Obesity and Energetics Offerings

In Memoriam – The Great Man of Obesity has Passed

• Mickey Stunkard, Dean of Obesity Research (1922-2014).
• Albert Stunkard, 92, pioneer in obesity research.
• TOS Remembers Albert (Mickey) Stunkard, MD.

Featured

• Overweight zoo elephants no laughing matter.
• Mechanisms of Increased in Vivo Insulin Sensitivity by Dietary Methionine Restriction in Mice.
• Association between Class III Obesity (BMI of 40-59 kg/m²) and Mortality: A Pooled Analysis of 20 Prospective Studies.
• Longer Exposure to Obesity, Slimmer Chance of College? Body Weight Trajectories, Non-Cognitive Skills, and College Completion.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• In experimental substantial weight gain, the presence of larger adipocytes did not promote ectopic lipid accumulation - In contrast, smaller fat cells were associated with a worsened metabolic response to overfeeding.
• We found a non-linear relationship between weight-for-height z-score and density of healthy food outlets.

Basic Science

• High-fat diet-induced memory impairment in triple-transgenic Alzheimer's disease (3xTgAD) mice is independent of changes in amyloid and tau pathology.
• Food influences body clock and may ease jet lag (if mice fly in jets).
• Rictor/mTORC2 Loss in the Myf5 Lineage Reprograms Brown Fat Metabolism and Protects Mice against Obesity and Metabolic Disease.
• Fibroblast growth factor-21, body composition, and insulin resistance in pre-pubertal and early pubertal males and females.
• Improving type 2 diabetes through a distinct adrenergic signaling pathway involving mTORC2 that mediates glucose uptake in skeletal muscle.
• Circulating FGF21 is Liver Derived and Enhances Glucose Uptake During Refeeding and Overfeeding.
• Deficiency in adipocyte chemokine receptor CXCR4 exacerbates obesity and compromises thermoregulatory responses of brown adipose tissue in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity.

Stigma & Victimization

• White girls who perceive themselves (accurately or not) to be overweight, and Hispanic girls who are overweight, may be at increased risk of dating violence victimization
• Extreme fat photos may undermine message on overweight risk.
• The nature, consequences, and public health implications of obesity stigma.
• Does Size Really Matter: Examining the Effect of the Obesity Stigma and Responsibility Attributions on Schadenfreude.
• Weight stigma is stressful. A review of evidence for the Cyclic Obesity/Weight-Based Stigma model.
• Patients who feel judged about their weight have lower trust in their primary care providers.

Food

• Cognitive and behavioural effects of sugar consumption in rodents. A review.
• RCT: Long-Term Effects of a Very Low-Carbohydrate Weight Loss Diet on Exercise Capacity and Tolerance in Overweight and Obese Adults.
• RCT: Sustained hunger suppression from stable liquid food foams.
• RCT: Effect of Lowering the Glycemic Load With Canola Oil on Glycemic Control and Cardiovascular Risk Factors.
• RCT: The effects of legumes on metabolic features, insulin resistance and hepatic function tests in women with central obesity.
• RCT: Partly Replacing Meat Protein with Soy Protein Alters Insulin Resistance and Blood Lipids in Postmenopausal Women with Abdominal Obesity.
• RCT: Effects of Agave Nectar Versus Sucrose on Weight Gain, Adiposity, Blood Glucose, Insulin, and Lipid Responses in Mice.
• RCT: Carbohydrate-Free Peach (Prunus persica) and Plum (Prunus domestica) Juice Affects Fecal Microbial Ecology in an Obese Animal Model.

Psychology

• Working for food you don’t desire. Cues interfere with goal-directed food-seeking.
• RCT: Positive effects of a so-called healthy snack (fruit) versus an so-called unhealthy snack (chocolate/crisps) on subjective reports of mental and physical health.
• RCT: Greater numbers of stressors associated with lower postmeal REE, lower fat oxidation, and higher insulin.
• Changes in Parent Motivation Predicts Changes in BMI z-Score (zBMI) and Dietary Intake Among Preschoolers Enrolled in a Family-Based Obesity Intervention.

Drugs

• Association of testosterone undecanoate replacement and withdrawal with cardio-metabolic, hormonal and body composition outcomes in severely obese hypogonadal men: a pilot study.
• Long-Term Testosterone Therapy in Patients with ‘‘Diabesity’’: Results of Observational Studies of Pooled Analyses in Obese Hypogonadal Men with Type 2 Diabetes.
• Characterization of a shortened model of diet alternation in female rats: effects of the CB1 receptor antagonist rimonabant on food intake and anxiety-like behavior.
• New horizons on the role of cannabinoid CB1 receptors in palatable food intake, obesity and related dysmetabolism.
• Study of the Hormones Controlling Food Intake (Leptin and Agouti Related Protein “AgRP”) in Cannabis Smokers.
• Statins and the Risk of Diabetes: Evidence From a Large Population-Based Cohort Study.

Exercise

• RCT: Effects of weight management by exercise modes on markers of subclinical atherosclerosis and cardiometabolic profile among women with abdominal obesity.
• Emotional well-being showed the most consistent positive connection to physical activity in nature, whereas general health was positively associated with physical activity in both built and natural outdoor settings.
• RCT: Pedometry and ‘peer support’ in older Chinese adults: a 12-month trial.
• Outdoor Time Is Associated with Physical Activity, Sedentary Time, and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Youth.

Clinical

• In a large multi-ethnic sample, weight loss was associated with beneficial effects on cardiac structure, independent of age, race, gender, BMI, and obesity-related cardiometabolic risk, with no threshold of weight loss required to produce these effects.
• Effects of health promotion projects in preschools on BMI and motor abilities.
• RCT: Metabolic effects of lifestyle intervention in obese pregnant women.
• RCT: Examining the Effect of Three Low-Intensity Pediatric Obesity Interventions.
• Considerations for protein intake in managing weight loss in athletes.
• Innovative interventions to promote behavioral change in overweight or obese individuals.
• Comparison of Traditional and Nontraditional Weight Loss Methods: An Analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
• Obesity and children with special healthcare needs: special considerations for a special population.
• Weight-loss surgery: A gut-wrenching question.

Epidemiology

• Impact [association] of Cardiorespiratory Fitness on the Obesity Paradox in Patients With Heart Failure.
• Questions about NYC’s data purportedly showing a decline in childhood obesity.
• Severe Obesity Among Children in New York City Public Elementary and Middle Schools, School Years 2006–07 Through 2010–11.
• Fibroblast growth factor-21, body composition, and insulin resistance in pre-pubertal and early pubertal males and females.
• Within-Family Obesity Associations: Evaluation of Parent, Child, and Sibling Relationships.
• Increased Cardiometabolic Risk Factors and Inflammation in Adipose Tissue in Obese Subjects Classified as Metabolically Healthy.
• Are metabolically healthy obese individuals really healthy?
• Velocities of weight, height and fat mass gain during potentially critical periods of growth are decisive for adult body composition.

Mortality

• Adiposity measures, lean body mass, physical activity and mortality: NHANES 1999-2004.
• Diabetes Mellitus, Physical Activity, and Longevity Between the Ages of 70 and 90.
• Association of BMI with All-Cause and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in the Elderly.
• Adiposity measures, lean body mass, physical activity and mortality: NHANES 1999–2004.

Law

• Too Good To Be True: FTC’s Crackdown On L’Occitane’s Body Slimming Almond Extracts.
• Sugary Drinks, Happy Meals, Social Norms, and the Law: The Normative Impact of Product Configuration Bans.
• Food Law & Policy: The Fertile Field's Origins and First Decade.

Methods

• Semi-automated Imaging of Tissue-specific Fluorescence in Zebrafish Embryos.
• Home food and activity assessment. Development and validation of an instrument for diverse families of young children.
• Probing behavioral responses to food: Development of a food-specific go/no-go task.
• Validation of a New Skinfold Prediction Equation Based on Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry.
• Head fat is a novel method of measuring metabolic disorder in Chinese obese patients.
• Calorie Counting Machine May Make Dieting Easier In The Future.

Intergenerational Effects

• Gestational Malnutrition Affects Offspring’s Sperm.
• Paternal Diet and Exercise Epigenetically Program Energy Expenditure and Glucose Metabolism in Mouse Offspring.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Motherhood is no picnic for sea otter mums.
• Nutritional values of tortoises relative to ungulates from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for foraging and social behaviour.

Caloric Restriction

• Proteome adaptation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to severe calorie restriction in retentostat cultures.
• Bone Marrow Adipose Tissue Is an Endocrine Organ that Contributes to Increased Circulating Adiponectin during Caloric Restriction.
• Caloric Restriction Promotes the Reserve of Follicle Pool in Adult Female Rats by Inhibiting the Activation of Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Signaling.
• The role of leptin in striped hamsters subjected to food restriction and Refeeding.
• The essential role of FoxO6 phosphorylation in aging and calorie restriction.
• Caloric Restriction Aggravated Cortical and Trabecular Bone Architecture in Ovariectomy-induced Estrogen Deficient Rats.

Statistics

• Model choice impacts the interpretation of the relationship between BMI and stillbirth events.
• Understanding P values.

Brown Fat

• Frequent Extreme Cold Exposure and Brown Fat and Cold-Induced Thermogenesis: A Study in a Monozygotic Twin.
• MicroRNAs are required for the feature maintenance and differentiation of brown adipocytes.
• Supercharging Brown Fat to Battle Obesity.

Video

• Personalized Nutrition: Overlooked or Over-hyped?

Sleep

• Sleep debt and obesity.
• Use of pulmonary arterial hypertension-specific therapy in overweight or obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension

Labeling

• Restaurant Menu Labeling Use Among Adults — 17 States, 2012.
• Calorie labeling and consumer estimation of calories purchased.

Commentary

• Is There Such a Thing as a Healthy Weight?
• David Katz: Students Weighed and Measured - Does the BMI = TMI?
• UK Debate: Are People with Obesity Worth It?
• Toward More Comprehensive Food Labeling.
• Why Obesity Should Be Treated as a Disease.
• Pre-Diabetes: Medicalization or Vigilance?

General Science

• Response to Babor & Miller Editorial ‘McCarthyism, conflict of interest and Addiction's new transparency declaration procedures’.
• McCarthyism, conflict of interest and Addiction's new transparency declaration procedures.
• Crack Down on Scientific Fraudsters.
• Discoverability: Irked by Wikipedia Errors? Here’s How to Fix Them.
• How to Farm a Better Fish.
• Physicians more likely to register as an organ donor than the general public.
• Why Do We Have Blood Types, Anyway?
• Friendship and natural selection.
• Meet the medical student who wants to bring down Dr. Oz.
• The too much talent effect: team interdependence determines when more talent is too much versus not enough.
• Estimates of the Continuously Publishing Core in the Scientific Workforce.
• How to Read a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis and Apply the Results to Patient Care.
• New answer to MRSA, other 'superbug' infections: clay minerals?

Announcements

• 2014 TOS Award Recipients Announced.
• Melinda Sothern pens new book on safe exercise for overweight kids.

Featured

• Point-of-purchase calorie labeling has little influence on calories ordered regardless of BMI.
• Calories and fat content information versus no information did not affect the participants’ selections from a fast food menu.
• RCT: No significant difference in the amount of calories consumed during lunch, after a carbohydrate or a protein breakfast- A dissertation.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Fast food results in similar post-exercise glycogen recovery and exercise performance compared to sport supplements.
• Bariatric surgery prior to total joint arthroplasty may not provide dramatic improvements in post-arthroplasty surgical outcomes.
• RCT: High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sucrose Sweetened Milk Improve Dietary Quality during Weight Loss by Displacing Energy Dense, Nutrient Poor Foods.
• RCT: Acute ingestion of fructose or sucralose had no effect on flow-mediated dilatation measured at brachial artery.
• Life-long caloric restriction does not alter the severity of age-related osteoarthritis in mice.
• Systematic Review: Current guidelines recommend the use of fibre as first-line treatment for constipation, but not all studies support its use in adults.

Stigma

• Weight-related humor in the media: Appreciation, distaste, and anti-fat attitudes.
• Daily Insults, Judgments, and Humiliation.
• Prince Fielder, Obesity Studies and The Moral Hazard of Fat Obsession.
• Measuring up? The discursive construction of student subjectivities in the Global Children's Challenge.

Caloric Restriction

• Calorie restriction combined with resveratrol induces autophagy and protects 26-month-old rat hearts from doxorubicin-induced toxicity.
• Caloric restriction impedes age-related decline of mitochondrial function and neuronal activity.
• Positive effects of prolonged caloric restriction on the population of very small embryonic-like stem cells – hematopoietic and ovarian implications in mice.

Ghrelin

• Effects of exogenous ghrelin infusion on feed intake and metabolic parameters of energy homeostasis in Standardbred mares.
• The role of ghrelin in addiction: A review.

Endocrine Disruptors

• Serum concentrations of organochlorine pesticides associated with diabetes and obesity in Northern Benin (West Africa).
• The link between Bisphenol A, obesity, and type 2 diabetes mellitus: A review.

Clinical

• RCT: We found that children liked artificially-sweetened and sugar-sweetened beverages equally - A dissertation.
• RCT: The web-based lifestyle and medication is less expensive than live counseling while both reduced coronary heart disease risk through 12-month follow-up.
• Yogurt consumption, weight change and risk of overweight/obesity: The SUN cohort study.
• A systematic review and meta-analysis of mobile devices and weight loss with an intervention content analysis.

Exercise

• RCT: Regardless of exercise mode, supervised and structured exercise significantly improved anthropometric, functional and psychological measures in obese participants with a BMI ≥ 35.
• RCT: Effects of combined Tai Chi, resistance training and diet on percent body fat in obese older women- A dissertation.
• RCT: Short term aerobic exercise alters the reinforcing value of food in inactive adults.

Food

• RCT: Effects of the quality instead of quantity of dietary proteins on markers of satiety.
• Promoting consumption of fruit and vegetables for better health, have campaigns delivered on the goals? A review.
• Path to type 2 diabetes may be paused by eating pistachio nuts and almonds.
• Soft food texture causes diabetes without obesity in rats.
• TV portrays unhealthy foods in a positive light.

Food Supply

• Food for thought: Comparing estimates of food availability in England and Wales, 1700-1914.
• The transitional dynamics of caloric ecosystems: Changes in the food supply around the world.
• Can food availability influence economic growth – the case of African countries.

Beverages

• RCT: Lean individuals compensated precisely for the high energy beverage and solid loads from the onset of the study, whereas the obese did not alter eating patterns after consuming the higher energy beverage load.
• RCT: Effects of a price increase on purchases of sugar sweetened beverages.

Basic Science

• Insulin exerts direct, IGF-1 independent actions in growth plate chondrocytes.
• Binge-like consumption of caloric and non-caloric palatable substances in ad libitum-fed C57BL/6J mice: Pharmacological and molecular evidence of orexin involvement.
• Decreased consumption of rewarding sucrose solutions after injection of melanocortins into the ventral tegmental area of rats.
• Heart- and muscle-derived signaling system dependent on MED13 and wingless controls obesity in drosophila.
• Thiol antioxidant ß-mercaptoethanol supplementation improved functional outcomes of diet-induced obese mice.
• Role of diacylglycerol activation of PKCθ in lipid-induced muscle insulin resistance in humans.
• The Obesities:  An overview of convergent and divergent paradigms. 

Epidemiology

• Walking and proximity to the urban growth boundary and central business district.
• Letters: Prevalence of Obesity in the United States.
• BMI in young adulthood and suicidal behavior up to age 59 in a cohort of Swedish men.

Pregnancy

• RCT: Lifestyle intervention in obese pregnant women resulted in attenuation of the physiologic pregnancy-induced insulin resistance.
• Eating for 1, healthy and active for 2; feasibility of delivering novel, compact training for midwives to build knowledge and confidence in giving nutrition, physical activity and weight management advice during pregnancy.

Ethics

• Metabolic syndrome: The construction of a 'new' medical problem and the socio-ethical consequences.
• Equity in public health ethics: The case of menu labeling policy at the local level.
• Ethical dilemmas posed in the care of obese patients in the emergency department.

Education

• Implementation of specific educational strategies succeeded in greater delivery of nutrition.
• Bringing high-value care to the inpatient teaching service.

Economics

• The freer the fatter? A panel study of the relationship between body-mass index and economic freedom.
• Better obesity care need not cost more.
• Bundled diabetes care cuts heart risk in patients.
• Body weight, eating patterns, and physical activity: The role of education.

Patient Care

• Approach to overuse of herbal and dietary supplements: A teachable moment.
• Obesity malpractice claims up 64%, study shows.
• Campaign is launched to make patients the focus of evidence based medicine.

Drugs & Devices

• RCT: Effects of the once-weekly glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist dulaglutide on ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• Four biotech innovations for obesity.
• RCT: Effect of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on impaired glucose tolerance.

Surgery

• RCT: Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy versus single anastomosis (mini-) gastric bypass for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus: 5-year results.
• Duodenal switch versus Roux-en-Y gastric bypass for morbid obesity: systematic review and meta-analysis of weight results, diabetes resolution and early complications in single-centre comparisons.
• Ursodeoxycholic acid and diets higher in fat prevent gallbladder stones during weight loss: A meta-analysis of RCTs.

Computational

• A probabilistic model to evaluate population dietary recommendations.
• Dynamic interplay among homeostatic, hedonic, and cognitive feedback circuits regulating body weight.
• Modeling US adult obesity trends: A system dynamics model for estimating energy imbalance gap.
• A metabolic–epidemiological microsimulation model to estimate the changes in energy intake and physical activity necessary to meet the Healthy People 2020 obesity objective.

Methods

• Using crowdsourcing to evaluate published scientific literature: Methods and example.
• Unbalanced baseline in school-based interventions to prevent obesity: Adjustment can lead to bias - A systematic review.
• Modeling longitudinal obesity data with intermittent missingness using a new latent variable model.
• Can the Learning Health Care System Be Educated With Observational Data?
• Validity of a combined heart rate and motion sensor for the measurement of free-living energy expenditure in very active individuals.
• In simulation studies, exhaustive single food analysis seemed to outperform principal components analysis in finding food disease associations.
• Testing a novel method for measuring sleeping metabolic rate in neonates.
• Advantages and pitfalls in the application of mixed-model association methods.

Evolution, Energetics & Ecology

• Emergent global patterns of ecosystem structure and function from a mechanistic general ecosystem model.
• Double effort: Parental behavior of wild Azara's owl monkeys in the face of twins.
• Life history trade-offs and stress tolerance in green hydra (Hydra viridissima Pallas 1766): The importance of nutritional status and perceived population density.
• For corals adapting to climate change, it's survival of the fattest-and most flexible.
• Does despotic behavior or food search explain the occurrence of problem brown bears in Europe?

Neuroscience

• Circuits controlling energy balance and mood: Inherently intertwined or just complicated intersections? A perspective.
• Leptin signaling in astrocytes regulates hypothalamic neuronal circuits and feeding.
• Appetite signals in the brain: High fructose corn syrup sweetened cola effects hypothalamic activity as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Psychology

• Nothing tastes as good as thin feels: Low positive emotion differentiation and weight-loss activities in anorexia nervosa.
• How many calories were in those hamburgers again? Distribution density biases recall of attribute values.
• The effect of brand and caloric information on flavor perception and food consumption in restrained and unrestrained eaters.
• RCT: Cognitive behavioral therapy informed psychotherapy for PNES without and with sertraline revealed significant seizure reduction and improved comorbid symptoms and global functioning.

General Science

• Feasibility and practical considerations for heating and humidifying gases during newborn stabilisation: An in vitro model.
• Letter re: Impact of peer review on reports of randomised trials published in open peer review journals: retrospective before and after study.
• Virus plagues the pork industry and environmentalists.
• Heart function improved in rats 'by injecting discarded surgery fat'.
• First cancer immunotherapy for dogs developed.
• A chemical-free paper.
• “Nanojuice” could improve how doctors examine the gut.
• Massive impact may have created Mercury.

Commentary

• Ted Kyle on “creative causality science reporting”.
• Can you be obese and still be healthy?
• Just add sugar - But don't forget to label it.
• Don't swallow it: Six health myths you should ignore.
• Major scientific journal joins push to screen statistics in papers it publishes.
• Lies, damn lies and doctors who are bad at math.
• BBC told to stop giving equal time to science deniers.
• Video: 2 minute etymology lesson on "healthy" vs. "healthful".
• Workplace wellness meets reality.

Announcements

• Workshop on standards for quantitative MRI, July 14-16, 2014.
• Go4Life: the NIA health education campaign.

Featured

• Meta-Analysis: In contrast to the observational studies, RCTs indicate that substituting low-calories sweetener options for their regular-calorie versions results in a modest weight loss.
• Effects of chronic leptin infusion on subsequent body weight and composition in mice: Can body weight set point be reset?

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Child Obesity 'Caused by Overprotective Mothers'.
• Study: Higher Maternal Protectiveness Is Associated with Higher Odds of Child Overweight and Obesity: A Longitudinal Australian Study.
• Headline: “Obesity Rate Up for Nevada Kids” [yes, but from 29.6% to 30%].

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: “When consumed as part of an habitual diet, long-term sugar reformulated product exchange had no effect on traditional or novel markers of CVD in healthy volunteers.” (T-799-P page S236). And here is trial registration.
• For men with a moderate level of overweight/obesity who were otherwise healthy, the response of salivary cortisol, salivary alpha amylase and HR to acute psychological stress was not impaired.
• Obesity and diabetes not associated with survival in triple-negative breast cancer prognosis.
• RCT: Acute Administration of Unacylated Ghrelin Has No Effect on Basal or Stimulated Insulin Secretion in Healthy Humans.
• Among patients with diabetes who were receiving metformin, the addition of insulin vs a sulfonylurea was associated with an increased risk of a composite of nonfatal cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality.
• No effect of the Healthy Eating Active Living Alabama program detected on prevention of childhood obesity among fifth grade students.

Basic Science

• Increasing Muscle Mass Improves Vascular Function in Obese (db/db) Mice.
• MicroRNAs play a major role in the distribution and determination of fat cells and whole body metabolism.
• Missing NUCKS Protein involved in Obesity.
• Feeding regulation in Drosophila.
• Leptin reverses diabetes by suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
• The Effects of Individualized Gastric Electrical Stimulation on Food Craving and Gastrointestinal Peptides in Dogs.
• Mitochondria - the Powerhouse of the Cell Goes from Bench to Bedside.
• Leptin-Receptor-Expressing Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Represent the Main Source of Bone Formed by Adult Bone Marrow.

Clinical

• RCT: Growth effects of exclusive breastfeeding promotion by peer counsellors in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Lipoprotein Insulin Resistance Index: A Lipoprotein Particle–Derived Measure of Insulin Resistance.
• B-MOBILE - A Smartphone-Based Intervention to Reduce Sedentary Time in Overweight/Obese Individuals: A Within-Subjects Experimental Trial.
• Dietary Cholesterol Promotes Adipocyte Hypertrophy and Adipose Tissue Inflammation in Visceral, but Not in Subcutaneous, Fat in Monkeys.
• Four Biotech Innovations for Obesity.

Drugs

• RCT: Pharmacologic Inhibition of Myostatin and Changes in Lean Body Mass and Lower Extremity Muscle Size in Patients Receiving Androgen Deprivation Therapy for Prostate Cancer.
• RCT: Adding Anti-Inflammatory Drug Roflumilast to Metformin May Reduce Obesity.
• RCT: Rhythm Presents Clinical Data that RM-493 Increases Energy Expenditure in Obesity Study.

Surgery

• Duodeno-Jejunal Tube Placement in an Experimental Model of Obesity: Effects on Food Behaviour and Basal Energy Expenditure.
• Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy for morbid obesity: 5-years results.

Epidemiology

• Is obesity related to deteriorating mental health of the U.S. working-age population?
• Adenovirus 36 Antibodies Associated with Clinical Diagnosis of Overweight/Obesity but not BMI Gain: A Military Cohort Study.
• Geographic Variability in the Association between Socioeconomic Status and BMI in the USA and Canada.
• Grief in Pregnancy Associated with Obesity in Adulthood.
• Racial Differences in the Association of Insulin Resistance With Stroke Risk The REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) Study.
• New research in horses highlights obesity not just a growing human health problem.
• Poverty, ethnicity, and risk of obesity among low birth weight infants.
• Antidepressant use during pregnancy associated with childhood obesity and diabetes.
• Obesity Prevention Intervention Studies among Immigrant Populations in the US: a systematic review.
• Adolescence BMI and trends in adulthood mortality: A study of 2.16 million adolescents.

Exercise

• RCT: The independent and combined effects of exercise training and reducing sedentary behavior on cardiometabolic risk factors.
• Exercise first then diet prevented muscle loss in people with metabolic syndrome.
• Self-Reported Versus Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity and Biomarkers Among NHANES Youth.
• Individual Characteristics Associated with Mismatches between Self-Reported and Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity.
• Exercise and Dietary-Mediated Reductions in Postprandial Lipemia: Review Article.

Food

• Macronutrients and obesity: Revisiting the calories in, calories out framework.
• Should animal fats be back on the table? A critical review of the human health effects of animal fat.
• Overfeeding of Polyunsaturated Versus Saturated Fatty Acids Reduces Ectopic Fat.
• Tempest in a Tea Pot: How did the Public Conversation on Genetically Modified Crops Drift so far from the Facts?

Genetics

• Functional characterisation of obesity-associated variants involving the alpha and beta isoforms of human SH2B1.
• Obesity Genetics and Epigenetics: Dissecting Causality.

Intergenerational Transmission

• Maternal hypertriglyceridemia: A link between maternal overweight-obesity and macrosomia in gestational diabetes.
• Paternal effects on offspring growth in the polyandrous ladybird Cheilomenes sexmaculata.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Towards a mechanistic understanding of temperature and enrichment effects on species interaction strength, omnivory and food-web structure.
• Food-restricted dormice use torpor more frequently and enter the sleep-like state for longer than animals fed ad lib.
• Chronic predation risk reduces escape speed by increasing oxidative damage: a deadly cost of an adaptive antipredator response.
• Fossilized feces show Neanderthals ate their vegetables.
• Neanderthals evolved their teeth before big brains.

Temperature

• Body surface temperature distribution in relation to body composition in obese women.
• Temperature-acclimated brown adipose tissue modulates insulin sensitivity in humans.
• An Australian-led study has found that rising household temperatures may have helped trigger the obesity epidemic by curbing levels of a healthy type of body fat.
• Obesity was more prevalent in counties that are hot in July or cold in January.

Gut Microbiota

• Incorporation of therapeutically modified bacteria into gut microbiota inhibits obesity.
• Gut Microbes Differ in Obese or Diabetic People, Study Finds.
• Engineered Probiotics Prevent Obesity in Mice.

Methods

• Diagnostic performance of BMI to identify obesity as defined by body adiposity in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• What does indirect calorimetry really tell us?
• Mining characteristics of epidemiological studies from Medline: a case study in obesity.
• Obesity Is Undercounted in Children, Study Finds.
• A comparison of different statistical methods analyzing hypoglycemia data using bootstrap simulations.
• The Intention-to-Treat Principle:  How to Assess the True Effect of Choosing a Medical Treatment.

Computational

• Quantifying energy intake changes during obesity pharmacotherapy.
• Energy absorption during impact on the proximal femur is affected by BMI and flooring surface.
• Leveraging social influence to address overweight and obesity using agent-based models: The role of adolescent social networks.

Neuroscience

• Resting-state functional connectivity of brain regions involved in cognitive control, motivation, and reward is enhanced in obese females.
• Hormonal and neural mechanisms of food reward, eating behaviour and obesity.

Policy Related

• Study examines if corporate wellness programs drive down costs related to obesity.
• The Fate of Front of Pack Labeling That Actually Works.
• New York high court rejects large soda ban.
• A tax on exercise?
• Obesity: Perception and Policy – Multi-country Review and Survey of Policymakers.
• Food Marketing: Obesity Problem or Solution?

Economics

• Job loss and body weight during an economic collapse.
• Robust relation between temporal discounting rates and body mass.

Psychology

• The effects [associations] of ovarian hormones and emotional eating on changes in weight preoccupation across the menstrual cycle.
• The unit size effect of indulgent food: How eating smaller sized items signals impulsivity and makes consumers eat less.

Technology

• “There is currently no definitive randomised controlled trial of a smartphone app for weight loss in adults and further research into this approach is warranted”.
• Cameras tracking shoppers in supermarkets.

Video

• ICN video highlights - Energy balance and active living.
• Complexity of methodologies for studying energy balance.
• Dr. Elizabeth Barrett-Connor on Obesity, Memory Loss and Dementia; Lessons from Epidemiology - Research on Aging.

General Science

• Exogenous application of estradiol to eggs unexpectedly induces male development in two turtle species with temperature-dependent sex determination.
• Reproduction later in life is a marker for longevity in women.
• Nature Video: Handing on a sustainable future.
• Introducing the JAMA Guide to Statistics and Methods.
• California scientists discover mouse-like mammal related to elephants.
• Ethics of Facebook’s Experiment Questioned - It intentionally manipulated users’ emotions without their knowledge.
• Medicine’s Uncomfortable Relationship with Math - Calculating Positive Predictive Value.
• Reported Drosophila courtship song rhythms are artifacts of data analysis.
• The secret of a natural blond.
• Scientific misbehavior in economics.

Commentary

• Is there a paradox in obesity?
• David Katz: Knowing What to Eat, Refusing to Swallow It.
• Our stolen figures: The interface of sexual differentiation, endocrine disruptors, maternal programming, and energy balance.
• Finding the Missing Links among Metabolites, Microbes, and the Host.
• From measurement to analysis reporting: grand challenges in nutritional methodology.
• Call for an urgent rethink of the ‘health at every size’ concept.
• Why Eating Fruits and Veggies Won't Make You Thin.
• Can you show us that again please?

Announcements

• Division 5 Sessions at the Upcoming APA Convention, Washington, DC, August 7-10, 2014.
• 6th Annual Course on Isotope Tracers in Metabolic Research: March 11-15, 2013, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Featured

• Averaged across 5 validation studies the squared average correlation between self-reported energy intake and true energy intake ranged from 0.04 to 0.10, depending on the self-report measure.
• Elevated objectively measured but not self-reported energy intake predicts future weight gain in adolescents.
• Weighing the Evidence of Common Beliefs in Obesity Research [note typesetting error on incorrectly included last author will be corrected].
• Increased fruit and vegetable intake has no discernible effect on weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Meta-analysis: No HDL-raising agents reduced all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease mortality, myocardial infarction or stroke in statin treated patients. The observational hypothesis that raising HDL should reduce cardiovascular events appears to be incorrect.
• A 5-month football intervention program in overweight boys did not significantly alter body composition.
• Cycling time trial performance may be impaired by whey protein and L-alanine intake during prolonged exercise.
• RCT: short-term regular ingestion of black tea over 3 months can improve body weight and body fat distribution, compared to a caffeine-matched control beverage. However, there was no evidence that these effects were sustained beyond 3 months.
• RCT: No effect of weight loss on LINE-1 methylation levels in peripheral blood leukocytes from postmenopausal overweight women.
• These data do not support the view that non-nutritive sweeteners hijack or over-stimulate sweet receptors to product elevated sweet sensations.
• LDL doesn't predict heart disease risk in diabetes.

Basic Science

• Variations in body weight, food intake, and body composition after long-term high-fat diet feeding in C57BL/6J mice.
• Non-caloric regulation of food intake.
• Imidacloprid [pesticide] decreased lifespan and increased intestinal fat deposition in C. elegans.
• Energy intake, growth rate and body composition of young Labrador Retrievers and Miniature Schnauzers fed different dietary levels of vitamin A.
• Newly discovered in adult mammals, beige fat cells can switch between accumulating fat and burning it, depending on metabolic needs.
• Exogenous application of estradiol to eggs unexpectedly induces male development in two turtle species.
• Brown fat stimulated by cold.
• Genome-wide association mapping including phenotypes from relatives without genotypes in a single-step (ssGWAS) for 6-week body weight in broiler chickens.

Economics

• Pathway from nutrition intake to wage among elementary workers in India.
• Effects [association] of obesity across the distribution of earnings for young women.
• Heterogeneity, censoring and endogeneity in estimates of response to soft drink tax: finite mixture tobit and censored quantile regression approaches.
• Overweight/obesity and human capital formation from infancy to adolescence: evidence from two large us cohorts.

Computational

• A predictive model of the dynamics of body weight and food intake in rats submitted to caloric restrictions.
• A metabolic–epidemiological microsimulation model to estimate the changes in energy intake and physical activity necessary to meet the Healthy People 2020 obesity objective.
• Modeling visceral fat in healthy individuals.
• Modeling adolescent social networks.
• Modeling the human rib cage.

Food

• Is there a relationship between dietary MSG and obesity in animals or humans?
• RCT: Infant formula composition affects energetic efficiency for growth.
• Should animal fats be back on the table?
• FDA: bee pollen weight loss products pose health risks.

Food & Death

• High-fat, low-carbohydrate diet promotes arrhythmic death and increases myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats.
• Higher sugar-sweetened beverage intake was associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer recurrence and mortality in stage III colon cancer patients.
• Greater mortality and morbidity in extremely preterm infants fed a diet containing cow milk protein products.
• Worms live longer when they stop eating.
• Caloric restriction and the aging process: a critique.
• "Higher pre-diagnosis fat intake was not associated with greater risk of lethal breast cancer in these large prospective cohort studies, consistent with the weight of the evidence against a causal role for fat intake and breast cancer incidence."
• Suicide mortality in relation to dietary intake of n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids and fish: equivocal findings from 3 large US cohort Studies.

Exercise

• Effectiveness of sleep extension on athletic performance and nutrition of female track athletes.
• Matching energy intake to expenditure of isocaloric exercise at high- and moderate-intensities.
• Fitness app usage is growing 87% faster than the overall app market.
• Misreporting exercise intensity.

Caloric Restriction

• In vitro effects of caloric restriction on human adipocyte secretome.
• Transcriptional responses to caloric restriction.
• Calorie restriction in model organisms.

Breakfast

• High-protein breakfast promotes weight loss by suppressing subsequent food intake and regulating appetite hormones in obese Chinese adolescents.
• Quasi-Experiment: no evidence breakfast in the classroom increased body mass, and some evidence that it reduced the incidence of obesity among some subgroups of students.

Epidemiology

• Healthy People 2020: A Report Card on the Health of the Nation.
• Review article: associations between Helicobacter pylori and obesity - an ecological study.
• Early life perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) exposure and overweight and obesity risk in adulthood in a community with elevated exposure.
• Immigrant status and vitamin D.
• Geography, socioeconomic status and BMI.
• Children in poor neighborhoods at greater risk of obesity.
• Resting metabolic rate of adults: a public health perspective.
• Obesity is undercounted in children, study finds.
• Mortality attributable to excess weight in Spain.
• Obesity in Nevada's young children is increasing.

Energy Balance

• Endocrine disruptors and maternal programming.
• Tubby dachshund loses half his weight.

Drugs

• Early Results Arrive on Weight-Loss Pills That Expand in the Stomach.
• Pharmacotherapy for weight loss.
• Novel agents for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Psychology

• Health buzzwords on food labels are misleading consumers, study finds.
• Understanding experiences of participating in a weight loss lifestyle intervention trial: a qualitative evaluation of South Asians at high risk of diabetes.
• Obese Americans prefer surgery and pills to diet and exercise.
• A new model of the role of psychological and emotional distress in promoting obesity: conceptual review with implications for treatment and prevention.

Clinical

• Importance of balanced diet and physical activity during and after cancer treatment in adolescent patients.
• VBLOC therapy for obesity won a mixed but positive verdict from an FDA advisory panel.
• Health Practitioners and Prediabetes Awareness.
• Dental considerations with weight-loss meds.
• Physical Activity, Wafarin, and hemorrhagic complications.
• Left ventricular assist device (LVAD), Physical Activity and Quality of Life.
• Bariatric Endocrinology: principles of medical practice.
• Guidelines (2013) for managing overweight and obesity in adults.
• Office-based lifestyle and diet intervention effective for weight loss.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Primate nutritional ecology: the role of food selection, energy intake, and nutrient balancing in Mexican black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra) foraging strategies.
• Experimental food supplementation affects the physical development, behaviour and survival of Little Owl Athene noctua nestlings.
• Thermal developmental plasticity affects body size and water conservation of Drosophila nepalensis from the Western Himalayas.
• To find food and dodge predators, mother yaks reach higher ground than males or childless females.
• Coordination of organ development.

General Science

• Sun-seekers court addiction: studies in mice hint at a dark side of sunbathing.
• Statistical Validation of the Shorter-Moldwin Food Sensitivity Questionnaire for Patients with Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome.
• Mosaic loss of chromosome Y in peripheral blood is associated with shorter survival and higher risk of cancer.
• GAO Report: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education - assessing the relationship between education and the workforce.
• Would Fred Sanger get funded today?
• IOM Report: conflict of Interest and medical innovation.
• Gravitational-wave team admits findings could amount to dust.
• Autoimmune diseases stopped in mice.
• 10 Scientific ideas that scientists wish you would stop misusing.

Commentary

• Economist: It’s time for tough choices on US health costs.
• Do we really have to worry about shower curtains causing weight gain?
• Glycemic index and metabolic risks: how strong is the evidence?
• Banning the handshake from the health care setting.
• UAB study says it is time to abandon obesity myths.
• The 9 myths about obesity.
• Institute of Medicine Obesity Solutions Roundtable: Nothing about us without us.
• More fruits and veggies = Less weight? Not exactly.
• Taxing obesity, pro and con.

Video

• Videos now available from “First Short Course on Mathematical Sciences in Obesity Research.”
• "Energy Balance: Using Those Fat Stores" with UAB's Edward Archer.
• “Obesity and US Adult Mortality: A Bigger Picture of the Growing Threat” with Ryan Masters.
• The importance of science: an outsider's perspective.

Announcements

• The Sugar Reduction Summit: Science, Policy and Public Health.
• Diabetes and the Microbiome Research Symposium October 27-29, 2014, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
• UAB Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center 3rd Annual Symposium October 3-4, 2014, Birmingham, AL.
• "The Promise of the Microbiome: Function and Dysfunction in Humans and Beyond"- Science Webinar.
• Allison and Gower named to American Society of Nutrition’s Research Interest Sections.
• U.S. aging researchers prepare for loss of hungry mouse colony.