Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Probing the Subcellular Localization of Hopanoid Lipids in Bacteria Using NanoSIMS.
• Adipose Tissue Density, a Novel Biomarker Predicting Mortality Risk in Older Adults.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Study Claims Fast Food Is Not A Major Factor In Childhood Obesity.
• Six months of treatment with the endoscopic duodenal-jejunal bypass liner does not lead to decreased systemic inflammation in obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha agonist fenofibrate has no effect on insulin sensitivity compared to atorvastatin in type 2 diabetes mellitus; a randomised, double-blind controlled trial.
• Improved Meta-Analytic Methods Show No Effect of Chromium Supplements on Fasting Glucose.

Video/Audio

• TED Talk. Sandra Aamodt: Why dieting doesn't usually work.
• BBC Show on Fructose.

Thermoregulation

• Age-Related Decrements in Heat Dissipation during Physical Activity Occur as Early as the Age of 40.
• Leanness and Heightened Non-Resting Energy Expenditure: Role of Skeletal Muscle Activity Thermogenesis.

Sugar

• Sucrose, commonly used in recipes of Drosophila laboratory food, may shorten life span in flies.
• Taxes on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Aimed to Curb Obesity and Diabetes.

Stigma

• Healthism and the Law of Employment Discrimination.
• Attitudes towards obesity in the Swedish general population: The role of one's own body size, weight satisfaction, and controllability beliefs about obesity.
• Four signs we're turning the corner on weight bias.
• Attitudes of Health Care Professionals towards Female Obese Patients.

Psychology

• Judging the differences between women's attractiveness and health: Is there really a difference between judgments made by men and women?
• Avatar body dimensions and men's body image.

Policy Related

• Uses of Research Evidence in the State Legislative Process to Promote Active Environments in Minnesota.
• A Comprehensive Strategy to Overhaul FDA Authority for Misleading Food Labels.
• L.E.A.D.  A Framework for Evidence Gathering and Use for the Prevention of Obesity and Other Complex Public Health Problems.
• The Economics of Obesity.
• FDA Initiates New Online Reporting Method for Dietary Supplement Adverse Events to Facilitate Reporting.
• Limitations of Observational Evidence: Implications for Evidence-Based Dietary Recommendations.
• Sociodemographic Differences in Fast Food Price Sensitivity.

Methods

• Noninvasive identification and assessment of functional brown adipose tissue in rodents using hyperpolarized (13)C imaging.
• Noninvasive monitoring of lung recruitment maneuvers in morbidly obese patients: the role of pulse oximetry and volumetric capnography.
• Fetal weight estimation in gestational diabetic pregnancies: comparison between conventional and three-dimensional fractional thigh volume methods using gestation-adjusted projection.
• Respiratory rate assessments using a dual-accelerometer device.
• Environmental exposure and mitochondrial epigenetics: study design and analytical challenges.
• Missing data in a multi-item instrument were best handled by multiple imputation at the item score level.

Food

• Current evidence linking polyunsaturated fatty acids with cancer risk and progression.
• RCT: Increased Dairy Consumption Differentially Improves Metabolic Syndrome Markers in Male and Female Adults.
• Restaurant Meals Have a Day's Worth of Calories, Salt, and Saturated Fat.
• Fast Food Consumption and the Risk of Metabolic Syndrome After 3-Years of Follow-Up: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study.

Exercise

• 7 Papers in Debate–Physical activity and obesity risk.
• A single bout of resistance exercise does not modify cardiovascular responses during daily activities in patients with peripheral artery disease.
• Effects of exercise of different intensity on gut peptides, energy intake and appetite in young males.

Epidemiology

• A positive association between T. gondii seropositivity and obesity.
• Is obesity a risk factor for Clostridium difficile infection?
• Obesity and Hepatitis B Infection and Risk of Primary CNS Lymphoma.
• Once changing at the same rate, obesity has begun to decline among higher SES youth but continued to rise among low SES youth since 2002.
• Dairy Foods and Dairy Protein Consumption Is Inversely Related to Markers of Adiposity in Obese Men and Women.
• BMI and Mortality among Adults with Incident Type 2 Diabetes.

Energetics, Evolution & Ecology

• No Evidence of Metabolic Depression in Western Alaskan Juvenile Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus).
• Interference from adults forces young red knots to forage for longer and in dangerous places.
• Adiposity and Fat Metabolism in Lactating and Fasting Northern Elephant Seals.

Commentary

• David Katz: Judging the Judging of Diets.
• There’s nothing left to eat—here’s how to navigate our collective food anxiety.
• The Anti-Science Behavior of GMO Proponents.
• Consensus statement understanding health and malnutrition through a systems approach: the ENOUGH program for early life.
• Can Heavier People Really Be Healthier?

Clinical

• Impact of a very low-energy diet on the fecal microbiota of obese individuals.
• Comparison of Effects of Long-Term Low-Fat vs. High-Fat Diets on Blood Lipid Levels in Overweight or Obese Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
• Eight-year weight losses with an intensive lifestyle intervention: The look AHEAD study.

Basic Science

• Nicotinamide Phosphoribosyltransferase Is Required for the Calorie Restriction–Mediated Improvements in Oxidative Stress, Mitochondrial Biogenesis, and Metabolic Adaptation.
• High Fat Diet and In Utero Exposure to Maternal Obesity Disrupts Circadian Rhythm and Leads to Metabolic Programming of Liver in Rat Offspring.
• The Many Faces of Sirtuins: Coupling of NAD metabolism, sirtuins and lifespan.

Aging

• The Evolution of Research on Ageing and Nutrition.
• Age-Related and Depot-Specific Changes in White Adipose Tissue of Growth Hormone Receptor-Null Mice.
• Metabolic Alterations Due to Caloric Restriction and Every Other Day Feeding in Normal and Growth Hormone Receptor Knockout Mice.
• Obesity and Life Expectancy Among Long-Lived Black Adults.

General Science

• Gender equality should be part of basic science training.
• Paper and commentaries on “An estimate of the science-wise false discovery rate and application to the top medical literature.”
• Promoting Transparency in Social Science Research.
• Open Science and Reporting Animal Studies: Who's Accountable?
• Why Standard Deviation Should Be Retired From Scientific Use.
• Funding trends in 2013.
• Research: increasing value, reducing waste.

Announcements

• Assistant Professor in Obesity Prevention at University of Connecticut.

Featured

• A Great Man Has Left Us. In Memoriam: Dr. John Milner.

Findings Contrary to Popular Hypotheses or Beliefs

• RCT: Advice to consume 2 fish meals per week did not enhance the effects on weight loss of a healthy low calorie diet.
• RCT: No effect of energy and traffic light labelling on parent and child fast food selection.
• No consistent dose-response associations of breastfeeding exclusivity with childhood BMI.
• Obesity not associated with longer length of hospital stay after surgery for ankle arthritis.
• RCT: No significant effects of co-administration of probiotics with herbal medicine on obesity.
• "Following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, there are surprisingly few abnormalities or indications of severe malabsorption of fats or sugars."
• Voluntary running worsened common plasma markers of cardiovascular health in mice.
• Slower Eating Speed Lowers Energy Intake in Normal-Weight but not Overweight/Obese Subjects.
• Candy consumption in childhood is not predictive of weight, adiposity measures or cardiovascular risk factors in young adults.
• Four neighborhood environment factors, contrary to expectations, were found to provide no benefit to predicted BMI outcomes.

Anecdotal Diets in the News

• Science teacher loses 37 pounds eating 2000 kcal of carefully selected McDonald’s fare, adding 45 minutes of exercise.
• Nutrition researcher loses 30 pounds eating 1800 kcal of Twinkies, celery and beans.

Clinical

• RCT: Tailored behavioral medicine intervention for enhanced physical activity and healthy eating in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and overweight.
• RCT: The Influence of Media on Food Intake and Obesity in Young Adults.
• RCT: A text message-assisted lifestyle intervention was effective in reducing weight, waist circumference and percent body fat as well as improving blood pressure.
• Pilot RCT: Testing the Use of Smartphone Technology for Obesity Treatment.

Food

• High fat diet induces leptin resistance in mice.
• Future diets: Implications for agriculture and food prices.
• Study links nut intake with lower risks of obesity.
• RCT: Effects of pistachio nuts on body composition, metabolic, inflammatory and oxidative stress parameters in Asian Indians with metabolic syndrome.
• RCT: Consumption of a Diet Low in Advanced Glycation End Products for 4 Weeks Improves Insulin Sensitivity in Overweight Women.
• Review: The impact of dietary methionine restriction on biomarkers of metabolic health.
• Review: Plant-derived food ingredients for stimulation of energy expenditure.
• Consuming traditional foods rich in calcium as well as milk is associated with lower blood lead levels in Inuit children.
• High-fiber diet may protect against allergic asthma.
• Mineral and fiber supplements may help reduce body fat mass.
• RCT: Adding half an avocado to a meal increases satiety but also caloric content (>100 kcal).

Drugs

• FDA Approves diabetes drug dapagliflozin.
• Review: The future role of gut hormones in the treatment of obesity.
• Obesity and diabetes: Mitochondrial uncoupler blocks metabolic disease.
• Review: Lixisenatide a novel GLP-1 receptor agonist: Efficacy, safety and clinical implications.

Exercise

• School Reform: The Role of Physical Education Policy in Physical Activity of Elementary School Children in Alabama's Black Belt Region.
• RCT: Effects of 8 weeks high intensity aerobic exercise on serum adipocyte fatty acid binding protein levels.

Nutrient Sensing

• Role of nutrient-sensing taste 1 receptor (T1R) family members in gastrointestinal chemosensing.
• Emerging roles of the extracellular calcium-sensing receptor in nutrient sensing: control of taste modulation and intestinal hormone secretion.
• Hypothalamic melanin concentrating hormone neurons communicate the nutrient value of sugar.
• Regulation of Hypothalamic Neuronal Sensing and Food Intake by Ketone Bodies and Fatty Acids.

Surgery

• 10-Year Outcomes of the Vertical Transected Gastric Bypass for Obesity: a Systematic Review.
• Weight Loss and Outcomes in Wait-listed, Medically Managed, and Surgically Treated Patients Enrolled in a Population-based Bariatric Program: Prospective Cohort Study.
• Obese men have more severe comorbidities than obese women yet underutilize bariatric surgery options.
• Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Increases Intravenous Ethanol Self-Administration in Dietary Obese Rats.

Methods

• Using Crowdsourcing to Compare Temporal, Social Temporal, and Probability Discounting Among Obese and Non-Obese Individuals.
• Accelerometer-Measured Versus Self-reported Physical Activity in College Students: Implications for Research and Practice.
• Fat Fraction Estimation of the Vertebrae in Females Using the T2*-IDEAL Technique in Detection of Reduced Bone Mineralization Level: Comparison With Bone Mineral Densitometry.
• Survey: Consumers Want to Track Health Data With Wearable Technologies.
• Measuring the sugar consumption of larvae in bumblebee micro-colonies: a promising new method for tracking food economics in bees.
• Disentangling basal and accumulated body mass for cross-population comparisons.
• Evaluating eating behavior treatments by FDA standards.

Pregnancy and Transgenerational Effects

• Retrospective cohort study: Regardless of prepregnancy BMI category, women with excessive BMI change have a higher chance of developing gestational hypertension/preeclampsia.
• Meta-analysis: Transgenerational effects of maternal caloric restriction on offspring appetite are weak, statistically non-significant.
• Maternal prepregnancy obesity and excessive gestational weight gain were associated with greater risks of pregnancy-induced hypertension, caesarean delivery, and greater infant size at birth.
• Increased maternal weight gain both during and after pregnancy predicted overweight in preschool children.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Ovarian function in Samoan women shows stronger association with signals of energy metabolism than fat reserves.
• Body mass evolution and diversification within horses (family Equidae).
• Metabolic response to a glucagon challenge varies with adiposity and life-history stage in fasting northern elephant seals.
• Mass gained during breeding positively correlates with adult survival because both reflect life history adaptation to seasonal food availability.

Stigma

• RCT: Impact of social pressure on stereotypes about obese people.
• Survey: Implicit and explicit weight bias is common among 1st year medical students, with explicit attitudes more negative toward obese people than toward racial minorities, gays, lesbians, and poor people.

Sweeteners

• Effects of excess dietary fructose on liver pathology study have significant methodologic limitations.
• Fructose vs. glucose and metabolism: do the metabolic differences matter?
• Effect of fructose on postprandial triglycerides: A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled feeding trials.
• Caffeine Intake Improves Fructose-Induced Hypertension and Insulin Resistance by Enhancing Central Insulin Signaling.
• RCT: Coffee consumption attenuates short-term fructose-induced liver insulin resistance in healthy men.
• Effects of a nonnutritive sweetener on body adiposity and energy metabolism in mice with diet-induced obesity.
• Fructose's adverse effects limited to excess calorie intake.

Policy Related

• Federal Trade Commission unveils a new effort to shut down deceptive advertising for bogus weight loss products linked to liver injuries.
• FTC Cracks Down on Weight-Loss Product Marketers.
• Comparing the Impact of Product- and Nutrient-Specific Taxes: A sugar tax in particular is a powerful tool to induce healthier nutritive bundles among consumers.

Basic Science

• Intact brown adipose tissue thermogenesis is required for restorative sleep responses after sleep loss.
• Systematic Review: Bisphenol A and indicators of obesity, glucose metabolism/type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease: A systematic review of epidemiologic research.
• Scientists explain age-related obesity: Brown fat fails.
• PPAR-gamma and C/EBP-alpha Synergistically Activate Key Metabolic Adipocyte Genes by Assisted Loading.
• Additive effects of miRNAs and transcription factors on CCL2 production in human white adipose tissue.
• Hypothalamic SIRT1 prevents age-associated weight gain by improving leptin sensitivity in mice.
• Heart energy metabolism impairment in Western-diet induced obese mice.
• Obesity: The need to eat—overruling the homeostatic control of feeding.
• The role of microRNA-26b in human adipocyte differentiation and proliferation.

Commentary

• Selection Bias as an Explanation for the Obesity Paradox: Just Because It's Possible Doesn't Mean It's Plausible.
• Out of Sync: How much of the rise in obesity can be ascribed asynchronous eating habits?
• The powerful societal and cultural changes underlying the obesity epidemic will not be reversed by simplistic regulatory top-down actions.
• Urban Sprawl = Fat City? Not So Fast.
• Can upward mobility cost you your health?
• Severe Obesity: Hiding in plain sight.

General Science

• All mice are the same, until they're not: Genetically 'identical' substrains of the standard Black 6 lab mouse behave differently on cocaine.
• Henry Miller and Stanley Young on “The Trouble With 'Scientific' Research Today…”
• Unlike salespeople and counselors, emotional intelligence is a liability rather than an asset for scientists and accountants.
• Mantis shrimp's darting eyes ape the way primates see, in order to focus on novel objects of interest.

Announcements

• Obesity & Related Conditions: Taking Action & Improving Outcomes; Manchester Conference Centre on March 25th, 2014.

Featured

• Trapping the dynamic acyl carrier protein in fatty acid biosynthesis.
• A modeling approach for compounds affecting body composition.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Candy consumption in childhood is not predictive of weight, adiposity measures or cardiovascular risk factors in young adults: the Bogalusa Heart Study.
• RCT: Slower eating speed lowers energy intake in normal-weight but not overweight/obese subjects.
• RCT: No significant effect of physical activity mentors to increase the daily steps of older adults in the primary care setting: a pilot study.
• Meta-analysis: The evidence from RCTs does not convincingly show that pyruvate is efficacious in reducing body weight.
• RCT: By 8 months, no significant effect of a culturally tailored cable television delivered weight control program for Black women on BMI.
• RCT: Intervention showed no significant effect on child step counts per minute despite increasing time that staff delivered structured activity.
• RCT: No significant difference between the groups in physical activity after lifestyle intervention in general practice for elderly.
• RCT: In study exploring changes in physical activity, sedentary behaviors and hypothesized mediators in girls, there were significant between group erences in favor of the intervention group for self-reported but not objective sedentary behavior and no group-by-time effects for any of the physical activity outcomes or hypothesized mediators.
• RCT: A weight-loss intervention that focuses on daily self-weighing does not cause adverse psychological outcomes.
• Quercetin caused no significant reduction in body weight or adipose tissue sizes in rats.

Basic

• Integrated phenotypic and activity-based profiling links Ces3 to obesity and diabetes.
• Interleukin-17–producing innate lymphoid cells and the NLRP3 inflammasome facilitate obesity-associated airway hyperreactivity among mice.
• Ampicillin-Improved Glucose Tolerance in Diet-Induced Obese C57BL/6NTac Mice Is Age Dependent.
• Study's findings among mice suggest that oral peptide-YY signaling can affect taste-related behavior towards lipids.

Stigma

• Bias against obese persons among medical students.
• “Balancing the Scales” Theatre Workshop Trains Professionals in Obesity Sensitivity.
• Video: Student takes on prejudice against overweight people.

Interpreting Funding Associations

• Systematic review of financial conflicts of interest and conclusions regarding the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain finds association -  editorial notes “A major limitation of this study is that it cannot assess which interpretation of the available evidence is truly accurate”.
• Do Financial Conflicts of Interest Bias Research? Author argues that scientists should not suspend their skepticism and choose as a default hypothesis that bias is the cause.
• Effect of funding source on publication bias is not so clear cut.

Caloric Restriction

• Anthropometric, Hemodynamic, Metabolic, and Renal Responses during 5 Days of Food and Water Deprivation.
• Therapeutic fasting in patients with metabolic syndrome and impaired insulin resistance.
• Fasting therapy - old and new perspectives.
• Caloric restriction, caloric restriction mimetics, and healthy aging in Okinawa: controversies and clinical implications.
• Identifying evolutionarily conserved genes in the dietary restriction response using bioinformatics and subsequent testing in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Food

• RCT: Diets naturally rich in polyphenols improve fasting and postprandial dyslipidemia and reduce oxidative stress.
• RCT: The effects of weight loss and salt reduction on visit-to-visit blood pressure variability.
• Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: dietary Fatty acids for healthy adults.
• Nutritional Value of Meals at Full-service Restaurant Chains.
• Does modifying the thick texture and creamy flavor of a drink change portion size selection and intake?
• A systematic review of experimental studies show consistent evidence that norms influence food choices.

Drugs

• RCT: Comparing the GLP-1 receptor agonist liraglutide to a sulphonylurea as add on to metformin in patients with established type 2 diabetes during Ramadan.
• Dental considerations for patients taking weight-loss medications.
• Adiponectin signaling and metabolic syndrome.
• Restricted access to standard or high fat chow alters sensitivity of rats to the 5-HT2A/2C receptor agonist 1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylphenyl)-2-aminopropane.
• The year ahead for six new obesity treatments.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Multiple paternity in wild house mice (Mus musculus musculus): effects on offspring genetic diversity and body mass.
• Energetics of the acrobatic courtship in male golden-collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus).
• Plant DNA is challenging preconceptions about the evolution of life, including the human species.

Epidemiology

• Misreporting and misclassification: implications for socioeconomic disparities in BMI and obesity.
• School year versus summer differences in child weight gain: A narrative review.

Exercise

• Meta-analysis: Exercise is efficacious for reducing percent body fat in overweight and obese children and adolescents. Insufficient evidence exists to suggest that exercise reduces other measures of adiposity.
• RCT: Nutrition education added to internet-based information and exercise at the work place for weight loss in a racially diverse population of overweight women.
• Colorado stride (COSTRIDE): testing genetic and physiological moderators of response to an intervention to increase physical activity.
• RCT: An eight month exercise intervention alters resting state synchrony in overweight children.

Ghrelin

• Ghrelin levels after a cold pressor stress test in obese women with binge eating disorder.
• Ghrelin receptor regulates high fructose corn syrup-induced adipose inflammation and insulin resistance in mice.

Clinical

• RCT: Steps ahead trial to reduce unhealthy weight gain in the lower Mississippi Delta.
• RCT: A text messaging-assisted lifestyle weight loss trial among overweight adults in Beijing.
• RCT: Self-Efficacy, Quality of Life, and Weight Loss in Overweight/Obese Endometrial Cancer Survivors (SUCCEED): A Randomized Controlled Trial.
• RCT: Findings from a study of 70 women suggest that supplementing dietary caraway extract may be beneficial for obesity management and weight loss.
• RCT: Study findings suggest no difference in postprandial thrombotic risk profiles between participants on a low-fat diet and a diet high in monounsaturated fatty acids.
• Association of displaying traffic-light nutritional labels in a university cafeteria on students’ food choice.

Policy

• CMS coverage for obesity management.
• American Diabetes Association releases 2014 Standards of Medical Care.

Socioeconomic

• Economic development, urbanisation, technological change and overweight: what do we learn from 244 demographic and health surveys.
• Econometric analysis suggests that there is no causal relationship between credit card debt and obesity for either men or women; but suggestive evidence regarding trouble paying bills among women.
• Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Study: Environmental effects on obesity.

Surgery and Devices

• The Acute Effects of a New Type of Implantable Gastric Electrical Stimulators Featuring Varied Pulse Widths on Beagle Dogs' Food Intake and Gastric Accommodation.
• Findings from longitudinal investigation of weight loss trajectories among bariatric surgery patients that were severely obese suggest that though there was substantial weight loss among participants, the improvement in other cardiometabolic outcomes varied.

Methods

• Accelerometer data reduction in adolescents: effects on sample retention and bias.
• Mortality risk of obesity and underweight is overestimated with self-reported BMI.
• Association of run-in periods with weight loss in obesity randomized controlled trials.
• Study investigates the utility of small area estimation techniques to monitor obesity prevalence and dietary patterns in developing.

Transgenerational Effects

• Role of prenatal undernutrition in the expression of serotonin, dopamine and leptin receptors in adult mice: Implications of food intake.
• Epidemiological findings suggest that birthweight is a partial mediator of the associations between parental diabetes and participants’ type 2 diabetes.

Chronobiology

• Variants of circadian-related genes affect energy expenditure.
• Body weight gain in rats fed a high-fat diet produces chronodisruption in activity/inactivity circadian rhythm.

Commentary

• Adherence to diets for weight loss.
• Adherence to diets for weight loss—Reply.
• Diabesity: Palliating, curing or preventing the dysmetabolic diathesis.
• Obesity, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and chronic periodontitis: a shared pathology via oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction?
• Multivitamins Revisited, Again: Mission, Methods and Muddled Messages.
• The difference between being big and having obesity.
• The Future of Fat.

General

• Sex-trapolation in the Latest Brain Science.
• Microbiota modulate behavioral and physiological abnormalities associated with neurodevelopmental disorders among mice.
• Findings from GWAS analysis among Mexican and Latin American individuals identifies SLC16A11 as a novel candidate gene for type 2 diabetes with a possible role in triacylglycerol metabolism.
• To lay groundwork for future medicine, South China researchers isolate a fluorescent protein in jellyfish DNA and inject it into pig embryos to engineer piglets that glow under black lights.
• The next frontier for 3D printing: human organs.
• Archaeologists discover that ancient villagers cultivated vineyards in Spain.

Announcements

• Obesity Action Coalition welcomes new board members and chair Ted Kyle.

Featured

• Offspring pay sooner, parents pay later: experimental manipulation of body mass reveals trade-offs between immune function, reproduction and survival.

Defies Categorization

• Dissertation in which fat from the human body is transformed into jewelry.

Contrary

• RCT: No significant effect egg inclusion in breakfast on body weight regulation and blood lipids in university students over a 14-week semester.
• Six months of treatment with the endoscopic duodenal-jejunal bypass liner does not lead to decreased systemic inflammation in obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• RCT: A weight-loss intervention focused on daily self-weighing does not cause adverse psychological outcomes.
• RCT: No significant effects of low glycemic index compared with conventional dietary advice on selected pregnancy outcomes.

Basic

• Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein is released from adipocytes by a non-conventional mechanism.
• Scientists Use Screening Strategy To Identify Compound With Promise For Obesity-linked Diabetes.
• Diet affects metabolism by disrupting body's circadian rhythms.
• HIF-2: The missing link between obesity and cardiomyopathy.
• Opposite effects of a high-fat diet and calorie restriction on ciliary neurotrophic factor signalling in the mouse hypothalamus.
• Short-term calorie restriction feminizes the mRNA profiles of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters in livers of mice.
• Resveratrol and food effects on lifespan and reproduction in the model crustacean Daphnia.
• Ex vivo microperfusion system of the adipose organ: A new approach to studying the mobilization of adipose cell populations.
• Rapamycin-mediated lifespan increase in mice is dose and sex-dependent and appears metabolically distinct from dietary restriction.

Macrophages

• Local proliferation of macrophages in adipose tissue during obesity-induced inflammation.
• An altered macrophage migration in adipose tissue of Integrin Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) deficient mice.

Brown Fat

• Brown adipose tissue dynamics in wild-type and UCP1-knockout mice: in vivo insights with magnetic resonance.
• Early overfeed-induced obesity leads to brown adipose tissue hypoactivity in rats.

UCPs and thermoregulation

• The role of uncoupling proteins in thermoregulation, oxidative stress, obesity and diabetes.
• Human white adipocytes express the cold receptor TRPM8 which activation induces UCP1 expression, mitochondrial activation and heat production.

Energy Balance

• Interaction between immune and energy-balance signals in the regulation of feeding and metabolism.
• Altered regulation of energy homeostasis in older rats in response to thyroid hormone administration.
• The role of peptide YY in energy homeostasis.
• Variants in glucose- and circadian rhythm–related genes affect the response of energy expenditure to weight-loss diets.

Clinical

• Evaluating eating behavior treatments by FDA standards.
• Black Women Lose Less Weight Than White Women on Same Diet.
• RCT: Ear acupuncture for the treatment of overweight people.
• RCT: Weight gain prevention in the school worksite setting.
• UAB Examines Link between Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiovascular Risk in Guatemalan Children.
• Weight Loss Apps: To what extent are they grounded in behavior change theory?
• Weight-Loss Maintenance for 10 Years in the National Weight Control Registry.

Drugs

• Rosiglitazone reduces body wasting and improves survival in a rat model of cancer cachexia.
• Novo Nordisk Files for Liraglutide Approval from FDA, EMA.
• Systematic Review of the Benefits and Risks of Metformin in Treating Obesity in Children Aged 18 Years and Younger.

Surgery

• The effectiveness and risks of bariatric surgery: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis.

Commentary

• Too late to challenge the modern obesity epidemic?
• By using inaccurate criteria, the CDC comes to the incorrect conclusion that Asian Americans have a significantly lower rate of obesity than other ethnic groups.
• Government action to tackle obesity.
• The Emergence of an EU Lifestyle Policy - The Case of Alcohol, Tobacco and Unhealthy Diets.
• Saturated fat in cardiovascular disease and obesity: Friend or foe?
• Creatures of coherence: Why we're so obsessed with causation.
• Healthy Obesity: An oxymoron?
• It's time to make healthier food choices cheaper.
• The Brave New World of Academic Censorship.

Discussion on Replication of Research

• Reproducibility: The risks of the replication drive.
• Replication backlash.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• "Social" bacteria that work together to hunt for food and survive under harsh conditions.
• Oxidative stress as a cost of reproduction: Beyond the simplistic trade-off model.
• Effects of the February 2012 cold spell on terrestrial birds wintering in France.
• Fat accumulation and autumn migration strategy of Reed Warblers Acrocephalus scirpaceus and Sedge Warblers A. schoenobaenus in southern Sweden.
• Phenology of hibernation and reproduction in ground squirrels: integration of environmental cues with endogenous programming.
• Effect of body mass on hibernation strategies of woodchucks (Marmota monax).
• Revisiting the estimation of dinosaur growth rates.

Bone

• Negative influence of a long-term high-fat diet on murine bone architecture.
• Obesity Associated with Bone And Muscle Loss In Men, Study.
• Excess body fat negatively associated with bone mass in adolescents.

Exercise

• The effect of aerobic training and following detraining on renal function markers in obese girls.
• Skeletal muscle as a mechanism for peripheral regulation of voluntary physical activity.
• Near-realistic mobile exergames with wireless wearable sensors.
• Impact of different training modalities on anthropometric and metabolic characteristics in overweight/obese subjects: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.
• Effectiveness and feasibility of virtual reality and gaming system use at home by older adults for enabling physical activity to improve health-related domains: a systematic review.
• Dose-response relationship of physical activity to premature and total all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in walkers.

Food

• The association of fast food consumption with poor dietary outcomes and obesity among children: is it the fast food or the remainder of the diet?
• A calorie is a calorie? Compared with stearic acid, palmitic acid increased feed efficiency in cows.
• Impaired glucose tolerance in low-carbohydrate diet: maybe only physiological state.
• Review: Non-nutritive sweeteners: evidence for benefit vs. risk.
• Gut reaction: Zero-calorie sweeteners produce same response as water.
• Reprogramming of the circadian clock by nutritional challenge.

Food Preferences

• Climate effects on food preferences by spring migrating Pink-footed geese (Anser brachyryhnchus).
• Stressed mice alter caloric preference for carbohydrate rich diets: the role of ghrelin during stress.
• Eating on impulse: The relation between overweight and food-specific inhibitory control.
• Dopaminergic reward system in the development of food preferences, obesity and addictive behaviors.

Methods

• Dietary assessment in food environment research: A systematic review.
• Validity of the methods to assess body fat in children and adolescents using multi-compartment models as the reference method: a systematic review.
• Monitoring the Obesity Epidemic into the 21st Century - Weighing the Evidence.

Ethics

• Risk, harm and intervention: the case of child obesity.
• The influence of plaintiff's body weight on judgments of responsibility: The role of weight bias.
• Journalism is never perfect: The politics of story corrections and retractions.

Policy

• Childhood obesity policy research and practice: Evidence for policy and environmental strategies.
• Taxing sugar sweetened beverages to improve public health: Policy action in Hawai‘i.

Psychology

• Comparing decision-making in average and overweight children and adolescents.
• The role of overweight perception and depressive symptoms in child and adolescent unhealthy weight control behaviors: A mediation model.
• Portion size me: Plate-size induced consumption norms and win-win solutions for reducing food intake and waste.

Announcements

• Symposium: Metabolic Origins of Disease, March 3-5, 2014, Orlando, Florida.
• New Book: Controversies in Obesity.