Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Professor Tim Cole receives 2015 Royal Statistical Society Bradford Hill Medal.
• Exercise (wheel running) reduces high-fat diet intake, preference and mu-opioid agonist stimulated intake in rats.
• Molecular evidence for the loss of three basic tastes in penguins.
• Gustatory and metabolic perception of nutrient stress in Drosophila.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• By using instrumental variables approach results, "do not hint at an increase in weight problems due to early use of daycare...[and] even indicate that early daycare leads to more desirable physical development for children 'at the margin'.
• RCT: "A commercially available extract of CFE in an oral dose of 1 g/day claimed to have anti-obesity effect failed to yield any positive results on anthropometry and appetite in overweight and obese individuals beyond placebo."
• Over the course of 8 weeks of daily chocolate consumption (25 g) neither weight nor BMI were altered from baseline.
• Evidence from RCTs did not support the introduction of dietary fat guidelines in 1977 and 1983: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• No association between adherence to a healthy Nordic Food Index and colorectal cancer: Results from a Swedish cohort study.
• RCT: No significant difference in weight loss with High Protein (HP) vs Balanced Diets (BD) in Obese and Overweight Women at Aerobic Gyms.
• Recovery of acquired leptin resistance does not lead to a resetting of the body weight set point in obese IRS-2/PI3K-defective mice.

Basic Science

• Altered salience network connectivity predicts macronutrient intake after sleep deprivation.
• Interrelationship between lymphocytes and leptin in fat depots of obese mice revealed by changes in nutritional status.
• Quantitative impedimetric NPY-receptor activation monitoring and signal pathway profiling in living cells.
• The E3 ligase synoviolin controls body weight and mitochondrial biogenesis through negative regulation of PGC-1ß.

Video

• Dr. Roger Cone: "The MC4R: Conversion of a Threshold Sensor to a Rheostat on Energy Storage".
• Dr. James W. Collins: "A Life-Course Perspective of the Racial Disparity in Adverse Birth Outcomes: Zip Code Trumps Genetic Code".

Scholarly Dialogue

• Food science students publish open letter to "The Food Babe" questioning whether there is any science behind her comments.
• Letter: Does Body Adiposity Better Predict Obesity-Associated Cardiometabolic Risk Than BMI?
• Reply: Does Body Adiposity Better Predict Obesity-Associated Cardiometabolic Risk Than BMI?

Surgery

• Predictors of Remission of Diabetes Mellitus in Severely Obese Individuals Undergoing Bariatric Surgery: Do BMI or Procedure Choice Matter? A Meta-analysis.
• Differences in the Rates of Treatment of Severe Obesity Using Bariatric Surgery Across Socioeconomic Groups.

Stigma

• Perceived discrimination and favourable regard toward underweight, normal weight and obese eating disorder sufferers: implications for obesity and eating disorder population health campaigns.
• Obese people=Animals? Investigating the implicit "animalization" of obese people.
• Sizing up stigma: Weighing in on the issues and solutions to type 2 diabetes and obesity stigma.
• Child gender and weight status moderate the relation of maternal feeding practices to body esteem in 1st grade children.
• 'Fat girls' and 'big guys': gendered meanings of weight loss surgery.

Ad Hominem Attacks and Rebuttals

• Sugar: spinning a web of influence.
• Reply to "Sugar: spinning a web of influence"
• Professor Susan Jebb: Yes, I work with the food industry, but I doubt they see me as a friend.

Psychology

• When thought suppression backfires: its moderator effect on eating psychopathology.
• Reward sensitivity predicts ice cream-related attentional bias assessed by inattentional blindness.
• Intranasal oxytocin attenuates attentional bias for eating and fat shape stimuli in patients with anorexia nervosa.
• Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies in Relation to BMI.

Policy Related

• Influence of School Competitive Food and Beverage Policies on Obesity, Consumption, and Availability.
• "Fat Taxes" Fighting Globesity Ignore Food Demand Inelasticities.
• David Cameron calls on obese to accept help or risk losing benefits.
• Obesity Society & The Obesity Action Coalition comment on Puerto Rican Policy Proposal to Fine Child Obesity.
• Comparing Different Policy Scenarios to Reduce the Consumption of Ultra-Processed Foods in UK: Impact on Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Using a Modelling Approach.
• Sociodemographic Disparities among Fast-Food Restaurant Customers Who Notice and Use Calorie Menu Labels.
• Cholesterol in the Diet: The Long Slide from Public Menace to No “Appreciable” Effect.

Methods

• Collared Polar Bear at San Diego Zoo Participates in Energetics Research.
• MRI technique developed for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in children.
• Comparison of Methods to Account for Implausible Reporting of Energy Intake in Epidemiologic Studies.
• Invited Commentary: Dietary Misreporting as a Potential Source of Bias in Diet-Disease Associations: Future Directions in Nutritional Epidemiology Research.
• Modeling population dynamics: A quantile approach.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Chili Peppers May Solve Obesity Epidemic.
• Study: In a conference abstract, dietary capsaicin (a component of chili peppers, but not chili peppers) was reported to lessen weight gain in mice.

Food

• Low Carbohydrate High Protein diet causes reduced food intake and weight loss, but also kidney damage in rats.
• RCT: Effect of protein overfeeding on energy expenditure measured in a metabolic chamber.
• Substituting sugar-sweetened beverages with water or milk is inversely associated with body fatness development from childhood to adolescence.
• At Chipotle, How Many Calories Do People Really Eat?
• Higher-Protein Diets Are Associated with Higher HDL Cholesterol and Lower BMI and Waist Circumference in US Adults.

Exercise

• RCT: Acute Exercise Bout Affects Urges for Sweets and Physical Activity Participation in Overweight Regular Sweet Consumers.
• Free access to a running-wheel advances the phase of behavioral and physiological circadian rhythms and peripheral molecular clocks in mice.
• Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in Obese Youth.
• RE: Copenhagen City Heart Study - Sudden Cardiac Death in the Older Athlete.
• RE: Copenhagen City Heart Study - Strenuous jogging 'as bad as doing no exercise' claim.
• RE: Copenhagen City Heart Study - Is strenuous jogging bad for you?
• Post-dinner resistance exercise improves postprandial risk factors more effectively than pre-dinner resistance exercise in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Epidemiology

• Circulating levels of fibroblast growth factor-21 increase with age independently of body composition indices among healthy individuals.
• Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence From English Adoptees.
• Genetic studies of BMI yield new insights for obesity biology.
• Genetic vulnerability to diabetes and obesity: Does education offset the risk?
• Age-dependent decline of association between obesity and mortality: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Pushed to the limit: food abundance determines tag-induced harm in penguins.
• Assessing effects of temperature on daily energy expenditure in hummingbirds using a non-invasive doubly labeled water.

Economics

• Coupon calories: The nutrient quality of foods promoted using financial incentives.
• Obese women request lower salaries.

Drugs

• RCT: RM-493, a Melanocortin-4 Receptor (MC4R) Agonist Increases Resting Energy Expenditure in Obese Individuals.
• Effect of body weight on efficacy and safety of direct oral anticoagulants in the treatment of patients with acute venous thromboembolism: Meta-analysis of RCTs.
• X-3, a mangiferin derivative, stimulates AMP-activated protein kinase and reduces hyperglycemia and obesity in db/db mice.
• New Medications for Treatment of Obesity: Metabolic and Cardiovascular Effects.
• The anti-obesity drug orlistat reveals anti-viral activity.
• The Uncompetitive N-methyl-d-Aspartate Antagonist Memantine Reduces Binge-Like Eating, Food-Seeking Behavior, and Compulsive Eating in Rats.

Computational

• Effects of obesity on occupant responses in frontal crashes: a simulation analysis using human body models.
• ADMET: ADipocyte METabolism mathematical model.

Clinical

• RCT: The effect of food service system modifications on staff BMI in an industrial organization.
• RCT: Curves(r) Complete 90-day Challenge outperforms, Weight Watchers(r) Points Plus, Jenny Craig(r) At Home, and Nutrisystem(r) Advance Select(tm) in sedentary overweight women.
• RCT: Motivational Interviewing With Parents for Obesity.
• Head-to-head randomized trials are industry-sponsored, larger, more frequently registered, and almost always favour the industry sponsor.
• RCT: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk reduction from a plant-based (PB), no–added-fat diet and the American Heart Association (AHA) diet in children.
• Is there a role for leptin in the reduction of depression symptoms during weight loss therapy in obese adolescent girls and boys?
• RCT: Insulin supplements for correction of bedtime hyperglycemia not associated with an improvement in glycemic control.
• RCT: Single-Component Versus Multicomponent Dietary Goals for the Metabolic Syndrome.
• RCT: Universal Parental Support Programme to Promote Healthy Dietary Habits and Physical Activity and to Prevent Overweight and Obesity in 6-Year-Old Children.
• RCT: Individually targeted Internet-based intervention with monetary incentives (INCENT) compared with a less-intensive intervention.
• Mobile Phone Intervention and Weight Loss Among Overweight and Obese Adults: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.
• Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART) to Construct Weight Loss Interventions for African American Adolescents.
• Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (CORD): The Cross-Site Overview and Opportunities for Interventions Addressing Obesity Community-Wide.

Caloric Restriction

• Mechanisms for independent and combined effects of calorie restriction and acute exercise on insulin-stimulated glucose uptake by skeletal muscle of old rats.
• Epigenetic modifications in caloric restriction associated with longevity: A review of evidence.
• Calorie restriction increases telomerase activity, enhances autophagy, and improves diastolic dysfunction in diabetic rat hearts.
• Calorie Restriction-Mediated Replicative Lifespan Extension in Yeast Is Non-Cell Autonomous.

Transgenerational

• New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.
• Vertically transmitted faecal IgA levels determine extra-chromosomal phenotypic variation.

Brown Fat

• In vivo measurement of energy substrate contribution to cold-induced brown adipose tissue thermogenesis.
• Selective impairment of glucose, but not fatty 1 acid or oxidative 2 metabolism in brown adipose tissue of subjects with type 2 diabetes.

Commentary

• The Very Personal Genetic Inheritance of Obesity.
• Randomize evaluations to improve health care delivery.
• Treating obesity seriously: when recommendations for lifestyle change confront biological adaptations.
• Scientists Discover Children Are Impulsive and Immature.
• Are Your Medications Safe? The FDA buries evidence of fraud in medical trials.
• Stealth Research Is Biomedical Innovation Happening Outside the Peer-Reviewed Literature?
• Prevailing Bias at Odds with Scientific Integrity.
• Calorie Labeling Is Still A Bad Idea.

General Science

• Nutritional Interventions in Clinical Depression.
• The Emerging Field of Nutritional Mental Health: Inflammation, the Microbiome, Oxidative Stress, and Mitochondrial Function.
• Tiny Fish Makes Big Splash in Aging Research.
• An Ecological Perspective on Diabetes Self-care Support, Self-management Behaviors, and Hemoglobin A1C Among Latinos.
• Oil from genetically modified camelina, known as false flax, can be used instead of fish oil for feeding Atlantic salmon.
• Neurobiological mechanisms supporting experience-dependent resistance to social stress.
• A beautiful view of the polar vortex from 18,000 feet.
• The 2015 Vizzies ('The Most Beautiful Visualizations from the World of Science and Engineering).

Announcements

• UAB invites you to join us at our five day short course on “The Mathematical Sciences in Obesity Research” at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Mon 6/22/2015 - Fri 6/26/2015.
• March 4th: Connections in the Creative Process: Art and Science at the Edge of Chaos.
• UAB's Department of Health Behavior seeks faculty with knowledge of obesity and/or energetics.
• Sigma Xi 2015 Student Showcase: Students are invited to submit research project descriptions for a chance to participate in the Student Research Showcase, a global and innovative research presentation competition.
• The Lancet: Obesity 2015 Series available online.
• Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

Featured

• What does weight stigma smell like? Cross-modal influence of visual weight cues on olfaction.
• RCT: Five-Year Outcomes After Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass and Laparoscopic Duodenal Switch in Patients With BMI of 50 to 60.
• 'Smart' insulin hope for diabetes.
• Glucose-responsive insulin activity by covalent modification with aliphatic phenylboronic acid conjugates.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• ...the contribution of the availability of convenience stores to children's body mass index z-scores (BMIz) is stronger than that of fast food restaurants.
• Central precocious puberty (treated or untreated) is not associated with increased risk of obesity.
• RCT: Tailored text message reminders did not have a significant effect on weight loss in obese men as part of a worksite weight loss program.
• RCT: No effect of whole-grain wheat consumption on weight or anthropometry.
• RCT: No evidence of a difference between two low-energy diets differing in fibre, red meat and coffee intake equally on weight loss.
• We found no evidence of interactions between FTO genotype and macronutrient intake on CHD risk or BMI.
• Results provide no evidence against a null effect of BMI on depression and call into question validity of FTO as an instrument for BMI in Mendelian Randomization studies.

Scholarly Dialogue

• Conclusion of "Nordic walking for geriatric rehabilitation: a randomized pilot trial" is based on faulty statistical analysis and is inaccurate.
• The harm of bioethics: a critique of Singer and Callahan on obesity.
• Comparison of cancer risk reduction after bariatric surgery demands an adequate control group.

Argumentum Ad Hominem (i.e., Unscholarly Dialogue)

• Sugar: spinning a web of influence.
• Responses - Sugar: spinning a web of influence.
• Row over sugar firms' links to scientists.
• Obesity adviser rejects conflict of interest claim.
• The Obesity Society Position Opposing Ad Hominem Attacks.

Food

• RCT: Aerated drinks increase gastric volume and reduce appetite as assessed by MRI.
• RCT: Dietary whey protein influences plasma satiety-related hormones and plasma amino acids in normal-weight adult women.
• RCT: A high whey protein-, leucine-, and vitamin D-enriched supplement preserves muscle mass during intentional weight loss in obese older adults: a double-blind randomized controlled trial.
• Fiber supplementation influences phylogenetic structure and functional capacity of the human intestinal microbiome: follow-up of a randomized controlled trial.

Exercise

• Lessons Learned from the Development and Implementation of Two Internet-enhanced Culturally Relevant Physical Activity Interventions for Young Overweight African-American Women.
• Exercise Training and Energy Expenditure following Weight Loss.
• Dose of Jogging and Long-Term Mortality "...strenuous joggers have a mortality rate not statistically different from that of the sedentary group."
• Effective Diet and Exercise Interventions to Improve Body Composition in Obese Individuals.
• Accuracy of Smartphone Applications and Wearable Devices for Tracking Physical Activity Data.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• The emerald sea slug has gene from algae for photosynthetic processes that feed it.
• Effects of dietary fiber content on energetics in non-reproductive and reproductive Brandt's voles.
• Rapid behavioral maturation accelerates failure of stressed honey bee colonies: "...our study explains how colony failure arises from the social responses of individual bees to stress."

Epidemiology

• Postmenopausal weight change and incidence of fracture: post hoc findings from Women's Health Initiative Observational Study and Clinical Trials.
• Effect of School Breakfast Programs on the Prevalence of Breakfast Skipping, Double- Dipping, and Obesity among Adolescents: A Time Use Perspective.
• Body composition assessment failure rates and obesity in the United States Navy.
• BMI also significantly predicted unsafe driving in older adults.

Clinical

• Prevention of overweight and obesity in children and youth: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• Strategies for weight maintenance in adult populations treated for overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• Probiotic supplementation prevents high-fat, overfeeding-induced insulin resistance in human subjects.
• Effect of a 4-week weight maintenance diet on circulating hormone levels: implications for clinical weight loss trials.
• Parental fat-free mass is related to the fat-free mass of infants and maternal fat mass is related to the fat mass of infant girls.

Surgery

• Mental and physical health-related quality of life in obese patients before and after bariatric surgery: A meta-analysis.
• Surgical Versus Medical Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Nonseverely Obese Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
• Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Life Expectancy in Severely Obese Patients With Diabetes: A Decision Analysis.
• Metabolic Changes Induced by the Biliopancreatic Diversion in Diet-Induced Obesity in Male Rats: The Contributions of Sleeve Gastrectomy and Duodenal Switch.
• The Obesity Paradox in Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation.

Drugs

• RCT: Effects of short term oral corticosteroid intake on dietary intake, body weight and body composition in adults with asthma.
• Drugs Commonly Associated With Weight Change: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
• Diabetes drug may help obese women conceive and have healthier children.
• Mitochondrial dysfunction in oocytes of obese mothers: transmission to offspring and reversal by pharmacological endoplasmic reticulum stress inhibitors.

Policy Related

• Experts 'Appalled' by Puerto Rican Bill to Fine Parents of Obese Children.
• Proposal to Make Childhood Obesity Worse in Puerto Rico.
• Portion size: what we know and what we need to know.
• Stakeholder perspectives on national policy for regulating the school food environment in Mexico.
• The U.S. government is poised to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol.
• The challenges of nutrition policymaking.

Psychology

• Can't wait to lose weight? Characterizing temporal discounting parameters for weight-loss.
• Associating a prototypical forbidden food item with guilt or celebration: Relationships with indicators of (un)healthy eating and the moderating role of stress and depressive symptoms.

Caloric Restriction

• Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting alter hepatic lipid droplet proteome and diacylglycerol species and prevent diabetes in NZO mice.
• Lifespan-extending caloric restriction or mTOR inhibition impair adaptive immunity of old mice by distinct mechanisms.
• Ketone bodies attenuate excitotoxic cell injury in the rat hippocampal slice under conditions of reduced glucose availability.

Brown Adipose Tissue

• Lipid droplet remodeling and interaction with mitochondria in mouse brown adipose tissue during cold treatment.
• Contributions of white and brown adipose tissues and skeletal muscles to acute cold-induced metabolic responses in healthy men.
• Reducing peripheral serotonin turns up the heat in brown fat.

Economics

• Understanding Urban Diversity: Obesity as Unobserved Heterogeneity.
• Prices Play Greater Role Than Access in Food-Purchase Decisions for SNAP Households.

Methods

• A free-knot spline modeling framework for piecewise linear logistic regression in complex samples with body mass index and mortality as an example.
• Development and Validation of Correction Formulas for Self-Reported Height and Weight to Estimate BMI in Adolescents. Results from the KiGGS Study.
• Reporting error in weight and height among the elderly: Implications and recommendations for estimating healthcare costs.
• Development of Novel Software to Generate Anthropometric Norms at Perinatal Autopsy.
• Peer Effects Heterogeneity on Weight: Theory and Application.

Stigma

• A Weighted Perspective: Fat Speaks Back Through Photovoice.
• The effect of dentists' body-weight size on student social judgments of dental skill and patients' behavioural intentions: A vignette study.
• The source and impact of appearance teasing: an examination by sex and weight status among early adolescents from the Czech republic.
• The Embodiment of Anti-Fat Asian Stereotypes In An Online Community.
• Obesity on Comedy Central? Surprisingly Thoughtful.

Video & Audio

• Stephen Kritchevsky: "Increasing Healthspan in Obese Older Adults".
• Colleen McBride: "Cracking the nut of behavior change: Can Genomics Bring Innovation to Behavior Change Interventions?"
• NPR: Why Are Americans Getting Bigger?

Commentary

• Beyond Vague Causal Effect Estimation of Obesity on Health Outcomes.
• Interview with Brian Wansink: Say good-bye to willpower.
• David Katz: Weight Loss Gut Check.
• David Katz: Where Public Health Meets Propaganda, You Are Being Played!
• Childhood Obesity: Good Intentions [but Questionable Messages].
• Where Can We Buy an Ounce of Obesity Prevention?
• This Chart Shows How Hard It Is to End Childhood Obesity.
• Treating obesity seriously: when recommendations for lifestyle change confront biological adaptations.
• What irony. By scaring us off butter they've made us fatter - and more unhealthy writes JOHN NAISH.

Basic Science

• Reward context determines risky choice in pigeons and humans.
• Obesity-induced oxidative stress, accelerated functional decline with age and increased mortality in mice.
• Glucose metabolism and gene expression in juvenile zebrafish (Danio rerio) challenged with a high carbohydrate diet: effects of an acute glucose stimulus during late embryonic life.
• ...neonatal metformin exposure slows down aging and prolongs lifespan in male but not in female mice.
• Microbes Promote Amino Acid Harvest to Rescue Undernutrition in Drosophila.
• Muscadine grape powder: Ellagic acid modulates lipid accumulation in primary human adipocytes and human hepatoma Huh7 cells via discrete mechanisms.
• Interrelationship between feeding level and the metabolic hormones leptin, ghrelin and obestatin in control of chicken egg laying and release of ovarian hormones.

General Science

• Dietary Sodium: Where Science and Policy Conflict: Impact of the 2013 IOM Report on Sodium Intake in Populations.
• A systematic overview of more than 100 studies comparing organic and conventional farming finds that the crop yields of organic agriculture are higher than previously thought.
• Reporting Research Misconduct in the Medical Literature.
• Research Misconduct Identified by the US Food and Drug Administration Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of the Peer-Reviewed Literature.
• Oxalic acid and diacylglycerol 36:3 are cross-species markers of sleep debt: "...a potential link between known pathologies of reduced sleep duration and metabolic dysfunction..."

Announcements

• Pioneer of Infectobesity Movement Continues Groundbreaking Research at Texas Tech.
• FDA-JIFSAN Dietetics and Nutrition Spring Webinar Series March 24 and April 20 1pm EDT.
• Deputy Director for Programs and Policy, Paso del Norte Institute for Healthy Living.
• Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, Call for Spring Newsletter Materials Due April 1.
• Rose E. Frisch, Scientist Who Linked Body Fat to Fertility, Dies at 96.
• Open-rank position, Center for Energy Balance in Cancer Prevention and Survivorship at MD Anderson Cancer Center. 

Featured

• Dietary restriction protects against experimental cerebral malaria via leptin modulation and T-cell mTORC1 suppression.
• Risk and injury severity of obese child passengers in motor vehicle crashes.
• Study Finds Obesity Impacts Seatbelt Safety.

Contrary and Null Findings to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• “Surprisingly, SATU, MONO, and POLY [fatty acids] impaired peripheral insulin sensitivity (glucose utilization divided by insulin) to a similar extent.”
• Dietary Intake of Saturated Fat Is Not Associated with Risk of Coronary Events or Mortality in Patients with Established Coronary Artery Disease.
• "In summary, supplementation with c9,t11 CLA did not improve more advanced OAN and t10,c12 CLA worsened the renal pathology" in obese rats.
• In premenopausal obese women, HF meals rich in either MUFAs, PUFAs, or SFAs did not differentially affect TEM [thermic effect of meal] or postprandial substrate oxidation.
• We could not find an association between body weight gain during infancy and the timing of AR [adiposity rebound]”.
• RCT: Water with Food Intake Does Not Influence Caloric Intake After Gastric Bypass.
• A major role for improved glucose effectiveness after RYGB was not supported by this study.
• Prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease not associated with obesity.
• In cluster quasi-experiment, an intervention Dutch Obesity Intervention in Teenagers decreased sugar-containing beverage consumption in girls, increased breakfast frequency in boys, and yet had no apparent effect on BMI overall and seemed to actually increase BMI in adolescents attending the vocational education track.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Clearer food labels could help with obesity epidemic, study finds.
• Study: A study of hypothetical choices of foods by subjects in an online experiment - no measures of actual food purchase, consumption, or weight changes occurred.

Sugars & Hype

• One and a half cans of fizzy drink a day raises breast cancer risk.
• Hypewatch: Media Overreach on Soda Story.
• What was missing in many stories about sugary drinks & girls’ 1st periods.
• Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and age at menarche in a prospective study of US girls.

Scholarly Dialogue

• (Mis)measurement in the study of food environment: we need better methods to solve the puzzle.
• Response to Letter on (Mis)measurement in the study of food environment: we need better methods to solve the puzzle.

Basic Science

• Obesity, diabetes symptoms in mice improved by reversing brain inflammation.
• Regulation of Substrate Oxidation Preferences in Muscle by the Peptide Hormone Adropin.
• A Neuron-Specific Deletion of the MicroRNA-Processing Enzyme DICER Induces Severe but Transient Obesity in Mice.
• Low-frequency and rare exome chip variants associate with fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes susceptibility.
• Visualizing Hypothalamic Network Dynamics for Appetitive and Consummatory Behaviors.
• Decoding Neural Circuits that Control Compulsive Sucrose Seeking.
• Left ventricular diastolic function and cardiometabolic factors in obese normotensive children.
• Novel Peptide Reverses Obesity and Diabetes in Rodents.

Food

• Effects of long-term cycling between palatable cafeteria diet and regular chow on intake, eating patterns, and response to saccharin and sucrose.
• RCT: Probiotic supplementation prevents high-fat, overfeeding-induced insulin resistance in human subjects.
• Review of WIC Food Packages: An Evaluation of White Potatoes in the Cash Value Voucher: Letter Report.
• White Potato Redux: Experts Say Spuds Are Not Nutritional Duds.

Exercise

• RCT: Independent effects of endurance training and weight loss on peak fat oxidation in moderately overweight men.
• Objectively measured physical activity in obese women with and without migraine.
• Exercise improves quality of life in bariatric surgery candidates: Results from the Bari-Active trial.
• Fight Parkinson's: Exercise May Be The Best Therapy.
• A Review of Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and the Role of Exercise in Breast Cancer Patients.
• Exercise performance and cardiovascular health variables in 70-year-old male soccer players compared to endurance-trained, strength-trained and untrained age-matched men.
• Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness as underappreciated modulators of obesity-related risk of sudden cardiac death.
• Excessive running could kill you: study. (CORRECTED LINK)

Behavioral

• Impact of readiness to change behavior on the effects of a multidisciplinary intervention in obese Brazilian children and adolescents.
• Extremely obese children respond better than extremely obese adolescents to lifestyle interventions.
• Wearable Devices as Facilitators, Not Drivers, of Health Behavior Change.
• Behavioral Weight Loss Intervention in Obese Individuals with Asthma. A Lot Goes a Long Way. .
• Dairy Consumption and Insulin Resistance: The Role of Body Fat, Physical Activity, and Energy Intake.
• Ethnicity and acculturation: do they predict weight status in a longitudinal study among Asian, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White early adolescent females?

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• this finding, suggest[s] that energetic costs associated with incubation act as an upper limit on reproductive output of other birds.
• Developmental arrest in energy-efficient dormancy stages could present a means for long-term bet hedging over years, whereas arrest in the energy-consuming final stage may serve a similar purpose over shorter time scales.
• How dieting makes the lean fatter: From a perspective of body composition autoregulation through adipostats and proteinstats awaiting discovery.
• Moon may hold evidence of how life started on Earth, study suggests.
• Maternal health influences childhood obesity risk.

Epidemiology

• Regional disparities in obesity prevalence in the United States: A spatial regime analysis.
• Vertical Transmission of Overweight: Evidence From English Adoptees.
• Postmenopausal weight change and incidence of fracture: post hoc findings from Women's Health Initiative Observational Study and Clinical Trials.

Public Health

• Say good-bye to willpower.
• Researchers Say When You Eat Each Day May Be Crucial to Weight Loss.
• All body fat isn't created equal.

Clinical

• New treatment for endometriosis preserves fertility.
• Relationship Between BMI and Fracture Risk Is Mediated by Bone Mineral Density.
• Brown and beige fat in humans: thermogenic adipocytes that control energy and glucose homeostasis.
• The obesity paradox in stroke: lower mortality and lower risk of readmission for recurrent stroke in obese stroke patients.

Surgery

• Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Life Expectancy in Severely Obese Patients With Diabetes: A Decision Analysis.
• Laparoscopic Roux-En-Y Gastric Bypass Versus Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding in the Super-Obese: Peri-Operative and Early Outcomes.

Drugs

• First Ever Drug Treatment for Binge Eating Disorder Approved.
• Predicting Meaningful Outcomes to Medication and Self-Help Treatments for Binge-Eating Disorder in Primary Care: The Significance of Early Rapid Response.
• Tramadol Use and the Risk of Hospitalization for Hypoglycemia in Patients With Noncancer Pain.

Policy Related

• Potential Effect of Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent Labeling on Parent Fast Food Decisions.
• Nutrition labelling: a review of research on consumer and industry response in the global South.

Psychology

• Visual weight status misperceptions of men: Why overweight can look like a healthy weight.
• Is there a role for leptin in the reduction of depression symptoms during weight loss therapy in obese adolescent girls and boys?

Aging

• Feeling Old vs Being Old Associations Between Self-perceived Age and Mortality.
• Non-hemodynamic predictors of arterial stiffness after 17 years of follow-up: the Malmö Diet and Cancer study.
• Lifestyle and Youthful Looks.
• Consumption of a whey protein-enriched diet may prevent hepatic steatosis associated with weight gain in elderly women.

Caloric Restriction

• Dieting and weight cycling as risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases: Who is really at risk?
• Calorie Restriction Attenuates Monocrotaline-induced Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Rats.
• Early leptin intervention reverses perturbed energy balance regulating hypothalamic neuropeptides in the pre- and postnatal calorie-restricted female rat offspring.
• Calorie Restriction-Mediated Replicative Lifespan Extension in Yeast Is Non-Cell Autonomous.

Economics

• Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?
• The United States Sweetener Excise Tax Policy Analysis.

Methods

• Stick-On Tattoo Measures Blood Sugar Without Needles.
• Untangling the Causality Knot: Another Tool for Clinical Researchers.
• Development and Validation of Correction Formulas for Self-Reported Height and Weight to Estimate BMI in Adolescents. Results from the KiGGS Study.
• Air Displacement Plethysmography versus Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry in Underweight, Normal-Weight, and Overweight/Obese Individuals.

Stigma

• Obesity and internalized weight stigma: a formulation model for an emerging psychological problem.
• Physiotherapists demonstrate weight stigma.
• Weighty Consequences: Diagnostic Challenges and Practice Considerations Associated With Obesity.

Diabetes

• Material Need Insecurities, Control of Diabetes Mellitus, and Use of Health Care Resources Results of the Measuring Economic Insecurity in Diabetes Study.
• Exposure to Racial Discrimination and Ambulatory Blood Pressure in Women with Type 2 Diabetes.
• Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass versus Sleeve Gastrectomy for Obese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.
• A pilot study of the diabetes prevention program on weight loss for adults at community mental health centers.
• Inhaled insulin powder now available in pharmacies.

Commentary

• "Couch-potatoeism" and childhood obesity: The inverse causality hypothesis.
• David Katz: Diseases, Devices and Delusions. A new medical device is hardly the answer to the country's obesity epidemic.
• FDA: Listening to Patients' Views on New Treatments for Obesity.
• Added Fructose: A Principal Driver of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Its Consequences.
• Do we need to think beyond BMI for estimating population-level health risks?
• Trevor Butterworth: Food Addiction: Is it All in Someone Else's Head?
• Obesity Professionals Speak Out on Disabilities.
• Humor: Are you tasting the kale, obviously?

General Science

• The Epigenetic Impact of Cruciferous Vegetables on Cancer Prevention.
• The Pursuit of Beauty: Yitang Zhang solves a pure-math mystery.
• Adherence to a Mediterranean Diet and Prediction of Incident Stroke.
• New Clues To Mysterious Kidney Disease Afflicting Sugar Cane Workers.
• American Academy of Arts & Sciences' Restoring the Foundation report on long-term sustainability of the U.S. science and engineering research system.
• Top journals crack down to deter scientific fraud.
• Unspinning the Spin: The Women's Media Center Guide to Fair and Accurate Language.
• Sharing and Reporting the Results of Clinical Trials.
• Proposal Seeks to Enhance Availability of Clinical Trial Results.
• Missing Microbes: Overuse of Antibiotics with Dr. Martin Blaser.
• Even friends you have never met might help you to lose weight.
• Scientists Identify Genetic Cues for a Big Heart.

Announcements

• NCSE is seeking to hire a Director of Community Organizing and Research.
• Director of Research, Nutrition Science Initiative.
• 3rd International Workshop: Food, Nutrition & Health Claims Legislation in Europe, Washington, DC, April 30, 2015.
• TOS Early Career Webinar, Strategies to Build a Successful Research Program in Obesity-Related Research on Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 2:00 pm ET.
• Stand up for Science at AAAS! - Feb 13.
• Animal Obesity - causes, consequences and comparative aspects in Uppsala, Sweden, 14-16 June 2015.
• Cooking 101: Stanford Adds Healthy Eating Skills To The Curriculum.
• 4th International Conference on Food Digestion.
• HEALTHIER WORLD INNOVATION CHALLENGE REMINDER.
• World Obesity: Scope School London 2015.

Featured

• Whole-food diet worsened cognitive dysfunction in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model.
• Misreporting and misclassification: implications for socioeconomic disparities in BMI and obesity.
• Can Selfies Save Nutrition Science?

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Is Drinking Wine Better Than Going To The Gym? According To Scientists, Yes!
• Study: Improvements in skeletal muscle strength and cardiac function induced by resveratrol during exercise training contribute to enhanced exercise performance in rats.

Contrary or Null

• We failed to accept our hypothesis and concluded that overall, school-based interventions have not been effective for improving BMI or skinfold thickness to curb childhood obesity...
• Neophobia: The results of the experiment did not confirm the assertion of some authors that wild rats avoid eating unfamiliar foods.
• RCT: "As compared to diet alone, the addition of strength or aerobic training did not improve changes in BMI, body fat or metabolic risk factors..."
• Overweight is not associated with cortical thickness alterations in children.
• In older adults, food frequency questionnaire-assessed sodium intake was not associated with 10-year mortality, incident CVD, or incident HF, and consuming greater than 2300 mg/d of sodium was associated with nonsignificantly higher mortality in adjusted models.

Surgery & Devices

• FDA approves first-of-kind device to treat obesity.
• Surgery: Last Resort for Obesity?
• Causes and risk factors for mortality within 1 year after obesity surgery in a population-based cohort study.

Scholarly Dialogue

• The Restaurant Food Hot Potato: Stop Passing it on-A Commentary on Mah and Timming's, 'Equity in Public Health Ethics: The Case of Menu Labelling Policy at the Local Level'.
• Comment: Taxes and Subsidies to Improve Diet.
• Taxes and Subsidies to Improve Diet-Reply.

Psychology

• Short horizons and obesity futures: Disjunctures between public health interventions and everyday temporalities.
• Eating tasty food to cope. Longitudinal association with BMI.

Policy Related

• Legal Action Against Health Claims on Foods and Beverages Marketed to Youth.
• Weighing In: The Taste-Engineering Frame in Obesity Expert Discourse.

Methods

• Detection of brown adipose tissue and thermogenic activity in mice by hyperpolarized xenon MRI.
• Electronic Health Records and Community Health Surveillance of Childhood Obesity.
• A portable device powered by a simple breath can measure lung function and transmit results to your phone.
• Wearable sensor clears path to long-term EKG, EMG monitoring.
• The many weak instruments problem and Mendelian randomization.
• The Utility of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in Systems-Oriented Obesity Intervention Projects: The Selection of Comparable Study Sites for a Quasi-Experimental Intervention Design-TX CORD.
• Objective and self-reported measures of MVPA are weakly to moderately correlated...an objective measure of MVPA may be preferred to self-report.
• Estimation of subcutaneous and visceral fat tissue volume on abdominal MR images.
• Packet randomized experiments for eliminating classes of confounders.

Guidelines and Panel Statements

• NIH working group report: Innovative research to improve maintenance of weight loss.
• Focus on Weight Over Comorbidities, Obesity Guide Says.
• American Society of Clinical Oncology Position Statement on Obesity and Cancer.
• Children's Hospital Association - Recommendations for Psychologists in Stage III Pediatric Obesity Program.

Food

• RCT: "These data suggest that short-term consumption of low fat milk in the context of a prudent NCEP diet has no favorable nor deleterious effect on cardiometabolic risk factors associated with MetS in postmenopausal women with abdominal obesity.
• RCT: "Inclusion of spices may attenuate postprandial lipemia via inhibition of PL and PLA2. However, the impact of psychological stress negates any influence of the spice blend on triglycerides, and further, increases blood glucose and insulin."

Exercise

• Ethnic identification with physical activity may lead to increased engagement, lower obesity in children.
• Movement improves girls' computational skills.

Epidemiology

• Kids free to explore and play are more healthy, study finds.
• Obesity and Contraception Use in Women.
• Optimal Cutoffs of Obesity Measures in Relation to Cancer Risk in Postmenopausal Women in the Women's Health Initiative Study.
• Sedentary Behavior and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Systematic Reviews.
• Cohort of birth modifies the association between FTO genotype and BMI.
• The role of obesity duration on the association between obesity and risk of physical disability.
• U.S. Obesity Rate Inches Up to 27.7% in 2014.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Climate Change Does Not Bode Well for Picky Eaters: New Study Links Resiliency to Penguins' Diets.
• Mass-based condition measures and their relationship with fitness: in what condition is condition?
• Reproductive mode evolution in lizards revisited: updated analyses examining geographic, climatic and phylogenetic effects support the cold-climate hypothesis.

Economics

• We find that obesity impacts health expenditures not only through its link to chronic diseases, but also because it increases the cost of recovery from acute health shocks.
• Estimating the lifetime cost of childhood obesity in Germany: Results of a Markov Model.
• Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?

Drugs

• Europe Opens the Way for Two New Obesity Drugs.
• Insurers and anti-obesity drugs.
• RCT: Efficacy and Safety of Lisdexamfetamine for Treatment of Adults With Moderate to Severe Binge-Eating Disorder.

Computational

• System model network for adipose tissue signatures related to weight changes in response to calorie restriction and subsequent weight maintenance.
• Saliency-aware food image segmentation for personal dietary assessment using a wearable computer.

Clinical

• Can we safely recommend gestational weight gain below the 2009 guidelines in obese women? A systematic review and meta-analysis.
• Lifestyle Behaviors of Parents of Children in Pediatric Weight Management: Are They Meeting Recommendations?
• RCT: Effects of high-frequency current therapy on abdominal obesity in young women.
• Self-Help for Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
• RCT: The Effect of a Diabetes-Specific Cognitive Behavioral Treatment Program (DIAMOS) for Patients With Diabetes and Subclinical Depression: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Caloric Restriction

• Chronological analysis of caloric restriction-induced alteration of fatty acid biosynthesis in white adipose tissue of rats.
• Food restriction during pregnancy in rabbits: Effects on hormones and metabolites involved in energy homeostasis and metabolic programming.

Genetics

• TM6SF2 and MAC30, new enzyme homologs in sterol metabolism and common metabolic disease.
• Insights into the Genetic Susceptibility to Type 2 Diabetes from Genome-Wide Association Studies of Glycaemic Traits.

Commentary

• Michael Rosenbaum: The cost of a doughnut's 'lost pleasure' is something you can afford to pay.
• Food Cravings: Those "Torments of Expectation."
• Ready, aim, fire – why our efforts to prevent childhood obesity have been ineffective.
• Metabolic vs. hedonic obesity: a conceptual distinction and its clinical implications.
• Healthy junk food?
• A Slimmer Tomorrow.
• Prepare for the Pill to Make You Thin.
• Why do some youths become fatter than others?
• Book Review of "Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life."

Basic Science

• F1000 Recommendation: Intratracheal exposure to multi-walled carbon nanotubes induces a nonalcoholic steatohepatitis-like phenotype in C57BL/6J mice.
• Modulation of the Intestinal Microbiota Is Associated with Lower Plasma Cholesterol and Weight Gain in Hamsters Fed Chardonnay Grape Seed Flour.
• Regulation of AMPK Activation by CD36 Links Fatty Acid Uptake to ã‚œ-Oxidation.
• Integrin a1-null Mice Exhibit Improved Fatty Liver When Fed a High Fat Diet Despite Severe Hepatic Insulin Resistance.

General Science

• Bias in microRNA functional enrichment analysis.
• Testing for clustering at many ranges inflates family-wise error rate.
• Bias from conditioning on live birth in pregnancy cohorts: an illustration based on neurodevelopment in children after prenatal exposure to organic pollutants.
• A summary to communicate evidence from systematic reviews to the public improved understanding and accessibility of information.
• Clinical trial data: share and share alike.
• New device allows for manipulation of differentiating stem cells.
• Obesity Epidemic Affectiong Millions of Pets.
• Research detects PTSD 3,000 years ago.
• Why a Fake Article Titled "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?" Was Accepted by 17 Medical Journals.

Video

• Catharine Ross: Vitamin A in Early Life-Why Does It Matter?
• Fiona Powrie: Dining out with friends - The intestinal microbiome in health and disease.

Announcements

• Slides from 2015 ILSI Presentations Available: Sustainability, Caffeine, Microbiome, and more.
• January 2015 Forum: Tools for Funding Agricultural Research.
• Workshop on Examining a Developmental Approach to Childhood Obesity: The Fetal and Early Childhood Years.
• IOM Workshop - Methods and Approaches to the Assessment of WIC Food Packages.
• 2015 NSRL INTSOY Short Course.
• 23rd Annual Summer Training Course in Experimental Aging Research.