Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• TED Talk by Nina Fedoroff on Global Food Production.
• During nutritional intervention, Adenovirus-36 seropositive patients have a more consistent decrease in insulin resistance, fatty liver severity and body weight in comparison with ADV36 seronegative patients.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Small plate size did not decrease energy intake and decreased vegetable intake.
• RCT: Advising a prudent breakfast for 3 months did not influence blood lipids, body weight, or glucose metabolism but reduced markers of visceral fat and inflammation.
• RCT: "A home-based, family-delivered intervention to reduce all leisure-time screen use had no significant effect on screen-time or on BMI at 24 weeks in overweight and obese.”.
• RCT: A daily snack providing additional green leafy vegetables, fruit, and milk before conception and throughout pregnancy had no overall effect on birth weight.
• RCT: No significant effect of a telephone-based adiposity prevention for families with overweight children in entire randomized sample.
• No association between glycemic index, glycemic load and weight change was found.
• RCT: The effect of rate of weight loss on long-term weight management: rate of weight loss not associated with weight regain.

Basic Science

• Regulation of Body Fat in Caenorhabditis elegans.
• Model of adipose tissue cellularity dynamics during food restriction.
• Role of NKG2D in Obesity-Induced Adipose Tissue Inflammation and Insulin Resistance.
• The Impact of Age-Related Dysregulation of the Angiotensin System on Mitochondrial Redox Balance.
• Structural insight into the MC4R conformation changes in different agonist mediated receptor signaling.

Economics

• The demand for cigarettes as derived from the demand for weight loss: a theoretical and empirical investigation.
• Some criticism about economics of obesity and differentiation of income in the labor market.
• Overweight Women Tend To Earn Smaller Paychecks.

Surgery

• Editorial: Metabolic and bariatric surgery for Type 2 diabetics with BMI <35: the time is now
• Absence of an additional metabolic effect [association] for body contour surgery in patients that undergo laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB).
• Incidence of type 2 diabetes after bariatric surgery: population-based matched cohort study.
• Long-term Outcomes of Bariatric Surgery: A National Institutes of Health Symposium.
• Long-term Clinical Outcomes and Health Care Utilization After Bariatric Surgery.

Stigma

• Evidence of a Big Shift in Attitudes about Obesity.
• Sex, Race, and the Adverse Effects of Social Stigma vs. Other Quality of Life Factors Among Primary Care Patients with Moderate to Severe Obesity.
• Predicting anti-fat attitudes: individual differences based on actual and perceived body size, weight importance, entity mindset, and ethnicity.
• Stereotypical portrayals of obesity and the expression of implicit weight bias.

Psychology

• Physical characteristics associated with weight misperception among overweight and obese men: NHANES 1999-2006.
• Training Your Brain to Prefer Healthy Foods.
• Comparing two psychological interventions in reducing impulsive processes of eating behaviour: Effects on self-selected portion size.
• RCT: Watch What You Eat Action-Related Television Content Increases Food Intake.

Drugs

• RCT: Coinfusion of Low-Dose GLP-1 and Glucagon in Man Results in a Reduction in Food Intake.
• Opposing neural effects of naltrexone on food reward and aversion: implications for the treatment of obesity.
• Impact of hospital guideline for weight-based antimicrobial dosing in morbidly obese adults and comprehensive literature review.

Food

• RCT: Substitution of red meat with legumes in the therapeutic lifestyle change diet based on dietary advice improves cardiometabolic risk factors in overweight type 2 diabetes patients.
• RCT: Adherence to the DASH diet, compared with the control diet, resulted in a significant decrease in weight and BMI.
• RCT: High protein intake from meat as complementary food increases growth but not adiposity in breastfed infants.
• Functional foods to promote weight loss and satiety.
• In a Mother’s Milk, Nutrients, and a Message, Too.
• Fact Sheet: Coconut Oil and Health.
• Role of dietary fats in modulating cardiometabolic risk during moderate weight gain: a randomized double-blind overfeeding trial (LIPOGAIN study).
• Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention.
• Regular consumption of Fiit-ns, a polyphenol extract from fruit and vegetables frequently consumed within the Mediterranean diet, improves metabolic aging.

Microbiome

• Intestinal Microbiota is Different in Women with Preterm Birth.
• Rapid changes in the gut microbiome during human evolution.

Clinical

• Magnitude of daily energy deficit predicts frequency but not severity of menstrual disturbances associated with exercise and caloric restriction.
• Visual identification of obesity by healthcare professionals: an experimental study of trainee and qualified GPs.
• RCT: Small-changes obesity treatment among veterans: 12-month outcomes.
• RCT: A meal replacement regimen improves blood glucose levels in prediabetic healthy individuals with impaired fasting glucose.
• Systematic review of Behavioral Treatment of Obesity in Patients Encountered in Primary Care Settings.
• Adiposity induces lethal cytokine storm after systemic administration of stimulatory immunotherapy regimens in aged mice.
• Effect of childhood obesity prevention programmes on blood lipids: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
• Impact of long-term lifestyle programmes on weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors in overweight/obese participants: a systematic review.

Epidemiology

• Body-composition predictors of mortality in women aged ≥75 y: data from a large population-based cohort study with a 17-y follow-up.
• A longitudinal analysis of maternal depressive symptoms and children's food consumption and weight outcomes.
• Effects of infant health on family food insecurity: Evidence from two U.S. birth cohort studies.
• Genetic and Environmental Transactions Underlying the Association Between Physical Fitness/Physical Exercise and Body Composition.
• Interaction between Genetic Predisposition to Adiposity and Dietary Protein in Relation to Subsequent Change in Body Weight and Waist Circumference.
• Vitamin D and obesity: current perspectives and future directions.

Mortality

• The obesity paradox in acute coronary syndrome: a meta-analysis.
• The dynamic association of body mass index and all-cause mortality in multiple cohorts and its impacts.

Methods

• Small sample performance of bias-corrected sandwich estimators for cluster-randomized trials with binary outcomes.
• Imaging methodologies and applications for nutrition research: what can functional MRI offer?

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Fish swimming in schools save energy regardless of their spatial position.
• Description of a bovine model for studying digestive and metabolic effects of a positive energy balance not biased by lactation or gravidity.
• Metabolic rate M^??0.75 in human beings.
• Saving energy during hard times: Energetic adaptations of Shetland pony mares.

Daylight Savings Time

• Why Lab Rats Don't Observe Daylight Saving Time.
• Fall Back and Move Less - Extra evening daylight and physical activity of children.

Policy Related

• Planning law and public health at an impasse in Australia: the need for targeted law reforms to improve local food environments to reduce overweight and obesity.
• Food health law: a legal perspective on EU competence to regulate the "healthiness" of food.
• Nation's First Soda Tax Passes In Berkeley, Fails in San Francisco.
• Evidence for Action in Obesity: Lively forum at ObesityWeek 2014.
• WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative: School Nutrition Environment and Body Mass Index in Primary Schools.

Exercise

• Is there any Proffitt in stair climbing? A headcount of studies testing for demographic differences in choice of stairs.
• RCT: Workout at Work: Laboratory Test of Psychological and Performance Outcomes of Active Workstations.
• Superior running economy in obese compared to normal-weight males at metabolically comparable work rates.
• Caloric restriction and exercise training, combined, not solely improve total plasma adiponectin and glucose homeostasis in streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.

Mathematical

• Raison d'être of insulin resistance: the adjustable threshold hypothesis.
• Toward a quantitative theory of food consumption choices and body weight.

Commentary

• Killer Chairs (sedentary behavior).
• David Katz: Dieting Must Die.
• Headlines of Milk and Chocolate.
• The Last Anti-Fat Crusaders.
• Does this obesity cost calculator promote fat shaming?
• Elegant analysis of people first language in obesity at OW2014 by Andrew Brown

General Science

• Journals unite for reproducibility.
• A Bayesian Model of Conditioned Perception.
• Video Tutorials: The New Statistics: Estimation and Research Integrity.
• Rapid evolution of a native species following invasion by a congener.
• The Dalai Lama Discusses Neuroplasticity and Healing at UAB.
• Ebola-carrying bats may be heroes as well as villains.
• Humans have innate grasp of probability.

Announcements

• 4TH SHORT COURSE ON NEXT-GENERATION SEQUENCING: TECHNOLOGY AND STATISTICAL METHODS.
• UAB to lead $49 million education grant.
• Science Summit: Spices and Herbs: Improving Public Health through Flavorful Eating.
• Inspirational Short Speech by UAB Student Modupeoluwa Durojaiye.

Featured

• Obesity Researchers James O. Hill and Bruce M. Spiegelman elected to the Institute of Medicine.
• SIRT1 activator (SRT1720) improves the follicle reserve and prolongs the ovarian lifespan of diet-induced obesity in female mice via activating SIRT1 and suppressing mTOR signaling.
• Neandertal growth: What are the costs?

Headline vs Study

• Headline: Sunshine Keeps Us Skinny? A Little Sunlight Can Slow The Progression Of Obesity And Diabetes.
• Study: In laboratory mice, exposure to ultraviolet radiation significantly suppressed weight gain, glucose intolerance, and other metabolic derangements.
• Headline: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking, Study Says.
• Study: Associations between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and leukocyte telomere length.
• Commentary: Is soda really as dangerous as cigarettes?

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: No effect of SSB reduction program on weight or any physiologic variable in primary analyses, pre-planned analyses, or when entire randomized sample is analyzed among Mexican women.
• RCT: Provision of healthy school meals did not decrease BMI and increased waist circumference.
• RCT: “Unlike other studies, there was no evidence that greater frequency of self-weighing is associated with greater weight loss.”
• RCT: “oligofructose supplementation for 12 weeks has no effect on body weight in overweight and obese children”.
• RCT: Echium oil is not protective against weight loss in head and neck cancer patients undergoing curative radio(chemo)therapy.
• RCT: Rhodiola Rosea intended to decrease Mental and Physical Fatigue increases it instead.
• RCT: In Isocaloric Diet, Whole Grain Products (carbs) produce less weight gain than does Red Meat.
• “Current evidence from RCTs of good quality did not unequivocally support the contention that vitamin D accelerated weight or fat loss in obesity”.
• “Animals on aspartame consumed fewer calories, gained less weight and had a more favorable body composition when challenged with high fat compared to animals consuming water. Despite this, aspartame elevated fasting glucose levels ….”
• Increase in visceral fat Per Se does not induce insulin resistance in the canine model.
• "All of our results then provide further support to the notion that the ultimate effectiveness of SSB tax is at best questionable".
• RCT: telephone outreach did not improve medication adherence or metabolic control in adults with diabetes.

Basic Science

• Moderate stoichiometric homeostasis in the sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus: effects of diet and growth on C:N:P ratios.
• Shifting the Circadian Rhythm of Feeding in Mice Induces Gastrointestinal, Metabolic and Immune Alterations Which Are Influenced by Ghrelin and the Core Clock Gene Bmal1.
• Chronic Sleep Fragmentation During the Sleep Period Induces Hypothalamic Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and PTP1b-Mediated Leptin Resistance in Male Mice.
• Liver DNA methylation analysis in adult female C57BL/6JxFVB mice following perinatal exposure to bisphenol A exposure.
• Symbiont-derived beta-1,3-glucanases in a social insect: mutualism beyond nutrition.
• The level of circulating octanoate does not predict Ghrelin O-Acyl Transferase (GOAT)-mediated acylation of ghrelin during fasting.
• Thermogenic capacity is antagonistically regulated in classical brown and white subcutaneous fat depots by high-fat diet and endurance training in rats: Impact on whole-body energy expenditure.
• Adiponectin is essential for lipid homeostasis and survival under insulin deficiency and promotes ß-cell regeneration.

Food

• Cooking increases net energy gain from a lipid-rich food.
• Differential association of sugar-sweetened beverages in men and women: is it the sugar or calories?
• Roman Gladiators Drank Ash Energy Drink.
• Effect of Diet on Preference and Intake of Sucrose in Obese Prone and Resistant Rats.
• Personalized weight loss strategies—the role of macronutrient distribution.
• Pre-ordering lunch at work: results of the what to eat for lunch study.
• RCT: Calcium-Collagen Chelate Dietary Supplement Attenuates Bone Loss in Postmenopausal Women with Osteopenia.

Exercise

• Obtaining Accelerometer Data in a National Cohort of Black and White Adults.
• Impact of Walking in Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-Analysis.
• Changes in Adipose Tissue Depots and Metabolic Markers Following a One-Year Diet and Exercise Intervention in Overweight and Obese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Ancient Europeans were lactose intolerant for the first 4,000 years they made cheese.
• Impacts of extreme climatic events on the energetics of long-lived vertebrates: the case of the greater flamingo facing cold spells in the Camargue.
• The predicament of the African wild dog, Lycaon pictus, with respect to food stealing by hyenas is less precarious than claimed.
• Chimps know how to plan ahead - for meals, anyway.
• Monster shark 'kept whales in check'.

Epidemiology

• Marriage trouble and weight gain.
• Hemoglobin A1c and the Progression of Coronary Artery Calcification Among Adults Without Diabetes.
• Latest Update of USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference Released.

Clinical

• “I See Inspiration Everywhere”: Potential Keys to Nurturing Healthy Obsessions by Very Successful Young Weight Controllers.
• RCT: Results of a multicomponent intervention for overweight school-aged children - Copenhagen, Denmark.
• The Effect of Glucomannan on Body Weight in Overweight or Obese Children and Adults: A Systematic Review of RCTs.
• National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines on Survivorship: Nutrition and Weight Management.
• Effective Interventions in Overweight or Obese Young Children: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
• Does the Method of Weight Loss Effect Long-Term Changes in Weight, Body Composition or Chronic Disease Risk Factors in Overweight or Obese Adults? A Systematic Review.
• Dietitian perceptions of low-calorie sweeteners.

Surgery

• Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery, but Not Calorie Restriction, Reduces Plasma Branched-Chain Amino Acids in Obese Women Independent of Weight Loss or the Presence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
• RCT: Mental practice improves bariatric surgery technical performance for bariatric surgeons.

Drugs

• RCT: Treatment of euglycemic, obese, middle-aged women with metformin 1700 mg per day reduced insulin resistance and weight compared with placebo.
• RCT: Prepubertal intervention with metformin reduces central adiposity and improves insulin sensitivity in non-obese catch-up SGA children.

Policy & Ethics

• Scientific, Economic, Regulatory, and Ethical Challenges of Bringing Science-Based Pediatric Nutrition Products to the U.S. Market and Ensuring Their Availability for Patients.
• Information, choice and the ends of health promotion.
• A Practical guide for planning obesity prevention programmes among school-age children and adolescents in developing countries (pdf).

Psychology

• “We” Overeat, But “I” Can Stay Thin: Pronoun Use and Body Weight in Couples Who Eat to Regulate Emotion.
• How to Combat the Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition: The Influencing Role of Health Consciousness.

Economics

• Obesity and Social Inequality in America.
• Economic impact of adult obesity on health systems: a systematic review.
• Three economic simulation studies on obesity: Taxes, Income, and Population Dynamics.
• Investing in obesity stocks has become a Wall Street trend.
• The demand for cigarettes as derived from the demand for weight loss: a theoretical and empirical investigation.

Methods

• “Observed differences between under-reporters and plausible reporters suggest that the exclusion of these under-reporters represents an important potential source of bias in obesity research among women in the periconceptional period.”
• Models for Correlating the Composition of the Gut Microbiota with Inflammatory Disease Parameters Using Animal Models.
• “A key finding [from a combined epidemiologic and simulation analyses of obesity rates] is that controlling for residential self-selection has important substantive implications”.
• Spine Curvature Analysis between Participants with Obesity and Normal Weight Participants: A Biplanar Electromagnetic Device Measurement.
• Developing small-area predictions for smoking and obesity prevalence in the United States for use in Environmental Public Health Tracking.
• Reducing Sampling Bias in Social Media Data for County Health Inference on Variables including Obesity.
• Misreporting of Dietary Intake Affects Estimated Nutrient Intakes in Low-Income Spanish-Speaking Women.
• “Data that does [sic] not reflect actual intake may be used by researchers, policy makers and others to take actions to change eating habits, leading to recommendations that are not based on accurate information."
• The Placebo Effect Doesn’t Apply Just to Pills.
• Validating an energy expenditure prediction equation in overweight and obese Mexican patients.

Stigma

• Age Differences in Body Size Stereotyping in a Sample of Preschool Girls.
• Perceived weight discrimination in England: a population-based study of adults aged 50 and older.
• Stigma and the Addiction Paradigm for Obesity: Lessons from 1950s America.

General Science

• Epigenetic regulation by selected dietary phytochemicals in cancer chemoprevention.
• UGMDR: a unified conceptual framework for detection of multifactor interactions underlying complex traits.
• “Help! Someone Thinks I p-hacked”.
• Protein O-GlcNAcylation and Cardiovascular (Patho)physiology.
• Failure to replicate depletion of self-control.
• Mysterious Statistical Law May Finally Have an Explanation.
• Pro-proliferative and inflammatory signaling converge on FoxO1 transcription factor in pulmonary hypertension.
• The top 100 papers: Nature explores the most-cited research of all time.

Commentary

• It's Elementary: Food 'Out of Sight' is Food 'Out of Mind'.
• How to Make More Published Research True.

Video

• John D. Fernstrom: Non-nutritive Sweeteners and Obesity.
• The world's weirdest scientific studies.

Announcements

• Keystone Symposium: Human Nutrition, Environment and Health. October 14-19, 2015.
• Free download: A Practical guide for planning obesity prevention programmes among school-age children and adolescents in developing countries.
• Winners of the 2014 John Maddox Prize for standing up for science announced.
• Bayesian short course with David Draper, November 25-28.

Featured

• Meta-analyses of human gut microbes: although subjects can be classified as lean or obese within individual studies, signatures of obesity are not consistent across studies.
• A simple algorithm allows for more realistic predictions of intervention effects in free-living populations by accounting for the compensation that occurs.
• Researchers retract study supporting diet pills promoted by Dr. Oz.
• Comparing the effects of age, BMI and gender on severe injury (AIS 3+) in motor-vehicle crashes.
• Hypothalamic PGC-1a Protects Against High-Fat Diet Exposure by Regulating ERa.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: No effect of a healthy corner store initiative on the purchases or weights of urban, low-income youth.
• RCT: No differential effects of High-GI diets, Low GI-Diets, or just adding potatoes to diet on weight loss.
• RCT: No effect of Acupoint Stimulation on Weight Reduction for Obesity.
• RCT: Intervention was associated with lower intake of fried foods and sodas (p < 0.05) and higher knowledge scores (p < 0.01) 18 months later, yet not significantly associated with improved physical activity or lower BMI.
• There have been conflicting reports about the relationship between gut microbiota taxonomy compositions and obesity.
• RCT: No significant effects (in a small study) of a pregnancy lifestyle intervention to prevent gestational diabetes risk factors in overweight Hispanic women.
• Food Intake Did Not Differ between Obese Women Who Are Metabolically Healthy or Abnormal.
• RCT: Internet-Based Healthy Eating Program Causes Increased Fruit & Vegetable Consumption, But No Discernable Effect on BMI.
• Myth: Losing Weight Too Fast.

Clinical

• RCT: effects of an integrated school–worksite weight control program.
• Diabetes Status and Race are Associated with Cardiovascular Risk Markers in Obese Adolescents.
• Hemoglobin A1c and the Progression of Coronary Artery Calcification Among Adults Without Diabetes.
• RCT: Academic Detailing Improves BMI Assessment in Pediatric Practices.

Epidemiology

• Infectobesity in the Polish Population - Evaluation of an Association between Adenoviruses Type 5, 31, 36 and Human Obesity.
• Availability of State-Based Obesity Surveillance Data on High School Students with Disabilities in the United States.
• Postpartum Weight Change in Lactating Women by Breast-feeding Duration.
• Access to Healthy Food Stores Modifies Effect [Association] of a Dietary Intervention.
• Overweight, food neophobia and food liking in children: is there a relationship?
• Inverse Correlation Between Helicobacter pylori Colonization and Obesity in a Cohort of Inner City Children.

Psychology

• Behavioral and Neural Valuation of Foods Is Driven by Implicit Knowledge of Caloric Content.
• Morality in everyday life.
• Worry or craving? A selective review of evidence for food-related attention biases in obese individuals, eating-disorder patients, restrained eaters and healthy samples.
• Approach Bias for Food Cues in Obese Individuals.

Food

• Breakfast-skippers have lower dopamine levels, which can lead to overeating and eventual weight gain.
• Red Pepper Can Enhance Energy Metabolism and Satiety.
• The relationship between bioactive components in breast milk and bone mass in infants.
• Type of fatty acids in maternal diets during pregnancy and/or lactation and metabolic consequences of the offspring.
• Timing of fat and liquid sugar intake alters substrate oxidation and food efficiency in male Wistar rats.
• Exposure to non-nutritive sweeteners during pregnancy and lactation: Impact in programming of metabolic diseases in the progeny later in life.

Drugs

• Zafgen Aims Obesity Drug At Rare, Deadly Disease.
• Off-Label Antiobesity Treatment in Patients without Diabetes with GLP-1 Agonists in Clinical Practice.
• Reports of Pathological Gambling, Hypersexuality, and Compulsive Shopping Associated With Dopamine Receptor Agonist Drugs.
• Why the Work of Dr. Nancy J. Sullivan Could Be Key to a Potential Ebola Vaccine.

Exercise

• Breaking-up Sedentary Time Is Associated With Physical Function in Older Adults.
• Decreased basal metabolic rate may reflect pituitary secretion disturbance in elite female athlete.

Surgery

• MGAT2 deficiency and vertical sleeve gastrectomy have independent metabolic effects in the mouse.
• Association of Race and Socioeconomic Status with Outcomes Following Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass.
• Weight loss required by the severely obese to achieve clinically important differences in health-related quality of life: two-year prospective cohort study.

Methods

• Establishing of a reliable multiple reaction monitoring-based method for the quantification of obesity associated comorbidities in serum and adipose tissue requires intensive clinical validation.
• On the use of log-transformation versus nonlinear regression for analyzing biological power laws.
• A method superior to adding percentiles when only limited anthropometric data such as percentile tables are available for design models.

Longevity

• Sugary soda and Cell Aging.
• Why caloric restriction alone won't help you live longer.
• TOR Signaling Couples Oxygen Sensing to Lifespan in C. elegans.
• Aging Research—Where Do We Stand and Where Are We Going?
• Aging and energetics' 'Top 40' future research opportunities 2010-2013.
• BMI and All-Cause Mortality in a Large Prospective Cohort of White and Black U.S. Adults.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Impacts of extreme climatic events on the energetics of long-lived vertebrates: the case of the greater flamingo facing cold spells in the Camargue.
• Opportunity for selection in human health.
• Temperature acclimation rate of aerobic scope and feeding metabolism in fishes: implications in a thermally extreme future.
• Temperature effects induced by climate change on the growth and consumption by salmonines in Lakes Michigan and Huron.
• Among- and within-individual correlations between basal and maximal metabolic rates in birds.
• Let There Be Light.
• Modeling Growth Patterns of Swift Terns Using Non-Linear Mixed Effects Models.

Brown Fat

• Adenosine activates brown adipose tissue and recruits beige adipocytes via A2A receptors.
• Reduced brown adipose tissue thermogenesis during environmental interactions in transgenic rats with ataxin-3-mediated ablation of hypothalamic orexin neurons.

Energy Balance

• Energy requirements of adult dogs: a meta-analysis.
• Predictors of acute dietary compensation among sedentary women after free-living moderate intensity exercise.
• Effects of weight gain induced by controlled overfeeding on physical activity.

Policy Related

• Workplace wellness programs: how regulatory flexibility might undermine success.
• Who benefits from health system change?
• Health care transparency and economic theory.
• Why Bariatric Surgery Should be Given High Priority: An Argument from Law and Morality.

Commentary

• Retraction Watch: Authors retract green coffee bean diet paper touted by Dr. Oz.
• The scientific study of inspiration in the creative process: challenges and opportunities.
• Skin That Nobody Needs.
• Standardizing Portion Sizes May Not Benefit Human or Environmental Health.
• The university experiment – special section of Nature.
• BMI: Can’t Let It Go.
• Can Coupons Help Curb Obesity?
• Industry Influence, Integrity, and Respect.
• Concerning Limitations of Food-Environment Research: A Narrative Review and Commentary Framed around Obesity and Diet-Related Diseases in Youth.

Basic Science

• Leptin therapy alters appetite and neural responses to food stimuli in brain areas of leptin sensitive subjects without altering brain structure.
• Obesity May Speed Aging of the Liver, Study Suggests.
• Postnatal growth may identify infants genetically predisposed to obesity.
• Differential effects of caloric and carbohydrate restriction on prostate cancer in a mouse model.
• Diet Modification and Metformin Have a Beneficial Effect in a Fly Model of Obesity and Mucormycosis.
• The Role of Mio in the Drosophila Brain to Regulate Feeding and Metabolism.

General Science

• How to Make More Published Research True.
• Late onset temperature reduction can retard aging process in aged fish via a combined action of antioxidant system and IIS pathway.
• Recommendations from the NHLBI Working Group on Epidemiology.
• HSF-1-mediated cytoskeletal integrity determines thermotolerance and life span.
• Opportunity for selection in human health.
• 6,000-Year-Old Temple with Possible Sacrificial Altars Discovered.
• Physicists see potential dark matter from the Sun.
• Blinded with science: Trivial graphs and formulas increase ad persuasiveness and belief in product efficacy.
• Extremely Rare White Rhino Dies in Kenya—His Kind Nearly Extinct.
• Goliath Encounter: Puppy-Sized Spider Surprises Scientist in Rainforest.

Video

• Marie-Pierre St-Onge: The role of sleep restriction in weight management.
• Kim Gans: Fresh to You: An Innovative Public-Private Partnership to Increase Access to Fresh Fruits and Vegetables: History, lessons learned and Next Steps.
• Vicente Gilsanz: Expanding the role of imaging biomarkers to assess disease risk in children.
• Member Central Update:How R&D appropriations have stacked up in 2014.

Announcements

• New Book: Georges Vigarello. The Metamorphoses of Fat: A History of Obesity.
• 4th Short Course on Next-Generation Sequencing: Technology and Statistical Methods.
• Animal Obesity – causes, consequences and comparative aspects. 14-16 June 2015 in Uppsala, Sweden.
• Advances and Controversies in Clinical Nutrition in National Harbor, MD, December 4-6, 2014.
• American Society for Nutrition Scientific Sessions at EB 2015: Abstract deadline November 6.

Featured

• Body Size, Skills, and Income: Evidence From 150,000 Teenage Siblings.
• Flexible energetics of cheetah hunting strategies provide resistance against kleptoparasitism.
• Mendelian randomization: “The strongest evidence to date that obesity is independently associated with [Esophageal Adenocarcinoma and Barrett's Esophagus], and is not due to confounding or bias inherent in conventional epidemiologic analyses”.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Beyond Obesity: Western Diet Shown to Make People Unintelligent.
• Study: Prospective associations between dietary patterns and cognitive performance during adolescence.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Diets high vs low in carb do not cause greater body weight or fat in rats.
• RCT: “Rate of weight loss does not affect the proportion of weight regained within 144 weeks. These findings are not consistent with present dietary guidelines which recommend gradual over rapid weight loss.”
• RCT: “Contrary to hypotheses, targeting parent–adolescent communication and parental modeling did not lead to better outcomes in adolescent weight control”.
• “The findings suggest that breastfeeding has little impact on children's BMI. Increasing breastfeeding is unlikely to reduce the global epidemic of childhood obesity”.
• No significant effect of the nutraceutical supplement Gluco balance® on body condition and fat accumulation in overweight Shetland ponies.
• RCT: No effect of Telephone-based adiposity prevention for families with overweight children in primary analysis.
• RCT: Nutrition Education for Improvement of Diet Quality and Inflammation in Iranian Obese Women - “There were no significant differences in anthropometric indices of participants between the two groups at the end of intervention”.
• lusters of high BMI rates in Seattle were entirely explained by residential property values and residential density. Built environment factors such as food sources, streets, and parks were not linked to these clusters.

Clinical

• The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss.
• RCT: comparing scalable weight loss treatments in primary care.
• Obese Children Entering Puberty More Likely to be Metabolically Unhealthy Obese.

Epidemiology

• Diabetes Status and Race are Associated with Cardiovascular Risk Markers in Obese Adolescents.
• Cardiovascular Risk in Gullah African Americans with High Familial Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Project SuGAR.
• Increased Predictive Ability of BMI but not Other Risk Factors with Time in Men: 39-Year Follow-Up of Total Mortality in the Oslo Study.
• Trends in Dietary Quality Among Adults in the United States, 1999 Through 2010.
• Preventing Obesity, Diabetes, Might Also Reduce Adult Invasive GBS Infection.

Food and Diet

• Consumption of Clarified Grapefruit Juice Ameliorates High-Fat Diet Induced Insulin Resistance and Weight Gain in Mice.
• Sugar-Fat Seesaw: A Systematic Review of the Evidence.
• Is Supersizing off the Menu?
• Genome-wide Meta-analysis Identifies Six Novel Loci Associated with Habitual Coffee Consumption.
• Dietary Diversity at 6 Months of Age is Associated with Subsequent Infant Growth in Zambia.
• Mediterranean Diets and Metabolic Syndrome Status in the PREDIMED Randomized Trial.

Drugs

• RCT: The thermic effect of sugar-free Red Bull: Do the non-caffeine bioactive ingredients in energy drinks play a role?
• RCT: Initial evidence that GLP-1 receptor blockade fails to suppress postprandial satiety or promote food intake in humans.

Exercise

• RCT: Short rest interval lengths between sets optimally enhance body composition and performance with 8 weeks of strength resistance training in older men.
• RCT: Breaking up workplace sitting time with intermittent standing bouts improves fatigue and musculoskeletal discomfort in overweight/obese office workers.
• RCT: The effect of post-exercise drink macronutrient content on appetite and energy intake.
• Fitness Fun Provided by Local Childhood Obesity Prevention Organization.
• Association of Anthropometrics Indices with Atherosclerosis in Retired NFL Players.

Psychology

• The experience of eating chocolate is intensified if it is shared.
• Feeling happy and thinking about food. Counteractive effects of mood and memory on food consumption.
• People who discuss their weight loss on Twitter report more social support and less negativity from their Twitter friends than their Facebook friends and in-person relationships.
• Asymmetric Association Between Exposure to Obesity and Weight Gain Among Adolescents.
• Development and Validation of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-4.

Brown Fat

• Obesity: Brown Fat Contains Energy Cells That Can Aid Weight Loss.
• Obese People Cannot Convert 'White Fat' to Calorie-burning 'Beige Fat'.

Surgery

• The Primary Obesity Surgery Endolumenal (POSE™) Procedure: One Year Patient Weight Loss and Safety Outcomes.
• Research Trends in Measurement of Quality of Life Following Bariatric Surgery: Emerging Interest in Appearance.
• Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and calorie restriction: differences and similarities of endocrine and metabolic effects in obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• The Threshold Shift Paradigm of Obesity: Evidence from Surgically Induced Weight Loss.

Methods

• Validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the attitudes toward obese persons scale and the beliefs about obese persons scale.
• Comparison of Two Measures of Weight Criticism in Youth: Associations With Physical Activity Engagement and Attitudes, Weight Status, and Health-Related Quality of Life.
• Selecting a separable parametric spatiotemporal covariance structure for longitudinal imaging data.
• Dietary Records: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
• Measuring and reporting attrition from obesity treatment programs: A call to action!
• Even Modest Prediction Accuracy of Genomic Models Can Have Large Clinical Utility: Hypothetical Example with Bariatric Surgery.

Mathematical

• Determination of personalized diabetes treatment plans using a two-delay model.
• Model of adipose tissue cellularity dynamics during food restriction.

Economics

• “Using empirical examples, the study illuminates how consumer freedom is attained in ways that are both complementary to, and in conflict with, practices and experiences of controlling food intake”.
• Applying a semiparametric extension of Wagstaff's corrected concentration index to explore how individual-level health inequalities vary with the degree of regional deprivation, obesity among lower income groups also exists at the small area level.

Stigma

• Weight bias in 2001 versus 2013: Contradictory attitudes among obesity researchers and health professionals.
• Ideology, Thin-Ideal Internalization, and Social Comparison: An Examination of the Correlates of Weight Bias.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• The starvation-predation trade-off shapes the strategic use of protein for energy during fasting.
• Heterozygosity correlates with body size, nest site quality and productivity in a colonial waterbird, the whiskered tern (Chlidonias hybrida, Aves: Sternidae).
• Geometric factors influencing the diet of vertebrate predators in marine and terrestrial environments.
• Do assortative preferences contribute to assortative mating for adiposity?
• Sea Floors Host Surprise Methane-Munching Microbes.
• Review of Energy Metabolism During Human Growth Processes.

Policy Related

• The Problem with Weighing an Obesity Claim.
• Facts and Concerns About School-Based BMI Screening, Surveillance and Reporting.
• Obesity Test' Required on All New Legislation, Report Says.
• Progress Made Against Obesity in Massachusetts.

Commentary

• It is time to revisit current dietary recommendations for saturated fat.
• Does The Mediterranean Diet Really 'Reverse' Metabolic Syndrome?
• Chewing the Fat with Diet Journalist Gary Taubes.
• Low Carb Diets Win for Weight Loss: Gary Taubes explains why.
• Chickens have gotten ridiculously large since the 1950s.
• How our botched understanding of 'science' ruins everything.
• Lies, Damn Pies and Obesity Statistics: Commentary on UK Obesity Stats.

Basic Science

• RCT: Lipase Supplementation before a High-Fat Meal Reduces Perceptions of Fullness in Healthy Subjects.
• Space flight increased body weight in mice.
• Regulation of energy metabolism by the skeleton: Osteocalcin and beyond.
• New class of fatty molecules battles diabetes in mice.
• Hunger Games: How the brain 'browns' fat to aid weight loss.
• Sexually dimorphic functional connectivity in response to high vs. low energy-dense food cues in obese humans: An fMRI study.
• A Mitochondrial ATP Synthase Subunit Interacts with TOR Signaling to Modulate Protein Homeostasis and Lifespan in Drosophila.
• Stem Cell Success Raises Hopes of Type 1 Diabetes Cure.

General Science

• The Flurry of Copycats on PubMed.
• The Statistical Crisis in Science.
• Overcoming the effects of selectively presented scientific information in partisan media.
• Clarity in Climate Modeling.
• Mom’s Mitochondria Affect Pup Longevity.
• F1000 Recommendation: High-resolution mapping of intracellular fluctuations using carbon nanotubes.
• Important Breast Cancer Findings of 2014.
• Mice and Rats Achieve Similar Levels of Performance in an Adaptive Decision-Making Task.
• The era of team science is upon us functionally, but not yet structurally.
• Keeping up with the Jobses: the role of technology in reproducible research.
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• Why Asia's Glaciers Are Mysteriously Expanding, Not Melting.
• Estrogen in Men.
• NY Rats Carry a Remarkable Amount of Pathogens, Study Says.
• A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer’s disease.

Video

• Jeff Volek: The Many Facets of Keto-Adaptation: Health, Performance, & Beyond.
• Rebecca M. Puhl: Weight Stigma-Implications for Research and Public Health.
• Jeffrey Friedman (Rockefeller U./HHMI): The Causes of Obesity and the Discovery of Leptin.

Announcements

• Champions of the Obesity Society.
• 2014 Ethan Sims Young Investigator Award Finalists.