Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• Binding of Adenovirus Type 36 to Human Adipocytes (SGBS Cells).
• Whole Foods: America's temple of pseudoscience.
• More research is required to establish whether or not the relationship between family dinners and risky adolescent behaviors is an artifact of underlying confounders.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline 1: Obesity rate for young children plummets 43% in a decade.
• Study Authors' Conclusion: Overall, there have been no significant changes in obesity prevalence in youth or adults between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012. Obesity prevalence remains high and thus it is important to continue surveillance.
• Headline 2: Obese women only get an average of 1 hour of exercise a year, study says.
• Study: Validation of a Novel Protocol for Calculating Estimated Energy Requirements and Average Daily Physical Activity Ratio for the US Population: 2005-2006.
• Commentary 1: Media coverage of obesity and exercise study leaves out many findings.
• Commentary 2: Not So Fast: Only One Hour of Exercise Per Year?

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Glucose uptake in the brain did not vary significantly among men on a high protein/low carbohydrate diet and high protein/moderate carbohydrate diet.
• Meta-analysis: The evidence from available RCTs does not show that glucomannan intake generates statistically significant weight loss.
• Combination of low dose of the anti-adipogenic agents resveratrol and phenelzine in drinking water is not sufficient to prevent obesity in very-high-fat diet-fed mice.
• RCT: No significant effect of an early childhood obesity intervention on father’s obesity risk behaviors: the Melbourne InFANT Program.
• Study findings suggest that a BMI of 22.5-24.9 was associated with the most favorable mortality risk.

Clinical

• Impact of Computer-Mediated, Obesity-Related Nutrition Education Interventions for Adolescents: A Systematic Review.
• RCT: A primary-school-based study to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity – the EdAl (Educació en Alimentació) study.
• RCT: Findings suggest that though labeling obesity as a disease lowers body-image dissatisfaction, it can lead to selection of higher calorie foods.

Basic Science

• Adipocytes under assault: Environmental disruption of adipose physiology.
• A Drosophila In Vivo Screen Identifies Store-Operated Calcium Entry as a Key Regulator of Adiposity.
• Metabolomics Yield a Novel Biomarker for Predicting Diabetes Mellitus Risk in Humans.
• Autonomic nerves and perivascular fat: Interactive mechanisms.
• Molecular and metabolic profiles suggest that increased lipid catabolism in adipose tissue contributes to leanness in domestic chickens.
• Diesel Exhaust Particle-Induced Airway Responses are Augmented in Obese Rats.

Caloric Restriction

• Caloric restriction reduces sympathetic activity similar to beta-blockers but conveys additional mitochondrio-protective effects in rats.
• Caloric restriction and CB1 blockade activate AMP-activated protein kinase and mediate cardio-protection in a model of premature cardiac senescence in rats.

Food

• The Paleo Diet: What Does the Science Say?
• RCT: Overfeeding Polyunsaturated and Saturated Fat Causes Distinct Effects on Liver and Visceral Fat Accumulation in Humans.
• Food quality and motivation: A refined low-fat diet induces obesity and impairs performance on a progressive ratio schedule of instrumental lever pressing in rats.
• Associations between dairy foods, diabetes, and metabolic health: potential mechanisms and future directions.

Drugs

• Combating the dual burden: therapeutic targeting of common pathways in obesity and type 2 diabetes.
• Olanzapine reduced brown adipose tissue thermogenesis and locomotor activity in female rats.
• RCT: Weight changes in obese adults 6-months after discontinuation of double-blind zonisamide or placebo treatment.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Palaeobiogeography and evolution of insular bovids: ecogeographic patterns of body mass variation and morphological changes.
• Fattening strategies and social status in Willow Tits Poecile montanus during the non-breeding season: support for the optimal body mass hypothesis.
• Study calls into question the validity of using maximum recorded longevity as a proxy for different species’ maximum longevities in comparative studies investigating the evolution of lifespan.
• Researchers discover a Bergmann's rule association between obesity-related human gut microbial composition and geographical latitude using data from over 1,000 participants world-wide.

Epidemiology

• BMI and the risk of injury in adults: A cross-sectional study.
• Oral fat perception is related with BMI, preference and consumption of high-fat foods.
• Cohort Trends in the Body Mass–Mortality Association.
• Substantial discordance exists between high non-HDL cholesterol and high LDL-cholesterol among US adults.

Brown Fat

• Adiponectin reduces thermogenesis by inhibiting brown adipose tissue activation in mice.
• Brite/beige fat and UCP1 — is it thermogenesis?

Stigma

• “No More Name-Calling” (Person First Language).
• Association of Obesity with Self-esteem, Peer Victimization and Behavior Problems in Adolescents.

Technology

• A clinical and biological evaluation of a novel, noninvasive radiofrequency device for the long-term reduction of adipose tissue.
• Glooko unveils population health tool.

Exercise

• RCT: Effects of high-intensity interval exercise versus continuous-moderate intensity exercise on postprandial glycemic control assessed by continuous glucose monitoring in obese adults.
• Study calculates correction factors for the calculation of metabolic equivalents in overweight to extremely obese individuals.

Genetics

• Gene-BMI Interactions Associated with Methotrexate Toxicity Evaluated by UAB.
• Correlation analysis of genetic admixture and social identification with BMI in a Native American Community.
• Loss of Mpzl3 Function Causes Various Skin Abnormalities and Greatly Reduced Adipose Depots in mice.

Policy Related

• Legal Largesse or Big, Fat Failure: Do Weight Discrimination Laws Improve Employment Outcomes of the Obese?
• Projected Employment Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes.
• USDA and White House announces proposed rules to limit marketing of unhealthy foods in schools.
• FDA proposes updates to nutrition facts label on food packages.

Mathematics

• A model of social influence on BMI.
• Weight loss composition is one-fourth fat-free mass: a critical review and critique of this widely cited rule.

Methods

• In vitro and in vivo comparison of two, three and four point Dixon techniques for clinical intramuscular fat quantification at 3T.
• Development of automatic visceral fat volume calculation software for CT volume data.
• Validation study of a pooled electronic healthcare database: the association of obesity with the revision rate of total knee arthroplasty.

General Science

• Sleep apnea during REM associated with poor glucose control.
• Why is academic writing so academic?
• Twelve tips on how to not get your paper published.
• Sun unleashes monster solar flare, biggest of 2014.
• Monkey brains wired to share.
• Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers.
• Resting energy expenditure is independently associated with systolic blood pressure in longitudinal analysis of overweight African American and European American women.
• Strapped scientists abandon research and students.

Video

• On Value of Basic Science and How to Convey to Public.
• Prof Jim Hill: Can physical activity prevent obesity?
• World Anti-Bullying Day - Short anti-fat-bullying video.
• Why do we overeat? A neurobiological perspective.

Commentary

• UAB research paper on obesity was a top read in medical community.
• Improving diet and physical activity to reduce population prevalence of overweight and obesity: An overview of current evidence.
• FGF21 Holds Promises for Treating Obesity-related Insulin Resistance and Hepatosteatosis.
• The puzzling condition of pre-diabetes.

Announcements

• Fourth International Conference on Food Studies being held at Monash University Prato Centre in Prato, Italy from 20-21 October 2014.
• Obesity Week 2013 presentation recordings available.
• Funding campaign to support activities against bullying.
• UAB School of Public Health is hosting a short course on the mathematical sciences in obesity research from May 12-16, 2014.

Featured

• RCT: Does Portion Size Matter? Among subjects given free lunch for 6 months, there was no significant difference in weight by portion size of the free lunch given.
• Video: John Sievenpiper - Sugars and cardiometabolic health: A story lost in translation?
• Optimal Defaults in the Prevention of Pediatric Obesity: From Platform to Practice.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Vitamin C and E supplementation hampers cellular adaptation to endurance training in humans.
• “…Exergaming can be considered a highly relevant strategic tool for the adoption of an active and healthy lifestyle and may be useful in the fight against childhood obesity. However, we believe that such a conclusion is premature and not supported by the current state of knowledge on this topic.”
• RCT: For women who were overweight or obese, antenatal lifestyle advice did not reduce the risk delivering a baby weighing above the 90th centile for gestational age and sex or improve maternal pregnancy and birth outcomes.
• Recommended fasting blood glucose rates not in line with levels observed among those with recommended A1C rates.

Headaches

• Obesity and Headache: Part I – A Systematic Review of the Epidemiology of Obesity and Headache.
• Obesity and Headache: Part II – Potential Mechanism and Treatment Considerations.

Genetics

• Activation of AKT by O-GlcNAcylation Induces Vascular Calcification in Diabetes.
• Calico Cat's Patchwork Fur May Help Humans Beat Obesity in Genetics Study.

Clinical

• Use of HbA1c for Diagnoses of Diabetes and Prediabetes: Comparison with Diagnoses Based on Fasting and 2-Hr Glucose Values and Effects of Gender, Race, and Age.
• Nutritional Strategies for the Preservation of Fat Free Mass at High Altitude.
• Feasibility of a virtual learning collaborative to implement an obesity QI project in 29 pediatric practices.
• Metabolic profile before and after short-term overfeeding with a high-fat diet: a comparison between South Asian and white men.
• The Effect of Eight Weeks of Whole Body Vibration Training on Body Composition and Adipose Tissue Localized in Overweight Women.
• A systematic review and meta-analysis of whole of community interventions to prevent excessive population weight gain.

Food

• Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention.
• The Full-Fat Paradox: Whole Milk May Keep Us Lean.
• Intake of trans fat and incidence of stroke in the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) cohort.
• High saturated fat and low carbohydrate diet decreases lifespan independent of body weight in mice.
• Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart.
• High-fat diet triggers Mallory-Denk body formation via misfolding and crosslinking of excess keratin 8 in mice.
• RCT: Comparative effect of two Mediterranean diets versus a low-fat diet on glycaemic control in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

Drugs

• Suppression of adipogenesis by valproic acid through repression of USF1-activated fatty acid synthesis in adipocytes.
• RCT: Effects of growth hormone administration for 6 months on bone turnover and bone marrow fat in obese premenopausal women.
• RCT: Liraglutide improves long-term glycemic control and weight loss compared with insulin aspart.

Exercise

• Obesity and Cardiovascular Diseases – Implications Regarding Fitness, Fatness and Severity in the Obesity Paradox.
• RCT: Success of a new programme for tackling obesity in men.
• Impact of moderate versus mild aerobic exercise training on inflammatory cytokines in obese type 2 diabetic patients.
• RCT: Hormonal adaptations to endurance training versus resistance training in postmenopause obese women.

Psychology

• Dietary restriction reverses obesity-induced anhedonia in rats.
• RCT: Developing self-regulation for dietary temptations: intervention effects on physical, self-regulatory and psychological outcomes.

Stigma

• The Effect of Context on the Evaluation of Obese vs. Average-Weight Children As a Function of Antifat Attitude.
• Perceived judgment about weight can negatively influence weight loss: A cross-sectional study of overweight and obese patients.
• Overweight and obese individuals with internalized weight bias are at risk for impaired health.

Surgery

• RCT: The short-term results of sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass regarding weight loss, resolution of obesity-related comorbidities and complications were not different at 6 months.
• On top of a majority of health plans not providing coverage, only 1% of eligible patients get weight loss surgery.

Methods

• A differential dielectric affinity glucose sensor.
• A Novel Procedure for Evaluating the Reinforcing Properties of Tastants in Laboratory Rats: Operant Intraoral Self-administration.
• Feasibility of Ecological Momentary Assessment to Characterize Adolescent Postoperative Diet and Activity Patterns Following Weight Loss Surgery.
• Assessment of the Healthy Eating Index-2010 as a Valid and Reliable Measure of Diet Quality According to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
• Feeding and metabolic consequences of scheduled consumption of large, binge-type meals of high fat diet in the Sprague–Dawley rat.
• Bioelectrical impedance analysis results cannot be used in place of DXA without bias and error, when measuring fat-free mass and fat mass in patients with cystic fibrosis.

Epidemiology

• Intermittent fasting during Ramadan associated with a transient increase in total, LDL, and HDL cholesterols and hs-CRP in ethnic obese adolescents.
• Height, adiposity and hormonal cardiovascular risk markers in childhood: how to partition the associations?
• Proximity to 'unhealthy' food outlets associated with prevalence of overweight and obesity among UK children.
• Obesity is associated with higher 4E-BP1 expression in endometrial cancer.
• A heartier appetite in early infancy is prospectively associated with more rapid growth up to age 15 months, suggesting appetite as an early marker for risk of weight gain.

Aging

• Nucleolar GTPase NOG-1 Regulates Development, Fat Storage, and Longevity through Insulin/IGF Signaling in C. elegans.
• Attribution of Causes of Weight Loss and Weight Gain to 3-Year Mortality in Older Adults: Results from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam.
• Protein intake protects against weight loss in healthy community-dwelling older adults.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Population genomics of eusocial insects: the costs of a vertebrate-like effective population size.
• Competition, virulence, host body mass and the diversification of macro-parasites.
• Chronic exposure to hypercapnic conditions alters nutrient allocation to organ systems and functions, leading to changes in somatic and reproductive production, in the sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus.

Sperm

• In Subfertile Couple, Abdominal Fat Loss in Men Is Associated with Improvement of Sperm Quality and Pregnancy: A Case-Series.
• Sustained High Protein-Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B Activity in the Sperm of Obese Male Impairs the Sperm Acrosome Reaction.

Intergenerational Effects

• In Utero Exposure to Diesel Exhaust Air Pollution Promotes Adverse Intrauterine Conditions, Resulting in Weight Gain, Altered Blood Pressure, and Increased Susceptibility to Heart Failure in Adult Mice.
• Animal mothers’ milk differs by infant’s sex.
• Inadequate weight gain in overweight and obese pregnant women: what is the effect on fetal growth?
• Maternal and postweaning high-fat diets disturb hippocampal gene expression, learning and memory function in rats.

Policy Related

• “Natural” Class Action Against Dietary Supplements.
• California law proposal would put health warning labels on soda.

Basic Science

• Micro-architectural changes in cancellous bone differ in female and male C57BL/6 mice with high-fat diet-induced low bone mineral density.
• Endogenous ways to stimulate brown adipose tissue in humans.
• A Functional, Genome-wide Evaluation of Liposensitive Yeast Identifies the “ARE2 Required for Viability” (ARV1) Gene Product as a Major Component of Eukaryotic Fatty Acid Resistance.
• Obesity interferes with the orosensory detection of long-chain fatty acids in humans.
• Chronic exposure to low doses of pharmaceuticals disturbs the hepatic expression of circadian genes in lean and obese mice.
• Differentiated human stem cells resemble fetal, not adult, beta cells.
• Regulation of Hepatic Energy Metabolism and Gluconeogenesis by BAD.
• Mechanisms of the Munchies: Using mice to explore cannabinoid type-1 receptors in hunger, olfaction, and food intake.
• RAGE Regulates the Metabolic and Inflammatory Response to High Fat Feeding in Mice.
• Islet number rather than islet size is a major determinant of beta and alpha cell mass in humans.

Commentary

• 3 Factors Obscure Breastfeeding’s Effect on Obesity.
• If fast food is addictive, cheap and available, and almost all of us eat it, then why aren’t we all obese?
• Comment on letter to the editor from F. Lapostolle: ‘Worldwide relation between the number of McDonald's restaurants and the prevalence of obesity’.
• David Katz: Gills, Pills, and Obesity Genes.
• Healthy snacking recommendations: One size does not fit all.
• Readers of the NYT respond to Gary Taubes' "Why nutrition is so confusing".
• In search of a righteous diet.
• The FDA, 23andMe, 'unverified health claims' and the future of direct-to-consumer genetic testing.

Video

• Intraoral self-administration for studying the acquisition and maintenance of response to sweet solutions in rodents.

General Science

• Tracing Ancestry, Researchers Produce a Genetic Atlas of Human Mixing Events.
• The ethics of big data.
• Approaches and Costs for Sharing Clinical Research Data.
• Admixture facilitates genetic adaptations to high altitude in Tibet.
• Professors, We Need You!
• NSF Survey: Americans struggle with science, but respect scientists and are interested in hearing about the latest scientific breakthroughs.
• Did the model for da Vinci's Vitruvian Man die of a hernia?

Announcements

• Full/Associate/Assistant Member in Obesity & Cancer in Public Health Sciences.

Featured

• DNA Methylation Patterns Are Associated with n–3 Fatty Acid Intake in Yup’ik People.
• Early-life sleep deprivation persistently depresses melatonin production and bio-energetics of the pineal gland: potential implications for the development of metabolic deficiency in rats.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: A program involving staff supervision of recess to promote physical activity backfires for some children.
• RCT: No Long-Term Effects of a School-Based Physical Activity Program (KISS) on Adiposity in Children.
• Significant differences in self-efficacy for Physical Activity and enjoyment of Physical Activity, but minimal increases in girls' Physical Activity in the GoGirlGo program.
• Systematic Review: Use of transtheoretical stages of change model in combination with diet or physical activity, or both, and other interventions produced inconclusive evidence of sustained weight loss.
• Increased physical activity did not increase the risk of an adverse metabolic response.
• Obesity's Link to Type 2 Diabetes Not So Clear-Cut: Study.
• The Full-Fat Paradox: Whole Milk May Keep Us Lean.
• Resveratrol does not increase body fat loss induced by energy restriction in rats.

Video

• Ronald E. Kleinman: Breastfeeding and infant health: an evidence based approach.
• Juliano Laran: Life History Strategy, Food Choice, and Caloric Consumption.

Basic Science

• Obesity: A complex role for adipose tissue macrophages.
• Mechanisms of the Munchies.
• Nutrient sensing and signaling in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Adipose Tissue

• The origin and definition of brite versus white and classical brown adipocytes.
• Novel nuances of human brown fat.

Genomics

• Differential methylation in visceral adipose tissue of obese men discordant for metabolic disturbances.
• Extensive changes in the transcriptional profile of human adipose tissue including genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation after a six months exercise intervention.
• Whole-Genome Pathway Analysis on 132,497 Individuals Identifies Novel Gene-Sets Associated with BMI.
• Variation in genes related to hepatic lipid metabolism and changes in waist circumference and body weight.

Body Composition

• Body composition during weight change and resting energy expenditure and homeostasis model assessment index in overweight nonsmoking adults.

Clinical

• Greater weight loss among men participating in a commercial weight loss program: a pooled analysis of 2 RCTs.
• RCT: Effectiveness of Peer-Based Healthy Living Lesson Plans on Anthropometric Measures and Physical Activity in Elementary School Students.
• RCT: Protocol and recruitment results from a randomized controlled trial comparing group phone-based versus newsletter interventions for weight loss maintenance among rural breast cancer survivors.

Surgery

• Comparison of the Long-term Results of Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass and Sleeve Gastrectomy for Morbid Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized and Nonrandomized Trials.
• Unfavourable outcomes of liposuction and their management.
• Obesity Does Not Increase Mortality after Emergency Surgery.

Ecology, Evolution & Energetics

• Effects of temperature acclimation on body mass and energy budget in the Chinese bulbul Pycnonotus sinensis.
• The appearance of serrated teeth coincide with the arrival of large-body plant-eating animals in the fossil record.

Neuroscience

• PFC neurons take control of food intake.
• The effects of high-intensity exercise on neural responses to images of food.

Epidemiology

• Revisiting the freshman 15: Assessing BMI in the first college year and beyond.
• Small Study Reports Firstborn Males Have a Higher Risk of Obesity.
• Trucker is most obese occupation, doctor, dentist is least.
• Association between ownership of common household devices and obesity and diabetes in high, middle and low income countries.

Physical Activity and Exercise

• RCT: Gain-framed messages were more effective than loss-framed messages in promoting PA behaviors only among older men.
• RCT: Implementation Intentions for Physical Activity Behavior in Older Adult Women: An Examination of Executive Function as a Moderator of Treatment Effects.
• Association of basketball season with body composition in elite junior players.
• Effects of feeding frequency and dietary water content on voluntary physical activity in healthy adult cats.

Food

• Glucose-Fructose Enhances Performance versus Isocaloric, but Not Moderate, Glucose.
• Erratum to sugar research paper.
• RCT: Effect of a 6-month vegan low-carbohydrate ('Eco-Atkins') diet on cardiovascular risk factors and body weight in hyperlipidaemic adults.
• RCT: Neurodevelopment, nutrition, and growth until 12 mo of age in infants fed a low-energy, low-protein formula supplemented with bovine milk fat globule membranes.
• Evaluation of a prototype ration aimed at increasing caloric intake in a field environment.
• RCT: The effect of acute dark chocolate consumption on carbohydrate metabolism and performance during rest and exercise.
• Effect of maternal protein restriction during pregnancy and postweaning high-fat feeding on diet-induced thermogenesis in adult mouse offspring.
• Systematic review: Health effects of protein intake in healthy elderly populations.
• Workshop Summary of Sustainable Diets: Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet.
• Interaction between genetic predisposition to obesity and dietary calcium in relation to subsequent change in body weight and waist circumference.
• The endocannabinoid system controls food intake via olfactory processes.
• Development and validation of a Food Choices Score for use in weight-loss interventions.

Methods

• The oral (13)C-bicarbonate technique for estimation of energy expenditure in dogs: validation against indirect calorimetry.
• Role of Suppressor Variables in Primary Prevention Obesity Research: Examples from Two Predictive Models.
• Scientific method: Statistical errors.

Ethics

• Scientists should uphold animal research standards.
• Bioethicists issue guidance on handling incidental findings.
• Blind eye to scientific fraud is dangerous.

Policy Related

• Obesity and climate change mitigation in Australia: overview and analysis of policies with co-benefits.
• Are Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes a Cost-Effective Means of Reducing Weight?
• Health warning labels proposed for sodas, other sugary drinks sold in California.

Commentary

• Sweet And Sour: The Media Decided Fructose Was Bad For America; But Science Had Second Thoughts.
• David Katz questions recent epidemiologic study on sugar.
• Dr. Sharma “Four Fiery Facts About Losing Weight With Hot Sauce”.
• The Obesity Crisis and the Field of Kinesiology: A Discursive and Memetic Consideration.
• The Persistent Mythology of Food Deserts.
• A grizzly answer for obesity.
• The New Weight-Loss Drugs, Lorcaserin and Phentermine-Topiramate.
• Why Nutrition Is So Confusing?
• 3 Reasons to Mind the Gap between Smoking and Junk Food.

Stigma

• The Moderating Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Relationships Between Obesity Framing and Stigmatization of Fat People.
• Obesity Bias Among Health and Non-Health Students Attending an Australian University and Their Perceived Obesity Education.
• Moving Subjects, Feeling Bodies: Emotion and the Materialization of Fat Feminine Subjectivities in Village on a Diet.

Transgenerational Effects

• Mouse Maternal high-fat diet during pregnancy and lactation reduces the appetitive behavioral component in female offspring tested in a brief-access taste procedure.
• Perinatal exposure to 4-nonylphenol affects adipogenesis in first and second generation rats offspring.

General Science

• New theories on the origins of Native Americans.
• Comparative genomic hybridisation array and DNA sequencing to direct treatment of metastatic breast cancer.
• FDA approves camera pill.
• Computer chips that can listen to bacteria.

Announcements

• Prof Claude Bouchard honored by induction into Faculty Fellows of the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study.
• The Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2014. Carbohydrates in health: friends or foes? 14–17 July 2014.
• National Institute of Aging Summer Training Course in Experimental Aging Research.
• EMBO EMBL Symposia.

Featured

• Breath carbon stable isotope ratios identify changes in energy balance and substrate utilization in humans.
• RCT: Watching television while eating increases energy intake: Examining the mechanisms in female participants.
• A point comes when activism stops being constructive and becomes counterproductive hyperactivism. With respect to obesity, we’ve reached that point.

Headline versus Study

• Headline: Tighter economic regulation needed to reverse obesity epidemic - study.
• Study: Ecological association between BMI and fast food purchases in 25 countries.

Findings Contrary to Hpotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Systematic Review: Glycemic index, glycemic load and childhood obesity – inconsistent evidence.
• RCT: no effect of low glycemic index diet on blood pressure and obesity among adolescent girls with excess weight.
• RCT: "These results show that frequent ingestion of the High Glycemic Index meals, contrary to the previous reports, suppresses appetite more than that of Low Glycemic Index meals, but did not affect energy balance in physically active normal-weight males."
• Facilities [for physical activity] and activity/obesity were not related using self-defined neighborhoods.
• No difference in weight gain among mice on High Fat Low Carbohydrate vs. Low Fat High Carbohydrate diets.
• “Contrary to expectations, urban green space seems to increase [was associated with] the likelihood of insufficient physical activity.”
• Relating Built Environment to Physical Activity: Two Failures to Validate.
• There was no relation between sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and percent body fat (p=0.9296) or other outcomes.
• Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption not associated with 7-year risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus in middle-aged Japanese men.
• New Neighborhood Grocery Store Increased Awareness Of Food Access But Did Not Alter Dietary Habits Or Obesity.

Basic Science

• Mechanical engineer studies flow of blood vessels related to diabetes and resulting heart disease.
• LECT2 functions as a hepatokine that links obesity to skeletal muscle insulin resistance.
• RIP140 represses the brown-in-white adipocyte program including a futile cycle of triacyclglycerol breakdown and synthesis.
• Birth weight specific responses to postnatal high-fat diet-induced changes in meat quality traits and skeletal muscle proteome of pigs.
• Vitamin D concentration, obesity, and risk of diabetes: a Mendelian randomisation study.
• Amylin activates distributed CNS nuclei to control energy balance.

Timing of Food Intake

• Review: Timing of food intake and obesity
• What Hath Night to Do with Sleep? Night Eating Syndrome.

Food

• Meta-analysis: Could capsaicinoids help to support weight management?
• Meta-analysis: Comparison of Effects of Long-Term Low-Fat vs High-Fat Diets on Blood Lipid Levels in Overweight or Obese Patients
• RCT: Greater weight loss among men participating in a commercial weight loss program.
• RCT: 2 year study of palaeolithic-type diet compared with Nordic Nutrition Recommendations.
• RCT: Whole-grain intake favorably affects markers of systemic inflammation in obese children.

Hemodynamic effects of food and drink

• RCT: Results show an overall negative hemodynamic profile in response to ingestion of the energy drink Red Bull, in particular an elevated blood pressure and double product and a lower cerebral blood flow velocity.
• Effect of food intake on left ventricular wall stress.
• Drinking cold water increases blood pressure in healthy young students.

Physical Activity & Exercise

• RCT: Aerobic Exercise Attenuates the Loss of Skeletal Muscle during Energy Restriction in Adults with Visceral Adiposity.
• Physical Activity and Cardiometabolic Biomarkers in Youths: A 2013 Update.
• Daily Physical Activity and Time-Space Using of Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers’ Children in Southeast Cameroon.
• RCT: Evaluating an incentive-based outdoor physical activity programme to increase outdoor time and prevent myopia in children.
• Taking physical activity to the streets: The popularity of ciclovia and open streets initiatives in the US.
• Physical Activity And Bone: May The Force Be With You.
• Physical activity and the neighborhood environment in a heavy snowfall area in Japan: The role of “Gangi-dori”.

Fetal Drive

• Holsteins Favor Heifers, Not Bulls: Biased Milk Production Programmed during Pregnancy as a Function of Fetal Sex.
• Maternal–fetal metabolic gene–gene interactions and risk of neural tube defects.

Reproductive Fitness

• Impaired sperm chromatin integrity in obese mice.
• Interactions between negative energy balance, metabolic diseases, uterine health and immune response in transition dairy cows.

Ecology, Evolution & Energetics

• Theoretical and empirical perspectives on the scaling of supply and demand in social insect colonies.
• Nutritional values of tortoises relative to ungulates from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for foraging and social behavior.
• Mate-guarding constrains feeding activity but not energetic status of wild male long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis).
• Validation of adipose lipid content as a body condition index for polar bears.
• Socioecological Correlates of Energy Balance Using Urinary C-Peptide Measurements in Wild Female Mountain Gorillas.

Clinical

• RCT: An Intervention Based on Schachter’s Externality Theory for Overweight Children: The Regulation of Cues Pilot.
• Systematic Review: Due to the small number of high quality studies, modest evidence was found for the effectiveness of cellular phones in the delivery of weight loss interventions for people who were overweight or obese.
• Mendelian randomization association of cardiometabolic traits and BMI.
• RCT: Intensive lifestyle intervention improves glucose tolerance in obese adolescents.
• Special Series: Bariatric Surgery.

Policy Related

• Systematic Review: More research is needed to understand whether School Competitive Food and Beverage Policies affect overall consumption and weight outcomes – current results are mixed.
• The Massachusetts School-Based BMI experiment - Gleaning implementation lessons for future childhood obesity reduction efforts.

Psychology

• Changing fit and fat bias using an implicit retraining task.
• Prolonged financial stress predicts subsequent obesity: Results from a prospective study of an Australian national sample.
• Anticipation of a psychosocial stressor differentially influences ghrelin, cortisol and food intake among emotional and non-emotional eaters.

Neurology

• Influence of Sucrose Ingestion on Brainstem and Hypothalamic Intrinsic Oscillations in Lean and Obese Women.
• RCT: High intensity exercise increases neural responses to food images in reward-related regions of the brain.
• A comparison of functional brain changes associated with surgical versus behavioral weight loss.

Adipocytes

• White, brown and pink adipocytes: the extraordinary plasticity of the adipose organ.
• Distinction of white, beige and brown adipocytes derived from mesenchymal stem cells.
• Adipocyte size and cellular expression of caveolar proteins analyzed by confocal microscopy.
• Fra-2/AP-1 controls adipocyte differentiation and survival by regulating PPAR? and hypoxia.
• MicroRNAs Regulate Human Adipocyte Lipolysis: Effects of miR-145 Are Linked to TNF-a

Temperature

• Regulation of body temperature and brown adipose tissue thermogenesis by bombesin receptor subtype-3.
• A new mathematical model to simulate AVA cold-induced vasodilation reaction to local cooling.

Methods

• Use of an Electronic Reporting System to Determine Adverse Event Rates, Adverse Event Costs, and the Relationship of Adverse Events with Patients’ BMI.
• Validation of respiratory inductive plethysmography (LifeShirt) in obesity hypoventilation syndrome.
• Self-reported dietary intake varies depending on calendar time.
• Shape of glucose curve can be used as a predictor for screening pre-diabetes in obese children.
• Measuring Fitness Actions and Dispositions Associated With Physical Activity: Validation of a Self-Report Instrument.
• A comparison of uniaxial and triaxial accelerometers for the assessment of physical activity in dogs.
• Interdisciplinary UAB researchers collaborate to establish new imaging method.
• Physical activity websites must be culturally relevant.

General Science

• Special Issue: Macrosystems ecology - an emerging prespective.
• First monkeys with customized mutations born.
• J&J to Share Drug Research Data in Pact With Yale.

Commentary

• Fools, Fanatics and Fat-Free Milk.
• Yet Another Good Reason to Question Observational Diet Studies.
• Maternal pre-pregnancy BMI and offspring ADHD: a lesson in the importance of testing causal pathways.
• Obese Kids Drink As Much Pop As Skinny Kids?
• Fortification Follies: Lipstick on a Pig for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.
• Do bacteria in the guts of African hunter-gatherers hold the key to a healthier life? An American anthropologist plans to find out.
• What Women Need to Succeed in Science: Attracting females to research careers—and keeping them there.
• The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz.
• Sugar on trial: What you really need to know.

Announcements

• Webinar: Understanding and Interpreting Meta-Analyses in Nutrition Research.
• Select sessions from 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting available as live video stream.