Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• A heart–adipose tissue connection in the regulation of energy metabolism.
• Focusing on the satiety effect of a meal as the unit of analysis for human feeding behavior may be too myopic - we must view the control of energy intake over longer periods of time.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Common Beliefs

• No association between neighborhood built environment or change in built environment and BMI.
• RCT: No significant effect of assignment to different protein to carbohydrate ratios on weight loss.
• RCT: No effect of a school environment intervention on adolescent adiposity and physical fitness.
• Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa in 8-11 year old children.

Headline versus Study

• Headline: You are what your father eats.
• Study: Low paternal dietary folate alters the mouse sperm epigenome and is associated with negative pregnancy outcomes.

Basic Science

• Functional collaboration of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Receptor (IGF-1R), but not insulin receptor (IR), with acute GH signaling in mouse calvarial cells.
• Irisin, a novel myokine: potential role in obesity and diabetes.
• Oncostatin M Is Produced in Adipose Tissue and Is Regulated in Conditions of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.
• Macrophages, fat, and the emergence of immunometabolism.
• Obesity and breast cancer: role of inflammation and aromatase.

Video

• Christopher Kuzawa - Epigenetic, developmental and intergenerational influences on US cardiovascular health disparities.
• Philipp Gut – “A whole-organism approach to study metabolic networks.”
• Understanding Risk: A Primer for Journalists.
• What if blaming the obese is blaming the victim?

Sugar & Sweeteners

• European Food Safety Authority concludes aspartame safe at current levels of exposure.
• The reward value of sucrose in leptin deficient obese mice.
• Sugar-containing drinks. Why do men compensate more than women?
• RCT: Repeated consumption of a non-caloric sweetened beverage, instead of a sugar sweetened version, appears not to result in changes in the reward value.
• RCT: Artificial sweeteners (sucralose and AceK) have no effect on gastric emptying, glucagon-like Peptide-1, or glycemia after oral glucose in healthy humans.

Sleep

• RCT: Sleep deprivation increases plasma levels of ghrelin and food intake.
• RCT: Restricting night-time eating reduces daily energy intake in healthy young men.

Psychology

• Help Me Get Fat! Feederism as Communal Deviance on the Internet.
• Humans are not fooled by size illusions in attractiveness judgements.
• Perceived weight in youths and risk of overweight or obesity six years later.
• Review: Friendship networks and physical activity and sedentary behavior among youth.
• Correlates of daily leisure-time physical activity in a community sample: Narrow personality traits and practical barriers.
• Metabolic signals and food intake. Forty years of progress.
• Trajectory of Suicidal Ideation in Relation to Perceived Overweight From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.
• The hypothalamus and metabolism: integrating signals to control energy and glucose homeostasis.

Policy Related

• Greater obesity severity is associated with less obesity-related policymaking.
• RCT: Healthy, anti-obesity, and mixed food advertising reduced intakes of total calories, fat, sodium, and carbohydrates and increased selection of more healthy items and fewer unhealthy items from a menu.
• Commentary: Is a tax on sugary drinks too bitter to swallow?
• RCT: Especially when hungry, participants choose a French fry side dish presented as the default more often.
• Regarding food taxes, “Do We Know What We Do not Know? A Response to Celine Bonnet.”
• Is overweight and class I obesity associated with increased health claims costs?

Methods

• Using freedom of information requests to elicit data about looked after children's involvement in physical activity.
• How many days of accelerometer monitoring predict weekly physical activity behaviour in obese youth?
• Vibration platform for mice to deliver precise, low intensity mechanical signals to the musculoskeleton.
• Bias in Recording of BMI Data in the Electronic Health Record.
• Overadjustment in Regression Analyses: Considerations When Evaluating Relationships Between BMI, Muscle Strength, & Body Size.
• Volumetric differences in body shape among adults with differing BMI values.
• A comparison of the Slaughter skinfold-thickness equations and BMI in predicting fatness and CVD risk factor levels in children.
• Predictors of validity and reliability of a physical activity record in adolescents.
• How evidence-based medicine biases physicians against nutrition.

Mathematical

• An Actor-Based Model of Social Network Influence on Adolescent Body Size, Screen Time, and Playing Sports.
• Effects of Body Surface Area-Indexed Calculations in the Morbidly Obese: A Mathematical Analysis.

Carbohydrates

• Effects of low carb diets on energy and nitrogen balance and body composition in rats depend on the dietary protein/energy ratio.
• Effects of low-carbohydrate high-fat diets on apparent digestibility of minerals and trace elements in rats.
• Review: Greater short term weight loss among obese individuals on low carb vs low fat diet, no differences in long term effect.

Food

• Organic Production Enhances Milk Nutritional Quality by Shifting Fatty Acid Composition.
• RCT: Effects of changes in portion size on meal eating behaviour in overweight women.
• When and why carbohydrate restriction can be a viable option.
• RCT: Dietary strawberries increase the proliferative response of CD3/CD28-activated CD8+ T cells and the production of TNF-a in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes from obese human subjects.
• RCT:Yeast hydrolysate can reduce body weight and abdominal fat accumulation in obese adults.
• RCT: Antiobesity Effect of Caraway Extract on Overweight and Obese Women.
• RCT: Zinc supplementation improves BMI, body weight, and triglyceride concentration.
• RCT: Big breakfast rich in protein and fat improves glycemic control in type 2 diabetics.
• Roles for central leptin receptors in the control of meal size.

Fatty Liver

• RCT: The Effect of Helicobacter Pylori Eradication on Liver Fat Content in Subjects With Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
• Betaine attenuates hepatic steatosis by reducing methylation of MTTP promoter & elevating methylation in mice on high fat diet.
• Initial clinical application of modified Dixon with flexible echo times: hepatic & pancreatic fat assessments in comparison with 1H MRS.
• Treating fatty liver and insulin resistance.
• Surgical Management of Obesity in Patients with Morbid Obesity and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
• Review: Obesity and Liver Disease: The Epidemic of the Twenty-First Century.

Epidemiology

• BMI and Early Kidney Function Decline in Young Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis of the CARDIA Study.
• Inverse association between BMI and suicide?
• The differential gender effect of internalized racism on abdominal obesity in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
• Association between leisure time physical activity and metabolic syndrome: meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
• Mortality Risk of Obesity and Underweight Is Overestimated with Self-Reported BMI.
• Ambient indoor temperature inversely associated with BMI.

Reader Suggestion

• Last week we ran: New Dietary Guidelines in Sweden.
• Reader suggests better link is: Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment - Diets among obese individuals.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Assessing the role of body mass and sex on apparent adult survival in polygynous passerines: a case study of cetti's warblers in central Portugal.
• Effect of photoperiodism on metabolism of male and female redheaded bunting under natural day length.
• Stature, body mass, and brain size: A two-million-year odyssey.

Drugs

• The Paradox of Obesity Drugs.
• Metformin trims fats to restore insulin sensitivity.
• RCT: Efficacy and safety of canagliflozin in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus inadequately controlled with metformin and sulphonylurea.
• RCT: Acute effects of single-dose olanzapine on metabolic, endocrine, and inflammatory markers in healthy controls.
• Review: New Antiobesity Agents: Lorcaserin (Belviq) and Phentermine/Topiramate ER (Qsymia).

Clinical

• RCT: Impact of timing of serving vegetable salad and yogurt on anthropometric measures and cardiovascular risks.
• Preventing binge eating with deep brain stimulation – can compulsive eating be switched-off?
• Review: Long-term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?
• The views and attitudes of health professionals providing antenatal care to women with a high BMI.
• The Effect of an Automated Clinical Reminder on Weight Loss in Primary Care.
• Peer-delivered physical activity interventions: An overlooked opportunity for physical activity promotion.
• RCT: Use of the community-based behavioral weight loss program yields significantly greater weight loss than a self-help approach.
• ​Review: Can inflammatory status define metabolic health?

Pediatric

• Behavioral Mediators of Treatment Effects in the Weight Loss Maintenance Trial.
• How to Screen Obese Children at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus?
• Exercise and Insulin Resistance in Youth: A Meta-Analysis.
• What factors influence uptake into family-based obesity treatment after weight screening.
• Pass the popcorn: “Obesogenic” behaviors and stigma in children's movies.
• Exergaming as a Strategic Tool in the Fight against Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review.
• Association between low IQ and obesity is strongest among adolescents from high SES backgrounds.
• Parental stress increases BMI trajectory in pre-adolescents.

Aging

• In case of obesity, longevity-related mechanisms lead to anti-inflammation.
• Review: Caloric restriction, caloric restriction mimetics, and healthy aging in Okinawa: controversies and clinical implications.
• Rates of Complications and Mortality in Older Patients With Diabetes Mellitus.

Chocolate

• Non-randomized trial: Realistic intake of a flavanol-rich soluble cocoa product associated with HDL-cholesterol increases, but not without anthropometric changes in healthy and moderately hypercholesterolemic subjects.
• RCT: Dark chocolate consumption improves leukocyte adhesion factors and vascular function in overweight men.

Surgery

• Bariatric surgery benefits in type 2 diabetes linked to disease duration.
• RCT: Aspiration therapy leads to weight loss in obese subjects: A pilot study.

Genetics

• Common genetic variation in sFRP5 is associated with fat distribution in men.
• The bigger picture of FTO—the first GWAS-identified obesity gene.
• Commentary: A century after Fisher: time for a new paradigm in quantitative genetics.

General Science

• The Hidden Geometry of Complex, Network-Driven Contagion Phenomena.
• 15% of human codons are dual-use codons (“duons”) that simultaneously specify both amino acids and transcription factor recognition sites.
• Genetics and Genomics for the Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease: Update: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.
• First flight of Lunar plant growth experiment.
• The skin communicates with the liver.
• The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting.
• Age-Related Cognitive Decline Linked to Energy Available to Synapses in Prefrontal Cortex.
• How to Read About Science.
• NIH to experiment with high-risk grants.
• Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram.

Scientific Integrity

• Conflicts of Interest in Approvals of Additives to Food Determined to Be Generally Recognized as Safe: Out of Balance.
• Commentary: Conflicts of Interest in the Regulation of Food Safety A Threat to Scientific Integrity.

Commentary

• Fattening Foods: When is a Calorie Not a Calorie?
• 3 Reasons Objectivity Is Scarce on “Healthy Obesity”.
• Science, policy and politics cannot be separated: they are inextricably intertwined.
• How journals like Nature, Cell and Science are damaging science.
• Statins, Static, and the Status Quo: Is Anyone Getting the Signal?
• Is the Food Guide Pyramid and MyPlate Making Your Family Fat?

Announcements

• New Book: Satiation, satiety and the control of food intake: Theory and practice.
• The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States - A Workshop.
• 3rd International Conference on Food Digestion, Wageningen, The Netherlands, 11-13 March 2014.
• 3rd International Conference on Recent Advances and Controversies in Measuring Energy Metabolism (RACMEM), October, 2014.

Featured

• RCT: Exposure to weight-stigmatizing news articles caused self-perceived overweight women, but not women who did not perceive themselves as overweight, to consume more calories and feel less capable of controlling their eating than exposure to non-stigmatizing articles.
• Perception of female sexual pheromones in male fruit flies rapidly and reversibly decreases fat stores, reduces resistance to starvation, and limits life span.
• RCT: “This study provided no evidence to suggest that energy labelling or single traffic light labelling alone were effective in reducing the energy of fast food items selected from hypothetical fast food menus for purchase.”

Headline versus Study

• Headline 1 - Overweight And Healthy: A Combo That Looks Too Good To Be True.
• Headline 2 - Can you be obese and healthy? Study says no.
• Summary from Annals of Internal Medicine
• Study - No significant association between metabolically healthy obesity and increased combined mortality and cardiovascular events compared to metabolically healthy normal weight in primary analysis of meta-analysis.
• Commentary - New meta-analysis adds to meta-confusion about healthy obesity.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Selection of a weight-loss approach on the basis of pretreatment macronutrient intake is unlikely to improve weight outcomes at the end of a 1-year treatment.
• RCT: No effect of a Trial for Reducing Weight Retention in New Mums evaluating a low intensity, postpartum weight management programme.
• In RCTs on infants fed infant formula containing probiotics, prebiotics or synbiotics, the source of funding did not influence the majority of outcomes in favour of the sponsors’ products.
• No significant change in body weight, insulin sensitivity, insulin secretion or clearance, endocrine, glucose, lipid, or cholesterol responses among individuals assigned to consume 1065 ml per day (117 g/d) of HFCS-sweetened beverages added for 2-wks.
• RCT: High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose have equivalent effects on energy-regulating hormones at normal human consumption levels.
• New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey food intake data found to be invalid.
• Food availability of glucose and fat, but not fructose, increased in the US between 1970 and 2009: analysis of the USDA food availability data system.

Basic Science

• Effects of photoperiod on food intake, activity and metabolic rate in adult neutered male cats.
• When rodents run the research: An automated training regimen coaches rats to willingly submit themselves to repeated brain imaging.
• Estrogen as a neurotransmitter: neuroestrogen.
• Conditioned Place Preference Deficits in Rats in Adulthood Following High Fat and High Sugar Diet Intake in Pre- and Periadolescence: A Test of the Specificity Hypothesis.
• Milk minerals modify the effect of fat intake on serum lipid profile: results from an animal and a human short-term study.
• China and India are eating more meat, driving up humanity’s overall consumption.

Energetics, Evolution and Ecology

• Coping with uncertainty: nutrient deficiencies motivate insect migration at a cost to immunity.
• High metabolic and water-loss rates in caterpillar aggregations: evidence against the resource-conservation hypothesis.
• Selected vaginal bacteria and risk of preterm birth: an ecological perspective.
• Towards an energetic landscape: broad-scale accelerometry in woodland caribou.
• Primate brains, the ‘island rule’ and the evolution of Homo floresiensis.

Food

• RCT: DNA Methylation Pattern in Overweight Women under an Energy-Restricted Diet Supplemented with Fish Oil.
• RCT: High-caloric food supplements in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
• RCT: Weight maintenance over 12 months after weight loss resulting from participation in a 12-week trial comparing all meal provision to self-directed diet in overweight adults.
• RCT: Whole-body protein turnover response to short-term high-protein diets during weight loss.
• RCT: Short-term consumption of high-protein diets does not disrupt calcium homeostasis and is not detrimental to skeletal integrity.
• Omega-3 fatty acid deficiency disrupts endocytosis, neuritogenesis, and mitochondrial protein pathways in the mouse hippocampus.
• Emotional Eating Moderates the Relationship of Night Eating with Binge Eating and Body Mass.
• Greater red meat intake is associated with unfavorable plasma concentrations of inflammatory and glucose metabolic biomarkers in diabetes-free women.
• Fish oil supplementation ameliorates fructose-induced hypertriglyceridemia and insulin resistance in adult male Rhesus Macaques.
• Review: Plant-Derived Food Ingredients for Stimulation of Energy Expenditure.

Fasting

• RCT: Alternate day fasting for weight loss in normal weight and overweight subjects.
• RCT: Short-term water-only fasting: Metabolic and cardiovascular consequences.

Sugar & Sweeteners

• Consumption of added sugars from liquid or solid sources was not associated with changes in adiposity, but liquid added sugars were a risk factor for insulin resistance among youth at risk of obesity.
• Press Statement: Low-Calorie Sweeteners Effective in Preventing and Managing Diabetes.
• Higher intake of SSB and sugars was associated with an increased risk of type I, but not type II, endometrial cancer.
• Relative ability of fat and sugar tastes to activate reward, gustatory, and somatosensory regions.
• Bone quality and strength are greater in growing male rats fed fructose compared with glucose.

Branched Chain Amino Acids

• Circulating branched-chain amino acid concentrations are associated with obesity and future insulin resistance in children and adolescents.
• Leucine supplementation protects from insulin resistance by regulating adiposity levels.

Chocolate

• RCT: The effects of dark chocolate on glycemic control and blood pressure in hypertensive diabetic patients.
• RCT: Effects of dark chocolate and cocoa consumption on endothelial function and arterial stiffness in overweight adults.

Exercise

• RCT: Aerobic exercise but not resistance exercise reduces intrahepatic lipid content and visceral fat and improves insulin sensitivity in obese adolescent girls.
• RCT: Multicomponent intervention to reduce daily sedentary time.
• RCT: The effect of a supplemental telephonic physical activity coaching program for treating obesity (thesis).
• RCT: Supervised exercise prevented excessive gestational weight gain in normal weight but not overweight or obese women.
• Video: Maternal Inactivity: 45-Year Trends in Mothers' Use of Time.
• Validation of a Novel Protocol for Calculating Estimated Energy Requirements and Average Daily Physical Activity Ratio for the US Population: 2005-2006.
• Eating breakfast was associated with higher moderate and vigorous physical activity on weekends.

Epidemiology

• New Zealand study finds correlation between church attendance and adolescent obesity.
• Total adipose tissue in women and visceral adipose tissue in men positively associated with obesity-related cancer risk.
• Poverty's latent effect on adiposity during childhood.
• Between 1965 and 2010, mothers physical activity significantly decreased.

Clinical

• RCT: Weight reduction with intensive risk factor management resulted in a reduction in atrial fibrillation symptom burden and severity.
• RCT: No statistically significant effect of Daily Text Messaging for Weight Control Among Racial and Ethnic Minority Women.
• RCT: Greater weight loss among men participating in a commercial weight loss program: A pooled analysis of two RCTs.
• RCT: No Effect of Caloric Restriction on Salivary Cortisol Levels in Overweight Men and Women.
• RCT: Yeast hydrolysate can reduce body weight and abdominal fat accumulation in obese adults.
• Sex, weight status, and chronic kidney disease among African Americans: the Jackson Heart Study.
• Hypogonadal obese men with and without diabetes mellitus type 2 lose weight and show improvement in cardiovascular risk factors when treated with testosterone.
• The Energy Balance Study: The Design and Baseline Results for a Longitudinal Study of Energy Balance

Surgery

• Patients losing 15% weight by either medical or surgical treatments can attain similar FM:LBM loss ratios and can maintain WL for 1 y.
• Tools for prescribing and implementing obesity treatment plans: ASBP’s obesity algorithm for use by clinicians.

Pharmaceuticals

• RCT: A comparative study of five centrally acting drugs on the pharmacological treatment of obesity.
• RCT, secondary endpoints: Impact of interleukin-1ß antibody (canakinumab) on glycaemic indicators in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• Naltrexone-induced increases in cortisol are associated with emotional and restrained eating, while naltrexone-induced increases in nausea are associated with binge eating and higher adiposity among a sample of overweight/obese women.
• New funds raised for beloranib study.
• Popular morning-after pill may not work for millions of women over a certain weight level.
• PAR2 identified as an inflammatory marker for obesity; a novel PAR2 antagonist reduces weight by 10% in obese rats.
• Commentary: Diet Drugs Work: Why Won’t Doctors Prescribe Them?
• The bitter pill: clinical drugs that activate the human bitter taste receptor TAS2R14.
• Review: Enteroendocrine hormone mimetics for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.

Aging

• The spatiotemporal dynamics of a metabolic network that regulates longevity in yeast.
• Longevity and Diet. Myth or pragmatism?
• Growth Signaling in Aging and Disease.

Policy Related

• New Dietary Guidelines in Sweden.
• Menu calorie labeling survey: "Almost all who read calorie information when available use the information at least sometimes."
• Taxes, Subsidies, and Advertising Efficacy in Changing Eating Behavior: An Experimental Study.

School

• RCT(School-Based): Calcium-vitamin D-fortified milk is as effective on circulating bone biomarkers as fortified juice and supplement but has less acceptance.
• Education and Health in Schools: A Survey of Parents.
• The Massachusetts BMI letter: A qualitative study of responses from parents of obese children.

Psychology

• Tempting food words activate eating simulations.
• The consumption-reducing effect of the color red on consuming food does not depend on achromatic (Michelson) contrast and extends to rubbing cream on the skin.
• A test of the resource security and the BMI reference point hypotheses of body dissatisfaction amongst adolescents in eight countries.
• Overweight is not associated with a general tendency to react impulsively, but instead by impulsive responding toward palatable food.
• Poor sleep quality was strongly associated with mood disturbance and poor quality of life among extremely obese patients.

Stigma

• RCT: Exposure to weight-stigmatizing news articles caused self-perceived overweight women to consume more calories and feel less capable of controlling their eating than exposure to non-stigmatizing articles.
• Obesity and hotel staffing: Are hotels guilty of ‘lookism’?
• Weighing the stigma of weight: An fMRI study of neural reactivity to the pain of obese individuals.

Methods

• Using Sagittal abdominal diameter to Identify Overweight Children at Most Risk for the Development of Cardiometabolic Disease.
• Analysis of breath volatile organic compounds as a noninvasive tool to diagnose nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in children.
• Points of significance: Significance, P values and t-tests.
• Standardization of collection requirements for fasting samples.
• Validation of a Novel Protocol for Calculating Estimated Energy Requirements and Average Daily Physical Activity Ratio for the US Population: 2005-2006.
• A five year longitudinal study comparing BMI and waist circumference on the prevalence of childhood obesity.
• mHealth approaches to child obesity prevention: successes, unique challenges, and next directions.
• Just-in-Time Support Bra for Emotional Eating.

General Science

• Against storytelling of scientific results.
• Scientific journals should stop trying to be exciting - and focus on being right.
• Some scientists may aspire to meet the proxy goals used to evaluate productivity instead of real, important insights.
• The price of a retracted paper.
• Points of significance: Significance, P values and t-tests.
• Baseball and Schadenfreude.
• Letter from PLoS rebutting Science’s “Who’s afraid of peer review?”
• Fighting invasive brown tree snakes in Guam using poisoned mouse paratroopers.

Commentary

• The Hothead’s Guide to Herbal Supplements.
• America’s Obesity Epidemic May Be Caused By Its Favorite Drug (antibiotics).
• Building the science for a population health movement.
• Energy intake and obesity: Ingestive frequency outweighs portion size.
• The Merits of Subtyping Obesity.
• The unrelenting fall of the pharmacological treatment of obesity.

Announcements

• Sense About Science: "Christmas Reading Room 2013."
• UAB names Caloric Restriction & Aging Expert, Dr. Steven Austad as new Biology Chair.

Featured

• A closed-loop synthetic gene circuit for the treatment of diet-induced obesity in mice.
• Calories and portion sizes in recipes throughout 100 years: An overlooked factor in the development of overweight and obesity?

Findings Contrary to Popular Hypotheses or Beliefs

• The concept of 'metabolic syndrome' in dogs does not appear to have merit.
• SSB consumption did not appear to mediate the association between the screen activities and changes in anthropometric measures.
• Living in a food desert was not significantly associated with BMI after potential covariates were considered.
• No Association of Obesity and Eating in the Absence of Hunger Among College Students in a Mexican-USA Border City.
• Refutation of dirty electricity hypothesis in obesity: epistemological arguments and trans-disciplinary study using an instrumental variable.
• Meta-analysis: No significant association was found between weight loss and overall HRQL improvement.
• Obese patients with no signs of metabolic disease are at a greater risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease than metabolically unhealthy people of normal weight.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: BMI or measure of obesity does not play significant role in weight loss operation, says study; Study: Patients' diabetes status, quality of life, eating behavior, IDEAL WEIGHT LOSS, and willingness to assume mortality risk to LOSE WEIGHT were associated with whether patients proceeded with gastric banding as opposed to gastric bypass.
• Headline 1: Newly identified gene could explain why up to 90% of obesity cases are inherited; Headline 2: Researchers prove the cause of the obesity epidemic is genetic; Study: Study findings suggest that loss of the ciliary protein CEP19 causes morbid obesity in mice and associated with morbid obesity in humans.

Surgery

• Efficacy of Metabolic Surgery on HbA1c Decrease in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients with BMI <35 kg/m2-a Review.
• Is left gastric artery embolization next "big thing" in the fight against obesity?

Stigma

• Attitudes towards obesity in the Swedish general population – The role of one's own body size, weight satisfaction, and controllability beliefs about obesity.
• Weighing the stigma of weight: An fMRI study of neural reactivity to the pain of obese individuals.
• Obesity stigma: a persistent problem, a possible solution.

Sugar

• Dietary sugar and blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
• The Metabolic and Endocrine Response and Health Implications of Consuming Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Findings From Recent RCTs.

Psychology

• Quality of life in overweight and obese children and adolescents: a literature review.
• Controlling Parental Feeding Practices and Child Body Composition in Ethnically and Economically Diverse Preschool Children.

Policy Related

• Exploring the Acceptability of a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Brief Evidence Review.
• Lowering the price of “good” foods would be better than taxing “bad” foods in reducing obesity.
• Exploring the Acceptability of a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Insight Work.
• A Proposal for Congressionally Mandated Federal Regulation of Child-Directed Food and Beverage Television Advertisements to Combat Childhood Obesity.
• New York City launches ad campaign conveying negative health impact of excessive sugary drink consumption.
• Fighting obesity with a carrot: the relationship between WIC's recent policy change and childhood obesity trends.
• Creating Equal Opportunities for a Healthy Weight - IOM Workshop Summary.

Methods

• Short-term Precision Error in Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry Bone-Mineral-Density and Trabecular-Bone-Score Measurements; and Effects of Obesity.
• SAR Computation and Channel Modeling of Body Area Networks.
• Residual Gastric Volume Estimated with a New Radiological Volumetric Model: Relationship with Weight Loss After Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy.
• Measuring Sensory and Marketing Influences on Consumers' Choices among Food and Beverage Product Brands.
• Does the type of weight loss diet affect who participates in a behavioral weight loss intervention? A comparison of participants for a plant-based diet versus a standard diet trial.
• Alcohol, NAFLD, Other: The Uneven Distribution of Liver Fat Estimated from MRI and its Clinical Importance.
• Energy expenditure by multisensor armband in overweight and obese lactating women validated by doubly labeled water.

Food

• RCT: Weight maintenance over 12 months after weight loss resulting from participation in a 12-week trial comparing all meal provision to self-directed diet in overweight adults.
• RCT: In short-term study, Oatmeal Beats Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereal at Improving Appetite Control.
• RCT: Effect of calcium in combination with magnesium and lactulose on body fat mass in middle-aged Japanese women.

Epidemiology

• The Spatial Accessibility of Fast food Restaurants and Convenience Stores in Relation to Neighborhood Schools.
• Neighborhood commuting environment and obesity in the United States: An urban–rural stratified multilevel analysis.
• Americans' Desire to Shed Pounds Outweighs Effort.
• [Purportedly] Obesogenic and Youth Oriented Restaurant Marketing in Public Housing Neighborhoods.
• Waist circumference is increasing alongside a stabilization in BMI - children appear to be getting fatter and the additional adiposity is being stored centrally.
• Interventions that reduce high blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose address about half of excess risk of coronary heart disease and three-quarters of excess risk of stroke associated with high BMI.
• Observational study's findings suggest that higher BMI and larger waist circumference are associated with increased risk of hearing loss in women. 
• Epidemiological findings suggest that compared with white toddlers, the risk of obesity was higher among Hispanic toddlers and American Indian Alaska Native toddlers, but lower among black toddlers.
• Abdominal obesity and lower gray matter volume: a Mendelian randomization study.

Energetics, Evolution and Ecology

• Normal glucose metabolism of healthy carnivores mimics diabetes pathology of non-carnivores.
• Hibernation Patterns of Dwarf Lemurs in the High Altitude Forest of Eastern Madagascar.

Economics

• The Economics of Information, Deep Capture, and the Obesity Debate.
• On the Role of Social Media in the ‘Responsible’ Food Business: Blogger Buzz on Health and Obesity Issues.

Drugs

• Functional Rescue of Obesity-causing Human Melanocortin-4 Receptor Mutants: Insights for Pharmacological Chaperon Drugs.
• The emergency contraception product marketed as Plan B may not work for women with excess weight.
• CEO of the maker of Contrave, a new experimental weight-loss drug, is excited about new drug, but will it sell?
• Limits on rosiglitazone-containing meds overturned by FDA.
• Green Light for Contrave.
• Evaluation of phentermine and topiramate versus phentermine/topiramate extended-release in obese adults.

Commentary

• Vitamin D and energy homeostasis—of mice and men.
• The relationship between gestational weight gain and fetal growth: time to take stock?
• That Pesky Obesity Virus.
• The Wobbly Link of Poverty to Obesity.

Clinical

• Systematic review on the effectiveness of embedding catgut therapy for simple obesity.
• RCT: Telehealth Weight Management Intervention for Adults with Physical Disabilities.
• RCT: Moderate concentrations of supplemental oxygen worsen hypercapnia in obesity hypoventilation syndrome.
• RCT: Health effect of the New Nordic Diet in adults with increased waist circumference.
• Comprehensive obesity management in 2013: Understanding the shifting paradigm.

Caloric Restriction

• Resolvin D1 primes the resolution process initiated by calorie restriction in obesity-induced Steatohepatitis.
• Interleukin-8 and interleukin-10, brain volume and microstructure, and the influence of calorie restriction in old rhesus macaques.
• Effects of age on changes of body composition through caloric restriction in overweight and obese women.

Basic Science

• IL-15 is required for post-exercise induction of the pro-oxidative mediators PPARδ and SIRT1 in male mice.
• Diet-Induced Obesity Reduces the Responsiveness of the Peripheral Taste Receptor Cells.
• Dietary epigenetics in cancer and aging.
• High Glucose Exposure Promotes Activation of Protein Phosphatase 2A in Rodent Islets and INS-1 832/13 β-Cells by Increasing the Posttranslational Carboxylmethylation of Its Catalytic Subunit.
• High fat fed obese Gpx1-deficient mice exhibit defective insulin secretion but protection from hepatic steatosis and liver damage.
• Association of Rapid Weight Loss on Oxidative Stress Markers and the Expression of the Metabolic Syndrome in Obese Individuals.
• Expression of Allograft inflammatory factor 1 (AIF-1), a new adipokine, is increased in obese women and associated with unfavorable phenotypes in a small observational study.
• Anti-obesity effects of gut microbiota are associated with lactic acid bacteria.
• Association between the seven-repeat allele of the dopamine-4 receptor gene (DRD4) and spontaneous food intake in pre-school children.

Video

• Nuts and death – NEJM animated video explanation.
• Christopher Kuzawa: "Epigenetic, developmental and intergenerational influences on US cardiovascular health disparities".

​General Science

• Stroke mortality is down, but the reason remains a mystery.
• Schadenfreude Found To Be Biological In Nature, Linked To Feelings Of Envy.
• A commentary on Pitfalls of predicting complex traits from SNPs.
• New Housecat-Size Feline Species Discovered.
• On the impoverishment of scientific education.
• Policy: Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims.
• Psychologists strike a blow for reproducibility.
• When Mice Mislead.
• FDA orders 23andMe to halt sales of DNA test kit.

Announcements

• The next International Academy on Nutrition and Aging meeting (Albuquerque, USA, July 10 & 11, 2014).
• 7th International Immunonutrition Workshop, “Eating for Preventing” - Carovigno, Brindisi, Italy from the 1st to the 3rd  of May, 2014.

Featured

• Acarbose, 17-alpha-estradiol, and nordihydroguaiaretic acid extend mouse lifespan preferentially in males.
• Commentary: Implausible results in human nutrition research.
• American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology's cholesterol risk calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk.
• RCT: Larger bowl size increases the amount of cereal that children request, consume and waste.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Isotopic estimates of sugar intake are related to chronic disease risk factors but not obesity in an Alaska native (Yup'ik) study population.
• RCT: Nicotine patch may increase energy intake during treatment, and does not prevent post-cessation weight gain in postmenopausal smokers.
• There is little evidence that teachers' judgments of pupils' ability are influenced by obesity.
• Gingivitis was not associated with obesity/overweight.
• High BMI should not be considered a contra-indication to mobile bearing knee replacement.

Clinical

• RCT: Efficacy of an acceptance-based behavioral intervention for weight gain prevention in young adult women.
• RCT: Effect of Weight Reduction and Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Management on Symptom Burden and Severity in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation.
• Anti-ghrelin Therapeutic Vaccine: A Novel Approach for Obesity Treatment.
• RCT: Increasing the Number of Chews before Swallowing Reduces Meal Size in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Adults.
• Maps: States where physicians prescribe more antibiotics also have high obesity rates.

Food

• RCT: Effects of dark chocolate on lipid profile, apo-lipoprotein A-1, apo-lipoprotein B and inflammation in type-2 diabetic patients.
• Intrinsic Rewards, Fruit and Vegetable Consumption, and Habit Strength: A Three-Wave Study Testing the Associative-Cybernetic Model.
• RCT: Visualising future behaviour: Effects for snacking on biscuit bars, but no effects for snacking on fruit.
• High dietary phosphorus intake is associated with all-cause mortality.

Drugs

• Long-term Drug Treatment for Obesity: A Systematic and Clinical Review.
• RCT: Canagliflozin, a sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitor: effects in overweight and obese subjects without diabetes mellitus.
• RCT: High-Dose Nicotine Patch Therapy for Smokeless Tobacco Users.

Exercise

• RCT: The effects of aerobic exercise training at two different intensities in obesity and type 2 diabetes: implications for oxidative stress, low-grade inflammation and nitric oxide production.
• RCT: Different types of resistance training in type 2 diabetes mellitus: effects on glycaemic control, muscle mass and strength.
• Fitter firefighters less prone to injury, even though as a group they are more fit than the general public.
• Meta-analysis: Exercise and drug interventions may provide similar mortality benefits in the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and the prevention of diabetes.
• Physicians who complete less physical activity may be less likely to encourage patients to engage in physical activity in geographic areas where the adult population is less active.

Protein

• Comparing the value of protein sources for maternal and child nutrition.
• Cohort study: Higher protein intake at baseline was associated with higher self-reported physical function.

Eating Disorders

• Binge eating was associated with a nearly fourfold higher risk of type 2 diabetes in females, regardless of BMI, according to a study presented at Obesity Week.
• Commentary: Anorexia awareness campaigns are unwittingly promoting anorexia.
• Daily self-weighing does not appear to be related to increased disordered eating behavior and is associated with better weight loss outcomes.

Gut Microbiota

• Resting energy expenditure and gut microbiota in obese and normal weight subjects.
• Use of pigs as a potential model for research into dietary modulation of the human gut microbiota.
• Anti-obesity effects of gut microbiota are associated with lactic acid bacteria.

Surgery

• Current status of robotic bariatric surgery: a systematic review.
• Where Are the Health Care Cost Savings With Bariatric Surgery in Obesity Management?
• Medical Indications for Weight-Loss Surgery in Adolescents But Are There Other Equally Important Indications?
• Previous bariatric surgery increases postoperative morbidity after sleeve gastrectomy for morbid obesity.
• Women who have had surgery for obesity have raised risk of preterm babies.
• Patients who have undergone laparoscopic gastric bypass continue to show favorable change in their lipid profiles at 5 years postoperative and take fewer lipid-modifying medications.
• RCT: 60% of type 2 diabetes patients who underwent gastric bypass surgery were in remission at one year, compared with only 6% of patients receiving intensive medical/lifestyle intervention.
• Discharge protocol checklists cut 30-day bariatric surgery readmissions.

Psychology

• Resourcefulness, Academic Stress, Dispositional Optimism, and Eating Styles among Fifth and Sixth Graders.
• Child Behavioural Problems and Body Size among 2-6 Year Old Children Predisposed to Overweight. Results From the “Healthy Start” Study.
• Personality Traits, Education, Physical Exercise, and Childhood Neurological Function as Independent Predictors of Adult Obesity.
• Hot and cool executive functioning and food approach behavior in middle childhood.
• People are able to accurately recognize social influences on food intake and this recognition is facilitated by the presence of mimicked eating, not by matching the total amount eaten.

Methods

• Model-based measurement of food portion size for image-based dietary assessment using 3D/2D registration.
• Validation of a new tool to measure responsiveness and structure in the feeding context : the Authoritative Feeding Practices Questionnaire.
• Estimation of 24-h energy expenditure in dairy cows using the 13C bicarbonate dilution method.
• Energy Expenditure Compared to Physical Activity Measured by Accelerometry and Self-Report in Adolescents: A Validation Study.
• Questions and answers to the validity of the doubly labeled water method in high-fat and sucrose-feeding mice irrespective of obesity proneness.
• Designing a Robust Activity Recognition Framework for Health and Exergaming using Wearable Sensors.
• Chemical imaging of lipid droplets in muscle tissues using hyperspectral coherent Raman microscopy.
• Modelling the Joint Effect of Social Determinants and Peers on Obesity Among Canadian Adults with Fuzzy Cognitive Maps.

Mathematics

• Elucidating the interactions between human gut microbiota and host through metabolic modeling.
• A Study of Temporal Action Sequencing During Consumption of a Meal.
• A modeling approach for compounds affecting body composition.
• Mechanical Analysis of Single Myocyte Contraction in a 3-D Elastic Matrix.

Ghrelin

• Stimulatory effect of ghrelin on food intake in bullfrog larvae.
• Ghrelin administration enhances neurogenesis but impairs spatial learning and memory in adult mice.
• Correlations between plasma ghrelin and parameters of fat metabolism in early lactating dairy cows.

Epidemiology

• Dietary Patterns Are Associated With Incident Stroke and Contribute to Excess Risk of Stroke in Black Americans.
• Inflammatory Dietary Pattern Linked to Depression among Women.
• Review: A majority of cross-sectional studies indicate that shiftwork increases weight gain and the prevalence of obesity. On the other hand, half of cohort studies show higher frequency of meal intake and/or poor nutrition quality in the shift workers.
• The prevalence of overweight and obesity in students from different altitudinal zones of Jujuy was highest in the highlands, according to three international references (IOTF, CDC and WHO) with good agreement.
• Higher BMI is associated with increased plaque buildup and greater heart disease risk in patients with type 2 diabetes.
• PTSD symptoms are associated with an increased risk of becoming overweight or obese among women.

Genetics

• EMR-linked GWAS study: Investigation of variation landscape of loci for BMI in children.
• Study of Severely Obese Family Leads to Gene Discovery.
• Effects of level of nutrient intake and age on mammalian target of rapamycin, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor-1 gene network expression in skeletal muscle of young Holstein calves.
• RAP1 Protects from Obesity through Its Extratelomeric Role Regulating Gene Expression.
• Prevention of neuromusculoskeletal frailty in slow-aging Ames dwarf mice: longitudinal investigation of interaction of longevity genes and caloric restriction.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Is natural hatching asynchrony optimal? An experimental investigation of sibling competition patterns in a facultatively siblicidal seabird.
• Species of sacoglossan sea slug that assimilate the photosynthetic organelles in the algae they eat – role in energetics and survival?
• Energetic adjustments in freely breeding-fasting king penguin: does colony density matter?

SSBs, Sugar & Sweeteners

• Effects of a nonnutritive sweetener on body adiposity and energy metabolism in mice with diet-induced obesity.
• The Role of Fructose, Sucrose, and High-fructose Corn Syrup in Diabetes.
• RCT: Effect of SSB ingestion during ‘spin’ classes on health and fitness parameters, quality of life and mood in recreational exercisers.
• Projected effects of taxes on sugar sweetened beverages: a meta-analysis.
• The role of low-calorie sweeteners in diabetes.
• Survey: Kids less thirsty for water than their parents.

Transgenerational

• Two-generation diet-induced obesity model producing mice with increased amount of body fat in early adulthood.
• Maternal Obesity Caused by Overnutrition Exposure Leads to Reversal Learning Deficits and Striatal Disturbance in Rats.
• Fetal and Early-Postnatal Developmental Patterns of Obese-Genotype Piglets Exposed to Prenatal Programming by Maternal Over- and Undernutrition.
• Exposure to a High-Fat Diet During Development Alters Leptin and Ghrelin Sensitivity and Elevates Renal Sympathetic Nerve Activity and Arterial Pressure in Rabbits.

Temperature

• Some physiological effects of deep underground mining in intense heat and the relationship with physical work capacity and functional work capacity.
• City-Scale Expansion of Human Thermoregulatory Costs.
• 'Elevated ambient indoor temperatures are associated with low BMI levels. Further research is needed to establish the potential causal nature of this relationship.'

Policy Related

• Should Child Obesity be an Issue for Child Protective Services?: A Call for More Research on this Critical Public Health Issue.
• Non-randomized study shows association between dining in restaurant with calorie menu labeling was associated with better food choices in full-service restaurants.
• 40% of large US firms will levy surcharges against employees that cannot or will not meet specific health criteria next year, 67% by 2015.
• 67% of employees who must participate in an employer's wellness plan to get full health coverage are required to meet weight-related wellness goals, but 59% have no coverage for fitness training, registered dietitian counseling, obesity drugs, or bariatric surgery.
• Lowering the threshold for a normal fasting plasma glucose level may increase medical costs despite its potential benefit in diabetes prevention.
• Odds of enacting state laws addressing obesity are mostly unrelated to state variation in education, population density, income, political party structure and obesity prevalence; however, a negative but weak association suggests that state governments that enact the most laws are those with relatively low obesity prevalence.
• Three Reasons “Get Tough” Backfires.

Ethics and Scientific Integrity

• Identifying ethical and scientific challenges raised by nutrigenomics / nutrigenetics research, with emphasis on 'biohype'.
• Non-publication of large RCTs: cross sectional analysis.

Basic Science

• Early postnatal maternal deprivation in rats can influence the fate of adipose tissue proliferation, presumably leading to obesity later in life.
• 'Smarter' blood pressure guidelines could prevent many more heart attacks and strokes.
• Breath test for blood glucose levels to begin testing next year.
• A Mendelian randomization study of Abdominal obesity and lower gray matter volume.
• The regulatory effects of resistant starch on glycaemic response in obese dogs.

Commentary

• Try it, you might learn to like it: The case for taste bud rehab.
• Fixing Food Stamps for All? Could be a SNAP.
• Health at an Impasse: The Case for Getting Past Collusion.
• What's new with measuring cholesterol?
• How Early Should Obesity Prevention Start?
• Are Sugar and Sloth the Causes of Obesity -- Or Just Convenient Whipping Boys for Meat?

Video

• Paul A.S. Breslin - "Anticipatory digestive responses to foods".
• Sleep Deprivation Disrupts Human Brain Reactivity in Response to Food Desire.
• The Sodium Story.
• Not all obesity is equal.

General Science

• The Necessity of RCTs.
• Mitochondrial genomes suggest the origin of dogs was 18,000 - 30,000 years ago in Europe.
• NYT: Wait, wasn't South China supposed to be the origin of dogs?
• How, if and why species form.
• How I faced my fears and learned to be good at math.
• The Myth of 'I'm Bad at Math'.
• Policy: Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims.
• Coldblooded does not mean stupid.
• Baseline tumor growth and immune control in laboratory mice are significantly influenced by subthermoneutral housing temperature.
• Hope for hemophiliacs as experimental gene therapy shows promise in a canine model.
• Satellite built by high-school students launched on Minotaur I rocket.

Announcements

• FDA Reopens Comment Period for Draft Guidance on Medical Foods.