Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Perspective: Overweight, mortality and survival.
• Relative to participants in a disorderly room, participants in an orderly room chose healthier snacks.
• School lunch debit cards are associated with lower nutrition and higher calories.

Findings Contrary Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: Altering GL of drinks by reducing carbohydrate and increasing protein did not affect appetite or cognition in children.
• Childbearing is not associated with young women's long-term obesity risk.
• Evidence for Fruit and Vegetable consumption replacing high-energy foods and thereby reducing BMI gain could not be substantiated in this study.
• RCT: In a 12-week, low-intensity behaviourally based online programme, addition of a fortified diet beverage had no additional impact.
• Excess Vitamin Intake before Starvation does not Affect Body Mass, Organ Mass, or Blood Variables but Affects Urinary Excretion of Riboflavin in Starving Rats.

Transgenerational Effects

• Obesity at Conception Programs the Opioid System in the Offspring Brain.
• Transgenerational Metabolic Determinants of Fetal Birth Weight.

Surgery

• Bariatric surgery influences the number and quality of oocytes in patients submitted to assisted reproduction techniques.
• RCT: Fasting and Meal-Suppressed Ghrelin Levels Before and After Intragastric Balloons and Balloon-Induced Weight Loss.
• RCT: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass vs sleeve gastrectomy for obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• RCT: Intensive Medical Weight Loss or Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding in the Treatment of Mild to Moderate Obesity: Long-Term Follow-up.
• Obesity and trends in malpractice claims for physicians and surgeons.

Sugar

• Post-oral appetite stimulation by sugars and non-metabolizable sugar analogs in mice: Role of intestinal SGLT sugar sensors.
• Human-relevant levels of added sugar consumption increase female mortality and lower male fitness in mice.
• Commentary: Could three fizzy drinks a day damage your health?
• Commentary on study of effects of added sugar consumption on mortality and fitness in mice.
• RCT: Diet-induced changes in the Lean Brain: Hypercaloric High-Fat-High-Sugar Snacking decreases Serotonin Transporters the human hypothalamic region.

Psychology

• Vicarious defeats experienced by fans when their favorite football team loses lead them to consume less healthy food.
• Psychological benefits of weight loss: a systematic research review.

Policy Related

• RCT: Efficacy and Consumer Preferences for Different Approaches to Calorie Labeling on Menus.
• Would You Like Fries (380 Calories) With That? Menu Labeling Mitigates the Impact of Weight-Based Stereotype Threat on Food Choice.
• Limiting “Sugary Drinks” to Reduce Obesity — Who Decides?
• A response to "Limiting "Sugary Drinks" to Reduce Obesity - Who Decides?"
• Scalable, Evidence-Based Obesity Treatment

Mitochondria

• Mitochondrial energetics is impaired in vivo in aged skeletal muscle.
• Mitochondrial Cooperatives in Nematode Worms.
• Caloric Restriction Followed by High Fat Feeding Predisposes to Oxidative Stress in Skeletal Muscle Mitochondria.

Methods

• Body mass estimation in modern population using anthropometric measurements from computed tomography.
• IOM Report: Evaluating Progress of Obesity Prevention Efforts.
• Developing Parametric Human Finite Element Models for Injury Assessment Focusing on Various Vulnerable Populations.
• Reliability of non-lethal assessment methods of body composition and energetic status exemplified by applications to eel (Anguilla anguilla) and carp (Cyprinus carpio).
• See a Fish Think: Technique allows researchers to watch brain activity in a zebrafish as it pursues its prey.
• A Novel Mathematical Model Detecting Early Individual Changes of Insulin Resistance.
• Advances in the understanding of specific metabolic rates of major organs and tissues in humans.

General Science

• Assessment of risk of bias in translational science.
• Warnings of Adverse Side Effects Can Backfire Over Time.
• 6 Ways Numbers Can Lie To Us.
• Your uncertainty, your probability, your decision.
• Study Examines Which Faculty Members Retire—and Which Don’t.
• Potential Reporting Bias in fMRI Studies of the Brain.

Food

• RCT: Effects of milk and milk constituents on postprandial lipid and glucose metabolism in overweight and obese men.
• Food consumption, physical activity and socio-economic status related to BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio in adolescents.
• Major food sources of calories, added sugars, and saturated fat and their contribution to essential nutrient intakes in the U.S. diet: data from the national health and nutrition examination survey (2003--2006).
• Effect of glycemic index and glycemic load on energy intake in children.
• RCT: School snacks decrease morbidity in Kenyan schoolchildren.

Exercise

• Do mass media campaigns improve physical activity? a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• RCT: Does aerobic exercise intensity affect health-related parameters in overweight women?
• Kids may not compensate for physical activity at school later at home.

Epidemiology

• Overlapping decline in orbitofrontal gray matter volume related to cocaine use and body mass index.
• Preconception bariatric surgery does not seem to affect the risk for congenital malformations.
• Associations of Vitamin D Intake with 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in Overweight and Racially/Ethnically Diverse US Children.

Drugs

• Time series analyses of the effect of FDA communications on use of prescription weight loss medications.
• Olanzapine activates hepatic mTOR: new mechanistic insight into metabolic dysregulation with atypical antipsychotic drugs.

Clinical

• RCT: Impact of Biofeedback on Self-efficacy and Stress Reduction in Obesity.
• RCT: Two Diets with Different Hemoglobin A1c and Antiglycemic Medication Effects Despite Similar Weight Loss in Type 2 Diabetes
• RCT: Weight loss on a structured hypocaloric diet with or without exercise improves emotional distress and quality of life in overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• Acne appears to represent a visible indicator disease of over-activated mTORC1 signalling, an unfavourable metabolic deviation on the road to serious common Western diseases of civilisation associated with increased BMI and insulin resistance.
• Certain Antibiotics Tied to Blood Sugar Swings in Diabetics.

Brown Fat

• Autophagy in Myf5+ progenitors regulates energy and glucose homeostasis through control of brown fat and skeletal muscle development.
• Obesity: Cold exposure increases brown adipose tissue in humans.
• Brown Adipose Tissue Thermogenesis in Humans.
• Ketone esters increase brown fat in mice and overcome insulin resistance in other tissues in the rat.

Bone

• Childhood obesity as a risk factor for bone fracture: A mechanistic study.
• Body Fat Mass is a Strong and Negative Predictor of Peak Stimulated Growth Hormone and Bone Mineral Density in Healthy Adolescents During Transition Period.

Basic Science

• Dolphins Shed Light on Diabetes Mechanism.
• Obesity Notches up fatty liver.
• Changes in circulating microRNAs are associated with childhood obesity.
• Structural modulation of gut microbiota in life-long calorie-restricted mice.
• Methionine restriction prevents hepatic steatosis in leptin-deficient mice.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Energy requirements of Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) as predicted by a bioenergetic model.
• The energetics of electric organ discharge generation in gymnotiform weakly electric fish.
• Haploinsufficiency of Akt1 Prolongs the Lifespan of Mice.
• When do we eat? Ingestive Behavior, Survival, and Reproductive Success.

Announcements

• Childhood Obesity in the Community: Turning Science Into Care, Oct 10-11, Boston.
• Selwyn Vickers, M.D., chosen to lead UAB School of Medicine.
• Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention, September 27-29.
• The Science of Science Communication II, September 23-25, 2013 National Academy of Sciences Washington, DC.
• Ingestive Behavior Research Center (IBRC) Symposium on Eating Patterns, Diet Quality and Energy Balance September 24-26, 2013.

Featured

• The progression of cardiometabolic disease: Validation of a new cardiometabolic disease staging system applicable to obesity.
• U.S. fails on measuring obesity prevention.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: No significant effect of testosterone administration on liver fat in older men with mobility limitation.
• RCT: Short-term overeating results in incomplete energy intake compensation regardless of energy density or macronutrient composition.
• Diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome and obesity are not significant risk factors for hepatocellular carcinoma in an HBV- and HCV-endemic area of Southern Taiwan.
• Higher density of supermarkets and traditional markets in the school neighborhoods was associated with a greater likelihood of child obesity.

Basic Science

• Endocrinology and immunology of obesity, obesity vaccines.
• The gut as a second brain.
• Soybean meal induces intestinal inflammation in zebrafish larvae.
• Prevention of obesity and insulin resistance by estrogens requires ERα activation function-2 (ERαAF-2), whereas ERαAF-1 is dispensable.
• Genetic association analysis of 30 genes related to obesity in a European American population.
• Adenosine receptor antagonists including caffeine alter fetal brain development in mice.

Caloric Restriction

• RCT: The effects of caloric restriction on Fetuin-A and cardiovascular risk factors in rats and humans.
• Adult-onset obesity induced by early life overnutrition could be reversed by moderate caloric restriction.

Clinical

• Review: Research reports examining the complementary addition of mindfulness based approaches in the treatment obesity and eating disorders are relatively scarce.
• RCT: Comparing delivery of behavioral pediatric obesity treatment using standard and enhanced motivational approaches.
• RCT: The effect of nighttime macronutrient choice and exercise training on body composition, strength, cardiovascular health, resting metabolism, and appetite in overweight and obese adults.
• RCT: Independent and combined effects of dietary weight loss and exercise on leukocyte telomere length in postmenopausal women.
• RCT: Web-based self-monitoring for weight loss among overweight/obese women at increased risk for breast cancer.
• RCT: Weight and metabolic effects of dietary weight loss and exercise interventions in postmenopausal antidepressant medication users and non-users.
• RCT: Weight loss, exercise or both and cardiometabolic risk factors in obese older adults.
• RCT: Meal replacements, reduced energy density eating and weight loss maintenance in primary care patients.
• Gender differences in food craving among overweight and obese patients attending low energy diet therapy: a matched case–control study.
• Everything you think about losing weight is wrong.

College

• Changes in eating and physical activity behaviors across seven semesters of college: Living on or off campus matters.
• Transitional changes in energy intake, skeletal muscle content and nutritional behavior in college students during course-work based nutrition education.

Commentary

• 'We're kind of devolving': Visual tropes of evolution in obesity discourse.
• Can environmental chemical pollutants lead to weight gain?
• A Commentary on Evidence-Based Analysis: Is It Right for the Science of Food- and Nutrition-Related Behaviors?
• Resisting biopedagogies of obesity in a problem population: Understandings of healthy eating and healthy weight in a Newfoundland and Labrador community.
• Public health pedagogy, border crossings and physical activity at every size.
• 'Do I Still Belong Here?' The body's boundary work in the israeli fat acceptance movement.
• The Greatest Food in Human History, Part Two: McDonalds and Bloomberg.
• Low-income preschool obesity down slightly — Why?

Drugs

• RCT: lmesartan/amlodipine/hydrochlorothiazide in obese participants with hypertension: A TRINITY subanalysis.
• RCT: Weight maintenance and additional weight loss with liraglutide after low-calorie-diet-induced weight loss.
• RCT: Dapagliflozin maintains glycaemic control while reducing weight and body fat mass over 2 years in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus inadequately controlled on metformin.

Evolution, Ecology, and Energetics

• Relationship between plantation forest and brown trout growth, energetics and population structure in peatland lakes in western Ireland.
• Hair density and body mass in mammals and the evolution of human hairlessness.
• Bioenergetic budget of juveniles of fat snook Centropomus parallelus (Perciformes, Centropomidae) as a function of salinity acclimation.
• When do we eat? Ingestive Behavior, Survival, and Reproductive Success.
• Thrifty Phenotype Hypothesis: Curing Poverty Leads To Obesity And Diabetes.

Energy Balance

• Food intake and childhood obesity: accurate estimation of requirements?
• Balancing the energy budget in free-ranging male Myotis daubentonii bats.

Epidemiology

• Broad decline in obesity rate seen in poor young children.
• The relationship between breastfeeding and postpartum weight change-a systematic review and critical evaluation.
• Disk Degeneration and low back pain: Are they fat-related conditions?
• Bariatric surgery is associated with an increased risk of fracture.

Exercise

• The effects of elastic band resistance training combined with blood flow restriction on strength, total bone-free lean body mass and muscle thickness in postmenopausal women.
• Exercise to improve pediatric bone and fat: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
• RCT: To remove or to replace traditional electronic games? The impact of removing or replacing home access to electronic games on physical activity in children.

Fat & Bone

• Inducible brown adipose tissue, or beige fat, is anabolic for the skeleton.
• Obesity and skeletal mass.

Food

• Eat: Vassar Alumni Magazine on Food.
• The Role of Lean Beef in Healthful Dietary Patterns: Myths Versus Reality.
• Substance found in Caramelized Sugar Reduces Muscle Wasting in Fly and Mouse MS Models.
• RCT: Gender and body mass index modify the effect of increasing amounts of caffeinated coffee on postprandial glucose and insulin concentrations.
• A lab-grown burger gets a taste test.
• The New Frontier: Creating and marketing food products that prevent disease and obesity.
• Association of dairy intake with body composition and physical function in older community-dwelling women.
• Mixed messages on the value of breakfast.

Mathematical Models

• Dynamics of childhood growth and obesity: development and validation of a quantitative mathematical model.
• Computational model of midbrain dopaminergic neuron activity in ageing and obesity.
• Efficacy analysis of a body-mass-reduction treatment using mathematical modeling.
• Femoral neck bone adaptation to weight-bearing physical activity by computational analysis.

Media

• Researchers comment on the ScienceNordic article ‘Big EU obesity study is not representative’ and give their point of view.
• Obesity in the media: Social science weighs in.
• A Major Communication Challenge of Our Times: What on Earth Do We Say About Processed Foods?
• Anti-obesity media content and its impact on people's intention to eat healthy and exercise: A test of the protection motivation theory.

Methods

• Toward real-time temperature monitoring in fat and aqueous tissue during magnetic resonance-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound using a three-dimensional proton resonance frequency T1 method.
• Prediction of Complex Human Traits Using the Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictor.
• Limitations of cadence-based walking for assessing bouts of moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity under free-living conditions.
• Discrepancy between use of lean body mass or nitrogen balance to determine protein requirements for adult cats.
• Neuroimaging of gut nutrient perception.

Policy Related

• The Danish tax on saturated fat - Short run effects on consumption, substitution patterns and consumer prices of fats.
• Local Health Agencies, the Bloomberg Soda Rule, and the Ghost of Woodrow Wilson.
• Note to Mayor Bloomberg: It’s harder than you think.
• Support for obesity-related policy and its association with motivation for weight control.
• Despite theoretical support for obesity policies, individuals find it difficult to envisage how policies could help them control their weight.
• Obesity prevention policies in U.S. States and Localities: Lessons from the field.
• Cost-effectiveness of fiscal policies to prevent obesity.
• Ethical Justice, but no financial rewards, for the Henrietta Lacks Family.
• Privacy and integrity questions about workplace wellness.

Prevention

• IOM Report: Evaluating Obesity Prevention Efforts: A Plan for Measuring Progress.
• RE: “Are Network-based interventions a useful antiobesity strategy?”

Psychology

• The roles of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control in the formation of consumers' behavioral intentions to read menu labels in the restaurant industry.
• Desire lies in the eyes: Attention bias for chocolate is related to craving and self-endorsed eating permission.
• Instrumental social support and women's body composition in El Alto, Bolivia.
• Less is more: The effect of multiple implementation intentions targeting unhealthy snacking habits.
• Connecting the dots: Stress, inflammation, and obesity.

Sleep

• Inverse relationship of food and alcohol intake to sleep measures in obesity.
• Acute sleep deprivation increases food purchasing in men.
• Acute sleep restriction reduces insulin sensitivity in adolescent boys.
• The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain
• Overnight energy expenditure determined by whole-body indirect calorimetry does not differ during different sleep stages.

Sugar Sweetened Beverages

• Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Weight Gain in 2- to 5-Year-Old Children.
• Editorial: Sugar-sweetened beverages.
• Neural responsivity during soft drink intake, anticipation, and advertisement exposure in habitually consuming youth.
• Effects of sugar solutions on hypothalamic appetite regulation.
• “Though there is evidence of the need to curb SSB consumption … important evidence gaps remain regarding potential unintended consequences, and the comparative and cost effectiveness of policy interventions.”

Stigma

• Weight bias among UK trainee dietitians, doctors, nurses and nutritionists.
• Thou shalt not get fat: Medical representations and self-images of obesity in a Mediterranean society.
• Why don’t you like me? Understanding the thick (and thin) of weight bias in an Australian university sample.
• Criminality and Corpulence: Weight bias in the courtroom.
• Perceived weight discrimination and obesity.

Suicidality

• Examination of the relationship between obesity and suicidal ideation.
• Adolescent suicidal behavior across the excess weight status spectrum.
• Extreme obesity is associated with suicidal behavior and suicide attempts in adults: Results of a population-based representative sample.
• Trajectory of Suicidal ideation in relation to perceived overweight from adolescence to young adulthood in a representative United States sample.

General Science

• Prospective registration, bias risk and outcome-reporting bias in randomised clinical trials of traditional Chinese medicine: An empirical methodological study.
• Testing the agreement of medical instruments: Overestimation of bias in the Bland-Altman analysis.
• Everyone on Earth is Related.
• Long-term research: Slow science.
• Living to 120 and Beyond: Americans’ Views on Aging, Medical Advances and Radical Life Extension.
• Astronaut twins could reveal genetics of space health.

Announcements

• ‘Statistics for nutrition research’ workshop, London 12 September 2013.
• Frontiers in Diabetes Research: Emerging Insights into the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Diabesity, 11/16/2013 - 11/16/2013, NY, NY.
• Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention, September 27-29.
• Innovate: Innovations in Animal Growth and Health.
• Weight Watchers Appoints Renowned Weight Management And Obesity Expert, Gary D. Foster, Ph.D., As Co-Chief Scientific Officer.

Featured

• Perceived Hill Slant and Obesity: Perception Does Not Care about How You Feel.
• US pediatric population-level associations of DXA-measured percentage of body fat with four BMI metrics with cutoffs.
• Metformin improves healthspan and lifespan in mice.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Cesarean mode of delivery was not clearly associated with BMI or overweight.
• No association between obesity and depressive disorder in adolescents at high risk for depression.
• RCT: A low-carbohydrate diet is as safe as Mediterranean or low-fat diets in preserving/improving renal function among moderately obese participants with or without type 2 diabetes.
• RCT: Acute ingestion of sugar-free red bull energy drink has no effect on upper body strength and muscular endurance in resistance trained men.
• RCT: Addition of personalized e-feedback in the enhanced program provided limited additional benefits compared to a standard commercial Web-based weight-loss program.
• RCT: n3 PUFAs Do Not Affect Adipose Tissue Inflammation in Overweight to Moderately Obese Men and Women.
• RCT: No effect of caffeine Intake on short bouts of physical activity or energy expenditure.
• RCT: No effect of conjugated linoleic acid and vitamin E on glycemic control, body composition, and inflammatory markers in overweight type 2 diabetics.
• Resveratrol Blunts the Positive Effects of Exercise Training on Cardiovascular Health in Aged Men.
• Thinness, rather than excess weight, is associated with decreased light, moderate and high intensity physical activity in Japanese pre-school children.

Study vs Headlines

• From ConscienHealth: "Headlines That Bite: Mosquitoes Cause Childhood Obesity?"
• USA Today: Are mosquitoes a cause of childhood obesity?
• Study: Child Outdoor Physical Activity is Reduced by Prevalence of the Asian Tiger Mosquito.

Caloric Restriction

• Dietary Restriction Induced Longevity Is Mediated by Nuclear Receptor NHR-62 in Caenorhabditis elegans.
• Caloric Restriction-Mediated Induction of Lipid Metabolism Gene Expression in Liver is Enhanced by Keap1-Knockdown.
• RCT: A study of caloric restriction versus standard diet in overweight men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer.

Clinical

• The impact of pharyngeal fat tissue on the pathogenesis of obstructive sleep apnea.
• RCT: Evaluation of a web-based program promoting healthy eating and physical activity for adolescents: Teen Choice: Food and Fitness.
• The association between weight loss in caregivers and adolescents in a treatment trial of adolescents with obesity.
• Mild Obesity Is Protective After Severe Burn Injury.
• Association of body mass index with arterial stiffness and blood pressure components: A twin study.
• Weight management program associated with postural balance improvements in obese children.
• No convincing evidence that most dietary supplements used as appetite suppressants for weight loss are effective and safe: Systematic Review of RCTs.

Cognition & Psychology

• Lunch with company reduces cognitive control, may increase social harmony.

• Only 15% of adults presenting for weight loss treatment meet purported criteria for “food addiction.”
• Ritual enhances the enjoyment of consumption by promoting greater involvement in the food-related experience.
• Early Stress Leads to Preference for Comfort Food in Rats.
• Association of a 7-year percent change in fat mass and muscle mass with subsequent cognitive dysfunction: the EPIDOS-Toulouse cohort.
• Functional capacity, muscle fat infiltration, power output and cognitive impairment in institutionalized frail oldest old.

Discrimination

• An author calls for a national employer to ban obesity in its employees.
• Denial of Treatment to Obese Patients—the Wrong Policy on Personal Responsibility for Health.
• Perceived Weight Discrimination and Obesity.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Fattened livers prep white sharks for extreme migrations.
• Late-moulting Black-necked Grebes Podiceps nigricollis show greater body mass in the face of failing food supply.
• Oxygen Brought Earliest Carnivores to Life.
• When a single genetic mutation first let ancient Europeans drink milk, it set the stage for a continental upheaval.

Epidemiology

• NIH math model predicts effects of diet, physical activity on childhood weight.
• Educational attainment and obesity: a systematic review.
• Beyond the “I” in the obesity epidemic: a review of social relational and network interventions on obesity.

Exercise

• RCT: Effect of high-intensity interval exercise on basal triglyceride metabolism in non-obese men.
• RCT: Influence of netball-based exercise on energy intake, subjective appetite and plasma acylated ghrelin in adolescent girls.

Food

• The effect of learning climate on snack consumption and ego depletion among undergraduate students.
• Effects of Inulin-Type Fructans on Appetite, Energy Intake, and Body Weight in Children and Adults: Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.
• RCT: Soy fiber improves weight loss and lipid profile in overweight and obese adults.
• RCT: Effect of polydextrose and soluble maize fibre on energy metabolism, metabolic profile and appetite control in overweight men and women.
• RCT: Consuming 30 to 60 g/day of hazelnuts for 12-weeks causes no weight gain.
• Review: An Application of Pavlovian Principles to the Problems of Obesity and Cognitive Decline.
• RCT: Effects of dietary fatty acid composition from a high fat meal on satiety.
• Calories and portion sizes in classical Danish recipes throughout 100 years: An overlooked factor in the development of overweight and obesity?
• Chocolate in History: Food, Medicine, Medi-Food.
• Can The Smell Of Oranges Help Dieters Resist Sweet Treats?
• ASN position: Consumption of foods rich in cereal fiber or mixtures of whole grains and bran is modestly associated with a reduced risk of obesity, T2D, and CVD.
• Sacré bleu! The average Frenchman these days eats only half a baguette a day compared with almost a whole baguette in 1970 and more than three in 1900.

Marketing

• Generating better evidence to engage local food outlets in obesity prevention research.
• Using health primes to reduce unhealthy snack purchases among overweight consumers in a grocery store.

Methods

• A prototype portable breath acetone analyzer for monitoring fat loss.
• Nanothermometer takes the temperature of living cells.
• Comparative statistical analysis between two methods for the measurement of visceral fat in humans.
• Diet-induced mouse model of fatty liver disease and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis reflecting clinical disease progression and methods of assessment

Policy Related

• Court Strikes Down NYC's Big-Soda Ban.
• ‘Fat Taxes’ in Europe and Beyond – A Legal and Policy Analysis Under EU and WTO Law.
• A half-cent per ounce increase in sugar-sweetened beverage prices is predicted to reduce total calories from 23 foods and beverages but increase sodium and fat intakes as a result of product substitution.
• Front-of-pack nutrition labels have little impact on consumer choice: Study.
• Obesity and Other Health Concerns Lead Food Companies To Step Up Health and Nutrient Claims.
• New York City: ‘prescribing’ fruits and vegetables will “prevent an awful lot of disease”.
• Navajo Health Activists Push for Junk Food Tax.
• North Carolina Gets “Anti-Bloomberg” Law.

Sleep

• RCT: Disadvantageous shift in energy balance is primarily expressed in high-quality sleepers after a decline in quality sleep because of disturbance.
• Dim Light at Night Exaggerates Weight Gain and Inflammation Associated with a High-Fat Diet in Male Mice.

Transgenerational effects

• Maternal Obesity Induces Epigenetic Modifications to Facilitate Zfp423 Expression and Enhance Adipogenic Differentiation in Fetal Mice.
• Supplementation of the maternal diet during pregnancy with chocolate and fructose interacts with the high-fat diet of offspring to facilitate the onset of metabolic disorders in rat offspring.
• Maternal chocolate and sucrose soft drink intake induces hepatic steatosis in rat offspring associated with altered lipid gene expression profile.
• Limited evidence to support the 'fetal overnutrition hypothesis': A systematic review.

Basic Science

• The roles of melanin-concentrating hormone in energy balance and reproductive function: are they connected?
• Deletion of Selenoprotein M Leads to Obesity Without Cognitive Deficits.
• The role of adipose tissue circadian clocks in metabolic maintenance.

General Science

• Cattle and sheep develop preference for drinking water containing grape seed tannin.
• The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again: Sustained Inattentional Blindness in Expert Observers.  
• NREL explores the use of wood borers for the biofuels industry.
• An Experimental Test of the Persuasive Effect of Source Similarity in Narrative and Nonnarrative Health Blogs.

Commentary

• BPA And Breast Cancer: When Academics Spin Statistics.
• Appropriate vs Clinically Useful Diagnostic Tests: An example using echocardiography.
• Obesity discourse and fat politics: Research, critique and interventions.
• Fatuous measures: The artifactual construction of the obesity epidemic.
• Am I the only person who thinks that 4.1 million animals used in medical experiments doesn't sound very many?

Video & Audio

• Live Webcast - Obesity prevention at the state and local levels: Lessons learned and new opportunities.
• Andrew Zimmern visits UAB professor Steve Watts for “Bizarre Foods America”.
• NPR featuring Eric Ravussin: How To Find A Path Off The Dreaded Diet Plateau.
• Richard Bergman on Reciprocal Pleasure of Mentoring.
• NORC seminar: Hiroshi Nishiura and Keisuke Ejima - Dependent happening in epidemiology.
• Be a science communicator: Tips from TED on giving engaging presentations.

Announcements

• Sustainable Diet and Food Security Conference, Lille, France, 28-29 May 2013.
• American Society for Nutrition identifies 6 focus areas in its Nutrition Research Agenda.

Featured

• Is Sugar Really Toxic? Sifting through the Evidence.

Headline vs Study

• Headline: Cambridge University study says obesity is down to genes, not a bad diet or lack of exercise
• Study: MRAP2 study: Studied one type of knock-out mice, very few humans found to have the mutation in question, headline ignores decades of research showing genes and environment both matter and genes often work through behavior.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: No effect of a governmentally-led physical activity program on BMI in young children attending child care centers.
• No change in obesity rate after subsidised fruit and vegetable program for Aboriginal children in New South Wales.
• RCT: No effect on obesity of an early feeding practices intervention to prevent childhood obesity.
• No association of changes in test scores with the availability of universal free school breakfasts.
• RCT: Supplementing Menu Labeling With Calorie Recommendations leads to (if anything) increased caloric intake

Temperature

• Brown fat activation mediates cold-induced thermogenesis in adult humans in response to a mild decrease in ambient temperature.
• Correlation between Abdominal Fat Distribution and Abdominal Temperature in Korean Premenopausal Obese Women.
• Cold acclimation recruits human brown fat and increases nonshivering thermogenesis
• Recruited brown adipose tissue as an antiobesity agent in humans.

Psychology

• Counter-regulation triggered by emotions: Positive/negative affective states elicit opposite valence biases in affective processing.
• I Know Not To, but I Can't Help It: Weight Gain and Changes in Impulsivity-Related Personality Traits.
• Verbal descriptors influence hypothalamic response to low-calorie drinks.

Methods

• Functionalities and input methods for recording food intake: A systematic review.
• Development and evaluation of a brief questionnaire to assess dietary fat quality in low-income overweight women in the southern United States.
• Ratio of trunk to leg volume as a new body shape metric for diabetes and mortality.
• Establishing the optimal body mass index - body esteem relationship in young adolescents.

Food

• RCT: Changes in daily leptin, ghrelin and adiponectin profiles following a diet with carbohydrates eaten at dinner in obese subjects.
• RCT: Extent and determinants of thermogenic responses to 24 hours of fasting, energy balance, and five different overfeeding diets in humans.
• RCT: Low-fat diet with omega-3 fatty acids increases plasma insulin-like growth factor concentration in healthy postmenopausal women.
• Breakfast: a multidisciplinary approach.
• Food Sources of Saturated Fat and the Association With Mortality: A Meta-Analysis
• Dairy products and prevention of type 2 diabetes: 'There is strong, consistent, and accumulating evidence that dairy intake reduces the risk of T2D.'
• Cooked rice prevents hyperlipidemia in hamsters fed a high-fat/cholesterol diet by the regulation of the expression of hepatic genes involved in lipid metabolism
• RCT: Beneficial effects of Zizyphus jujuba fruits on lipid measures in obese adolescents

Exercise

• RCT: An Age-Tailored Intervention Sustains Physical Activity Changes in Older Adults.
• RCT: Exercise improves quality of life in indigenous polynesian peoples with type 2 diabetes and visceral obesity.
• RCT: Moderate-intensity high-volume aerobic exercise > 200 minutes/week produces greater improvements in sexual function, testosterone, weight, WC, and fat mass than smaller exercise volume.
• RCT: Comparison of traditional versus mobile app self-monitoring of physical activity and dietary intake among overweight adults participating in an mHealth weight loss program.
• Reducing the Intensity and Volume of Interval Training Diminishes Cardiovascular Adaptation but Not Mitochondrial Biogenesis in Overweight/Obese Men.
• Exercise in obese pregnant women: positive impacts and current perceptions.

Epidemiology

• Dog ownership and physical activity: A review of the evidence.
• Oxygen cost of walking, physical activity, and sedentary behaviours in rheumatoid arthritis.
• Obesity paradox in Japanese patients after percutaneous coronary intervention: An observation cohort study
• Utilising infant growth to predict obesity status at 5 years
• An observational study of the association between adenovirus 36 antibody status and weight loss among youth
• Early onset obesity predicts heart disease development
• Overweight and Obesity Less Often Associated with Stroke Recurrence.
• Continuous Nasogastric Feeding With High Caloric Intakes in Anorexia Nervosa is Safe and Effective
• First-day weight loss predicts eventual weight nadir for breastfeeding newborns.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Turn costs change the value of animal search paths.
• Energy allocation patterns in a multiple spawning sunfish: evidence for an income-based reproductive strategy.
• Modelling Blood Flow and Metabolism in the Piglet Brain During Hypoxia-Ischaemia: Simulating Brain Energetics.
• Schooling reduces energy consumption in swimming male European eels, Anguilla anguilla
• Evolutionary perspectives on the obesity epidemic: adaptive, maladaptive, and neutral viewpoints.

Trans-generational

• Familial intergenerational and maternal aggregation patterns in nutrient intakes in the Lifeways Cross-Generation Cohort Study
• Maternal chocolate and sucrose soft drink intake induces hepatic steatosis in rat offspring associated with altered lipid gene expression profile.

Drugs

• RCT: Evaluation of effect of acarbose consumption on weight losing in non-diabetic overweight or obese patients.
• RCT: Effect of Metformin compared with hypocaloric diet on serum C-reactive protein level and insulin resistance in obese and overweight women with polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Chemotherapy dosing in overweight and obese patients with cancer.

Clinical

• RCT: Effects of a comprehensive intervention program, including hot bathing, on overweight adults.
• RCT: Maybe Breakfast Really Is the Most Important Meal of the Day
• A church-based diet and physical activity intervention for rural, lower mississippi delta african american adults: Delta body and soul effectiveness study, 2010-2011
• RCT: Dietary weight loss and exercise improves body measures and biomarkers of glucose metabolism and inflammation independent of antidepressant use
• Pilot RCT: For obese pregnant women, suggestion of greater potential for change in dietary intake than for change in physical activity

Caloric Restriction

• Effects of calorie restriction and IGF-1 receptor blockade on the progression of 22Rv1 prostate cancer xenografts.
• Effects of alternate-day fasting on high-fat diet-induced insulin resistance in rat skeletal muscle.
• Lifelong caloric restriction increases working memory in mice.

Basic Science

• Pleiotropic regulation of mitochondrial function by adipose triglyceride lipase-mediated lipolysis.
• Evaluation of Ultrasound Combined with Chitosan for the Control of Weight and Local Fat in Mice.
• Consuming a low-fat diet from weaning to adulthood reverses the programming of food preferences in male, but not in female, offspring of 'junk food'-fed rat dams.
• Increased oxygen consumption in human adipose tissue from the 'brown adipose tissue' region.
• Rev-erb-alpha modulates skeletal muscle oxidative capacity by regulating mitochondrial biogenesis and autophagy
• Association of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha/delta/gamma with obesity, and gene-gene interaction, in the Chinese Han population
• Using gene expression and molecular biology data to understand pet obesity
• Oxidative damage associated with obesity is prevented by overexpression of CuZn- or Mn-superoxide dismutase.
• Dim Light at Night Exaggerates Weight Gain and Inflammation Associated with a High-Fat Diet in Male Mice.
• The disproportionate economic burden associated with severe and complicated obesity: multiplier effects from 1.5 to 3.9 for direct costs, and from 1.7 to 8.0 for productivity costs
• Father's Age At Conception Could Determine Child's Height And Cholesterol
• University at Buffalo researchers find link between obesity and asthma

Stigma

• Follow-up: Obesity Action Coalition Calls on Boy Scouts of America to Revise BMI Policy
• The Wall Around Obesity Treatment
• Adults with Greater Weight Satisfaction Report More Positive Health Behaviors and Have Better Health Status Regardless of BMI.
• The Stigma That Overweight People Face Could Spur More Weight Gain

Scientific Integrity

• Statistician Andrew Gelman discusses spurious findings, 'researcher degrees of freedom' and what we can learn from a dead fish
• Scientific integrity and the market for lemons
• Too Good to be True: Animal studies biased towards reporting positive results

Policy Related

• Scientific decision making, policy decisions, and the obesity pandemic
• Review: Self-regulation of junk food marketing largely ineffective
• Next focus for Bloomberg: Stair use
• Progress on reducing calories

Commentary

• Lesser souls: Caring for fat people.
• Exercising their influence. As policymakers struggle in battle against obesity, providers and insurers are offering their own solutions.
• The science of obesity: what exactly makes us fat?
• Documentary Film CARB-LOADED: A CULTURE DYING TO EAT.
• National Geographic on Sugar.
• 'Dodgy' diet foods (little nutritive value, with more calories) may be contributing to weight gain

General Science

• Cooperation, Trust, and Antagonism: How Public Goods Are Promoted
• Dying worms emits an ethereal glow
• Bacterial blockade: Research explains how gut microbes can inactivate cardiac drugs
• Females lead population collapse of the endangered hawaii creeper.
• New model suggests Mars was snowy in ancient times
• Scientists may have found a cure for cat allergies, but still at least 5 years off

Announcements

• UAB sea urchins make debut on Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods America July 29
• Free access to special issue of Pediatric Obesity
• Teaching kids about obesity: Chunky and the O-Beast
• Evaluating Obesity Prevention Efforts: A Plan for Measuring Progress - Report Release on August 2