissue ever.
• Photo editing algorithm changes weather, seasons automatically.
• Vaccine alternative protects mice against malaria.

Video

• Beating obesity: start with the exercise as a Vital Sign.
• Why don’t doctors prescribe physical activity?
• Exercise scripts: teaching doctors to prescribe exercise.

Announcements

• Call for Papers: weight stigma and eating behaviors.
• UAB researchers receive NIH grant to offer a New Short Course: "Strengthening Causal Inference in Behavioral Obesity Research."
• New book on obesity and sex lives.
• Joint ACSM/AND/ILSI/IFIC Foundation Webcast: Energy balance at the crossroads: translating the science into action

Featured

• Acute dim light at night increases body mass, alters metabolism, and shifts core body temperature circadian rhythms in mice.
• Among older men, self-reported energy intake was downwardly biased, the bias was correlated with obesity, and the squared correlation with an objective measure was only about 10%.
• Body shape shifting during growth permits tests that distinguish between competing geometric theories of metabolic scaling.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Supplemental Postoperative Oxygen Does Not Reduce Surgical Site Infection and Major Healing-Related Complications from Bariatric Surgery in Morbidly Obese Patients.
• RCT: No detected effect of Portion-Controlled, Commercially Available Diet on Presurgical Weight Loss and Metabolic Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Bariatric Surgery.
• Calorie restriction does not elicit a robust extension of replicative lifespan in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
• Life-long caloric restriction does not alter the severity of age-related osteoarthritis.
• “We find no evidence that the presence of dollar stores within a reasonably close proximity to the child's residence can increase BMI. In fact, we see an increase in BMI when dollar stores leave a child's neighborhood which we interpret as a sign of neighborhood deterioration.”
• No evidence of an association between BMI and semen parameters.
• No evidence for a role of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARG) and adiponectin (ADIPOQ) genes in antipsychotic-induced weight gain.
• “Despite the high prevalence of Adv36 in this Tehranian population, no significant correlation was found between Adv36 seropositivity and BMI, although, it has been associated with lipid disorders.”

Scholarly Dialogue

• Comment on Kahn and Sievenpiper. Dietary Sugar and Body Weight: Have We Reached a Crisis in the Epidemic of Obesity and Diabetes? We Have, but the Pox on Sugar Is Overwrought and Overworked. Diabetes Care 2014;37:957–962.
  
  • Response to Comment on Kahn and Sievenpiper. Dietary Sugar and Body Weight: Have We Reached a Crisis in the Epidemic of Obesity and Diabetes? We Have, but the Pox on Sugar Is Overwrought and Overworked. Diabetes Care 2014;37:957–962.
• Last week we offered: Plasma free fatty acids do not provide the link between obesity and insulin resistance or ?-cell dysfunction: results of the Reading, Imperial, Surrey, Cambridge, Kings (RISCK) study.
  
  • A reader responds that the standard FFA assay used poorly differentiates suppressed from non-suppressed FFA concentrations and suggests that there is contradictory evidence.​
• Point-Counterpoint on the ACA and Obesity (beginning on 809).
• Original article: The New Weight-Loss Drugs, Lorcaserin and Phentermine-Topiramate Slim Pickings?
  
  • OAC response.
  • TOS response.
    • Authors' reply.

Basic Science

• Adipose induces myoblast differentiation and mediates TNFα-regulated myogenesis.
• Feeding frequency influences growth, feed consumption and body composition of juvenile rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus).
• Perinatal Exposure of Mice to the Pesticide DDT Impairs Energy Expenditure and Metabolism in Adult Female Offspring.
• Hindbrain Glucoprivation Effects on Gastric Vagal Reflex Circuits and Gastric Motility in the Rat Are Suppressed by the Astrocyte Inhibitor Fluorocitrate.
• Sub-chronically exposing mice to a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon increases lipid accumulation in their livers.
• PPARy ablation sensitizes proopiomelanocortin neurons to leptin during high-fat feeding.
• Direct activating effects of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) on brown adipose tissue are attenuated by corticosterone.

Food

• Effect of Tree Nuts on Glycemic Control in Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of RCTs.
• RCT: The effects of functional fiber on postprandial glycemia, energy intake, satiety, palatability and gastrointestinal wellbeing.
• Americans Still Avoid Fat More Than Carbs.
• Processed foods: contributions to nutrition.
• Introduction of supermarket nutrition rating system associated with decreased purchases of less nutritious foods.

Exercise

• RCT: An 8-month exercise intervention alters frontotemporal white matter integrity in overweight children.
• RCT: Effects of exercise and lifestyle modification on fitness, insulin resistance, skeletal muscle oxidative phosphorylation and intramyocellular lipid content in obese children and adolescents.
• There was a greater likelihood of mismatch between self-reported and accelerometer measured physical activity levels in overweight or obese adults.

Cats

• Water and energy balance in cats.
• Catering for lean cats: effects of feeding method on physical activity, prandial behaviour, health and body condition of domestic cats.
• Influence of dietary protein level on body composition and energy expenditure in calorically restricted overweight cats.

Critical Illness and Cancer

• High carbohydrate and high fat diets protect the heart against ischaemia/reperfusion injury.
• Obesity is associated with improved mortality among severe sepsis patients.
• Meta-analysis: Obese but not overweight patients appear to have worse overall survival than normal-weight patients with colorectal cancer.

Ergonomics

• Typing performance and body discomfort among overweight and obese office workers: A pilot study of keyboard modification.
• The influences [association] of obesity and age on functional performance during intermittent upper extremity tasks.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Understanding how honey bee flight and senescence are connected through oxidative stress.
• Grizzly bears become insulin resistant when they hibernate.
• Allometric structure and topology of food webs: Energetic constraints conserve food-web structure acrossecosystems and space.
• Linking energetics and overwintering in temperate insects.
• Selective gene expression in stout bears helps them to maintain steady blood sugar.

Epidemiology

• Under-reporting remains a key limitation of self-reported dietary intake: an analysis of the 2008/09 New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey.
• Do colleagues influence our lifestyle: The matter of smoking, BMI and leisure-time physical activity?
• Association between habitual school travel and muscular fitness in youth.
• Hair Toxic Element Content in Adult Men and Women in Relation to BMI.

Surgery

• RCT: Obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary function in morbid obesity undergone bariatric surgery.
• RCT: Effects of a Very Low Calorie Diet in the Preoperative Stage of Bariatric Surgery.
• RCT: The Effect of the Endoscopic Duodenal-Jejunal Bypass Liner on Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
• The efficacy of capacitive radio-frequency diathermy in reducing buttock and posterior thigh cellulite measured through the cellulite severity scale.

Drugs

• FDA meeting about safety and efficacy of liraglutide for injection.
• RCT: Correcting oral contraceptive pharmacokinetic alterations due to obesity.

Policy Related

• Beyond Paternalism: Rethinking the Limits of Public Health Law.
• Legislation, impact and trends in nutrition labeling: A global overview.

Caloric Restriction

• Roles for Pbp1 and Caloric Restriction in Genome and Lifespan Maintenance via Suppression of RNA-DNA Hybrids.
• The 'memory' of starvation is in your genes.

Energy Balance

• Participation in Physical Activity after Consuming Meals of Differing Caloric Content Does Not Alter Appetite Four Hours Post-Activity.
• The role of leptin in energy homeostasis in humans.

Gut Microbiota

• Individual diet has sex-dependent effects on vertebrate gut microbiota.
• Potential probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis ssp. lactis 420 prevents weight gain and glucose intolerance in diet-induced obese mice.

Temperature

• Nutritional and physiological responses of finishing pigs exposed to a permanent heat exposure during three weeks.
• Ambient temperature, calf intakes, and weight gains on preweaned dairy calves.
• Whole-body cryostimulation as an effective way of reducing exercise-induced inflammation and blood cholesterol in young men.
• Beyond the classic thermoneutral zone: Including thermal comfort.

Methods

• An objective estimate of energy intake during weight gain using the intake-balance method.
• Bayesian analysis of energy balance data from growing cattle using parametric and nonparametric modelling.
• “Corrected BMI is not always superior to self-reported BMI.”
• Use of GIS Spatial Analysis to Identify Food Deserts in the State of Alabama.
• The impact of missing data in a longitudinal cohort study on the risks of colorectal cancer and mortality associated with change in body size.
• Two methods for eliminating the possible confounds of cohort differences and experience effects [pdf].
• Multiple Comparison Procedures.
• Significant effect of body composition methodology on heritability estimates of body fatness.
• Effect of dietary adherence on the body weight plateau: a mathematical model incorporating intermittent compliance with energy intake prescription.

Stigma

• Obesity stigmatization as the status quo: Structural considerations and prevalence among young adults in the U.S.
• Associations of weight stigma with cortisol and oxidative stress independent of adiposity.
• Obesity bias in primary care providers.
• “That's who I am: A fat person in a thin body”: Weight loss, negative self-evaluation, and mitigating strategies following weight loss surgery.
• Weight-Related Humor in the Media: Appreciation, Distaste, and Anti-Fat Attitudes.

Commentary

• Eat More Nuts (And Vegetables, And Don’t Forget to Exercise And Quit Smoking).
• Calorie Miscounting: Why on slice of cheesecake does not equal 4.5 hours of aerobics.
• Social diserability does not necessarily bias toward the null.
• Three conclusions disconnected from data.
• Point/Counterpoint: Affordable Care Act and fiscal incentives for weight loss.

General Science

• Diversity 5.0: A Way Forward.
• Forecasting Tournaments: Tools for Increasing Transparency and Improving the Quality of Debate.
• Video: Using Pseudoscience to Shine Light on Good Science.
• Bioenergetic adaptation in response to autophagy regulators during rotenone exposure.
• 'See-through' bodies technique developed.
• Deep mutational scanning: a new style of protein science.

Announcements

• UAB Distinguished Professor Is Elected Fellow of New York Academy of Medicine.
• Dr. Donna Arnett and Other Experts Respond to Latest Aspirin Findings.
• Cross-Sector Work on Obesity Prevention, Treatment, and Weight Maintenance: Models for Change.
• The Vizzies: NSF visualization challenge.
• The Resilience Project: Searching for healthy adults with rare, disease-associated genetics changes.