Obesity and Energetics Offerings

Featured

• RCT: Sugar-sweetened beverage reduction study shows no significant effect on components of metabolic syndrome (but does on uric acid levels).
• RCT: What ends up on a buffet diner’s plate is determined by the presentation order of food.
• RCT: Participants with experimentally induced low blood glucose levels expressed stronger support for social welfare but not actual sharing behavior.
• Restriction increases children’s intake of restricted snack foods.

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Cardiovascular disease is caused exclusively by overweight and obesity, major new study reveals.
• Study: Observational study finds overweight and obesity are risk factors for cardiovascular disease regardless of the presence or absence of metabolic syndrome.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Intervention to reduce bottle feeding reduced use of bottles, calories from milk bottles, and total calories, but had no effect on overweight.
• RCT: No Effect of Caloric Restriction on Salivary Cortisol Levels in Overweight Men and Women.
• No significant differences between treatment and control conditions observed in Be Active Eat Well obesity prevention program 3 years after the program finished.
• Study findings do not support the idea that cesarean delivery has increased the risk of long-term offspring obesity.
• 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 the development of impaired glucose homeostasis and insulin resistance over 2 y among youth at risk of obesity.
• RCT: High dietary protein intake during weight loss has no clinically significant effect on bone density but slows bone turnover.

Basic Science

• Intake of high-fat diet stimulates the risk of ultraviolet radiation-induced skin tumors and malignant progression of papillomas to carcinoma in SKH-1 hairless mice.
• The latest developments in the central regulation of feeding behavior and the effects of leptin and the central nervous system control of glucose metabolism.
• Rabbit anti-alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) antisera may increase alpha-MSH anorexigenic effects.
• Subjects with increased brown adipose tissue activation had lower blood glucose and body fatness levels.
• Mixing stem cells extracted from the fat with breast cancer cells results in tumors.
• Decreased unsaturation in muscle mitochondrial membranes (lipids) is not required for reduced hydrogen peroxide production with calories restriction in mice.

Caloric Restriction

• Modulation of hypothalamic molecular pathways in models of calorie restriction and reduction of core body temperature.
• Caloric restriction and lithocholic acid extend yeast longevity by altering the age-related dynamics of changes in mitochondrial morphology and mitochondria-controlled apoptosis.
• Glucose depletion is essential for the calorie-restriction-mediated cardiac angiogenesis via PKA/AMPK-dependent autophagy.
• Food restriction to 60–70% of daily energy needs has a protective effect on acute ethanol-induced oxidative and nitrosative cardiac damage.

Amino Acid Nutrition and Metabolic Disease

• Transcriptional impact of dietary methionine restriction on systemic inflammation: Relevance to biomarkers of metabolic disease during aging.
• Remodeling of Lipid Metabolism by Dietary Restriction of Essential Amino Acids.
• Remodeling the Integration of Lipid Metabolism Between Liver and Adipose Tissue by Dietary Methionine Restriction in Rats.

Food

• Association of oral phenotypic markers and fat perception on fat intake during a breakfast buffet and in a 4-day food record.
• RCT: The influence of a low glycemic index dietary intervention on maternal dietary intake, glycemic index and gestational weight gain during pregnancy.
• RCT: Animal source foods have a positive impact on the primary school test scores of Kenyan schoolchildren.
• RCT: Impact of energy density and texture of a meal on food and energy intake, satiation, satiety, appetite and palatability responses in healthy adults.
• Study's findings suggest that under- and over-reporting of self-report energy intake is associated with dietary macronutrient composition.
• RCT: Application of an econometrics model to determine the connection between height and calories in early childhood.

Body Composition

• Metabolically abnormal obese and metabolically healthy obese cardiometabolic profiles are characterized by differences in body composition consistent between genders.
• Overall and abdominal obesity were both independently associated with dying or developing mobility disability and major chronic disease before 85 years of age in older women.
• Comparing weight loss and body composition changes in morbidly obese Taiwanese patients that underwent differing bariatric surgeries: 1-year follow-up study.
• Editorial: From BMI to functional body composition.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Food environments select microorganisms based on selfish energetic behavior.
• Discrete one-dimensional crawlers on viscous substrates: achievable net displacements and their energy cost.
• Lifetime foraging patterns of the wandering albatross: Life on the move!
• Fast-Paced Evolution in the Andes.
• Baboons shed light on human brain evolution: researchers gain understanding of genetic changes that led to brain folds.
• Weak evidence for anticipatory parental effects in plants and animals.

Exercise

• RCT: Effect of exercising while fasting on eating behaviors and food intake.
• Study findings suggest that the association of time perspective, obesity, and exercise varies by age.
• Details about the PICO project: A RCT focused on aquatic exercise for knee osteoarthritis in overweight and obese individuals.

Gut Microbiota

• Review of gut microbiota and obesity pathogenesis.
• The co-villains behind obesity’s rise.

Ghrelin

• Ghrelin increases food intake, swimming activity and growth in juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta).
• Exposure to a high-fat diet during development alters leptin and ghrelin sensitivity and elevates renal sympathetic nerve activity and arterial pressure in rabbits.
• Direction of post-prandial ghrelin response associated with cortisol response, perceived stress and anxiety, and self-reported coping and hunger in obese women.

Psychology

• Reading a book can change your mind, but only some changes last for a year: food attitude changes in readers of The Omnivore's Dilemma.
• The interplay of partner influence and individual values associated with daily fluctuations in eating and physical activity.
• Adversity during childhood is associated with central obesity.

Neuroscience

• Verbal labels selectively bias brain responses to high-energy foods.
• Aerobic glycolysis in the primate brain: reconsidering the implications for growth and maintenance.
• Review of neuroendocrine regulation of appetitive ingestive behavior.
• Neural adaptation to thin and fat bodies in the fusiform body area and middle occipital gyrus: An fMRI adaptation study.
• Food for thought: review of hormonal, experiential, and neural influences on feeding and obesity.
• RCT: Chronic dieters overeat when the regions of their brain that balance impulsive behavior and self-control become disrupted.

Clinical

• Long-term Drug Treatment for Obesity: A Systematic and Clinical Review.
• Meta-analysis of RCTs finds anti-obesity drugs, meal replacements, and high-protein diets were associated with improved weight-loss maintenance after a VLCD/LCD-period, whereas no significant improvements were seen for dietary supplements and exercise.
• Aspiration Therapy Associated with Weight Loss in Obese Subjects: A Pilot Study
• RCT: Increasing the Number of Chews before Swallowing Reduces Meal Size in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Adults.

Policy Related

• Can fat taxes and package size restrictions stimulate healthy food choices?
• Commentator on study of association between sidewalk condition and self-reported physical activity notes association does not imply causation, while author states ‘Cities should implement policies that keep sidewalks and other characteristics of pedestrian infrastructure in good condition as a step towards facilitating increases in physical activity.'
• Parents agree that schools should implement anti-bullying policies that include specific protections for students who are overweight or obese and increased availability of resources to youth who experience weight based victimization at school.
• New Obesity Treatment Guideline Released at ObesityWeek.

Sugar and Low Calorie Sweeteners

• Review: The limited experimental evidence does not support an effect of artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs) on obesity or chronic disease. Indeed, experimental studies in humans suggest ASB may be effective for weight loss when replacing sugar-sweetened beverages.
• RCT: Temporary high-fructose intake does not appear to cause obesity-related inflammation among healthy adults in a small feeding trial.
• The Metabolic and Endocrine Response and Health Implications of Consuming Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Findings from RCTs.
• Fructose, Sugar Consumption, and Metabolic Diseases.
• Meta-analysis shows that fructose in isocaloric exchange for other carbohydrate does not increase postprandial triglycerides.

Methods

• Measuring food volume and nutritional values from food images.
• Misreporting of energy intake in the 2007 Australian Children's Survey: differences in the reporting of food types between plausible, under- and over-reporters of energy intake.
• Concurrent and convergent validity of the eating in the absence of hunger questionnaire and behavioral paradigm in overweight children.
• Determining the long-term precision of DXA body composition measurements.

Mathematics

• Models of body weight change.
• Statistical significance and its part in science downfalls.

Transgenerational Effects

• Impact of Epigenetic Dietary Compounds on Transgenerational Prevention of Human Diseases.
• Effects of the Use of Assisted Reproduction and High Caloric Diet Consumption on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Health of Juvenile Mouse Offspring.
• Consumption of diets with graded fat and carbohydrate content in mice over three generations induces changes in indices of growth and metabolism that vary between generations.
• Epidemiological Spanish birth cohort study findings provides some evidence for an association between prenatal BPA exposure and obesity-related outcomes in childhood, although not in infancy.
• Maternal obesity induced by a high fat diet causes altered cellular development in fetal brains suggestive of a predisposition of offspring to neurological disorders in later life among rats.

Beverages

• Obese women alter diets in response to additional calories from soft drinks.
• Study's findings suggest that drink texture and density is associated with selected portion sizes among women when the drink's sensory characteristics is perceived to be satiating.
• Though taste and alcohol are more strongly associated with alcohol consumption among college students, drinking behavior modification might occur if caloric information is presented in a less complex format.
• A review of the suitability of caffeinated drinks for children.

Circadian Rhythm

• Energy intake and the circadian rhythm of core body temperature in sheep.
• Chronic exposure to even very low levels of light pollution may alter inflammatory responses and weight among mice.

Commentary

• The Myth of "Nutritional Precision:" What Do We Really Know.
• Historian Maureen Ogle defends the oft-criticized meat industry and suggests some foodies have it all wrong.
• New insights on bariatric surgery outcomes.
• Past Time to Stop Mocking Obesity.
• Panel discussion summary of concerning the direction of employee wellness programs: preserving its benefits while correcting the weaknesses.
• Behavior modification is cheaper: The opportunity cost of prescription diet drugs appear to hurt pharmaceutical sales and profitability.

General Science

• The peculiar spike in reported p-values in psychological research just below .05: possible effects of publication bias.
• The Connection between Dietary Phosphorus, Cardiovascular Disease, and Mortality: Where We Stand and What We Need to Know.
• Details of the disposable soma theory of aging in reverse.
• Why do fruit flies live so long?
• Science And Scientific Journals Are Flawed. Can Better Statistics Help?
• Turkey is home to new scorpion species.
• How the new "science of mind" might serve as an inspiration for the future of knowledge.
• "Lies, damned lies ..." and observational studies in comparative effectiveness research.
• A new test of mouse intelligence mimic the types of assays used with people and detects a subtle learning deficit reminiscent of one seen in teenagers with autism.
• Though living in a tunneled vision "specialist" society, humans are at their best when they turn our minds to many things.
• Combination therapy with an ACE inhibitor and an angiotensin-receptor blockers are associated with an increased risk of adverse events among patients with diabetic nephropathy.

Announcements

• Upcoming Institute of Medicine Workshop - The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States
• Youfa Wang, childhood obesity expert to head Social and Preventive Medicine at University fo Buffalo.
• Dannon Institute Academic Mid-Career Nutrition Leadership Institute accepting applications.

Featured

• RCT: Increased sleep in children led to reduced reported energy intake, weight loss, and lower leptin levels.
• Yellow light exposure leads to greater weight gain in chickens.
• RCT: Promoting choice can produce short-term increases in PA and decreases in sedentary behavior, as well as increased perceived autonomy during PE lessons.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: No direct link between sugar intake and liver disease.
• RCT: Postmenopausal HT and raloxifene did not increase abdominal fat loss during weight loss.
• RCT: Weight gain in college females is not prevented by isoflavone-rich soy protein.
• Try as we might, studies of the impact of nutrition labeling on fast food menus keep yielding the wrong results.
• Lack of correlation between morbid obesity and severe gastroesophageal reflux disease in candidates for bariatric surgery: Results of a large prospective study.

Caloric Restriction and Aging

• Yeast Sirtuins and the Regulation of Aging.
• Metformin: Do we finally have an anti-aging drug?
• Model-based identification of drug targets that revert disrupted metabolism and its application to ageing.

Clinical

• RCT: Effects of a physical activity and healthy eating intervention to reduce stroke risk factors in older adults.
• RCT: Weight and metabolic effects of dietary weight loss and exercise interventions in postmenopausal antidepressant medication users and non-users.
• Meta-analysis and systematic review of anti-obesity drugs, diet, and exercise effects on weight-loss maintenance after a very-low-calorie diet or low-calorie diet.
• RCT: Increased sleep decreases calories ingested in pre-teens.
• RCT: Motivational Interventions lower weight gain in overweight children aged 4-7, primarily in girls.

Surgery

• Evaluation of gender-specific aspects of gastric banding procedures.
• Weight loss and regaining weight, one year after insertion of bioenterics intragastric balloon versus Atkins diet.
• Metabolic Surgery for Type 2 Diabetes: Appraisal of Clinical Evidence and Review of RCTs Comparing Surgery with Medical Therapy.
• RCT: Bariatric surgery versus standard medical therapy improved acylated ghrelin suppression at 2 years in obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
• Changes in taste perception and eating behavior after bariatric surgery-induced weight loss in women.
• Changes in sexual functioning and sex hormone levels in women following bariatric surgery.
• Adults had significant weight loss three years after bariatric surgery.

Exercise

• Dose-response association of physical activity with acute myocardial infarction: Do amount and intensity matter?
• RCT: Do soccer and Zumba exercise improve fitness and indicators of health among female hospital employees?

Food

• Resistant starch intake partly restores metabolic and inflammatory alterations in the liver of high-fat-diet-fed rats.
• RCT: Meal replacement based on Human Ration modulates metabolic risk factors during body weight loss.
• RCT: Effect of Daily Egg Ingestion with Thai Food on Serum Lipids in Hyperlipidemic Adults.
• RCT: Whole-body protein turnover response to short-term high protein diets during weight loss.

Chocolate

• Higher chocolate consumption was associated with lower total and central fatness in European adolescents.
• Effects of chocolate on cognitive function and mood: A systematic review.

Sugar

• Femoral biomechanic and microtomography from male rats submitted to dietary restriction supplemented with sucrose.
• Effects of a nonnutritive sweetener on body adiposity and energy metabolism in mice with diet-induced obesity.
• RCT: Effect of a micronutrient-fortified beverage on cognition and nutritional status of primary school children.

Epidemiology

• Human beings show corrective responses to deviations from average energy and macronutrient intakes with a lag time of 3 to 6 days, but not 1 to 2 days.
• Mealtime rituals associated with obesity.
• Early puberty in girls is associated with obesity.

Methods

• Body composition in sport: Interobserver reliability of a novel ultrasound measure of subcutaneous fat tissue.
• Changes in fat and skeletal muscle with exercise training in obese adolescents: Comparison of whole-body MRI and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.
• Obesity trend: pick a number to fit your story.

Policy Related

• Taxing sugar-sweetened beverages: not a “holy grail” but a cup at least half; comment on “Food taxes: A new holy grail?”
• Overall and income specific effect on prevalence of overweight and obesity of 20% sugar sweetened drink tax in UK.
• Ethical Agreement and Disagreement about Obesity Prevention Policy in the United States.
• Mexican Senate passes junk-food tax.
• San Francisco joins sugary drinks fray with tax proposal.
• Educational Fast Food Menus.

Psychology

• Impulsivity mediates the association between borderline personality pathology and BMI.
• The Bright Side of Stress-Induced Eating: Eating More When Stressed but Less When Pleased.  
• Eye-tracking women’s preferences for men’s somatotypes.
• Modelling the Joint Effect of Social Determinants and Peers on Obesity Among Canadian Adults.

Stigma

• Do Parental Bonds Break Anti-fat Stereotyping?: Parental Work Ethic Ideology and Disease Concerns Predict Bias Against Heavyweight Children.
• Pass the popcorn: “Obesogenic” behaviors and stigma in children's movies.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• Latitudinal patterns in phenotypic plasticity: The case of seasonal flexibility in lizards' fat body size.
• The roles of melanin-concentrating hormone in energy balance and reproductive function: Are they connected.
• Arboreal adaptations of body fat in wild toque macaques (Macaca sinica) and the evolution of adiposity in primates.

Basic Science

• Neuropeptide y and peptide YY protect from weight loss caused by Bacille Calmette-Guérin in mice.
• Sorrento, Scripps Unite to Develop Obesity-Fighting Vaccines and Antibody Therapeutics.
• Diet-induced obesity mediated by the JNK/DIO2 signal transduction pathway.
• Transcriptomic and epigenetic changes in early liver steatosis associated to obesity: Effect of dietary methyl donor supplementation.
• DNA Study May Boost Personalized Medicine.
• Mitochondrial DNA diversity in the African American population.

Brown Fat

• Brown adipose tissue thermogenesis: ß3 adrenoreceptors as a potential target for the treatment of obesity in humans.
• Brown adipose tissue as an anti-obesity tissue in humans.
• Vagus Nerve Stimulation Increases Energy Expenditure: Relation to Brown Adipose Tissue Activity.

Transgenerational effects

• Delayed physical and neurobehavioral development and increased aggressive and depression-like behaviors in the rat offspring of dams fed a high-fat diet.
• A maternal diet of fatty fish reduces body fat of offspring compared with a maternal diet of beef and a post-weaning diet of fish improves insulin sensitivity and lipid profile in adult C57BL/6 male mice.

Commentary

• A dig through old files reminds me why I’m so critical of science.
• What now: It still takes too long and costs too much.
• Cerabino: Is handing out letters instead of candy to overweight kids at Halloween a good idea?
• Scholars’ rude awakenings.
• Marketing, Puffery, and Nutrition Research.
• A look into how and why the media ignores the science confirming that BPA poses no risk to humans.
• Salt: How much less should we eat for health?

General Science

• Doing the right thing: Scientists reward authors who report their own errors.
• Accusations of fraud spur a revolution in scientific publishing.
• Breakthroughs in animal health care may hold treatments for humans.
• Dating the Origin of Us.
• One in five Milky Way stars hosts potentially life-friendly Earths.
• Human Brain Project.

Video

• BioStats Project on Fast Food.
• Paul Breslin: "Anticipatory digestive responses to foods."
• Terry Huang: Community and Cross-Sectoral Actions in a Systems Approach to Obesity.

Featured

• Anti-ghrelin immunoglobulins modulate ghrelin stability and its orexigenic effect in obese mice and humans.
• The Power of Negative Thinking: Gaining ground in the ongoing struggle to coax researchers to share negative results.
• Liquid calories, energy compensation and weight: what we know and what we still need to learn.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• No association between skipping breakfast and overweight, neither at age 2 nor at age 5, among Dutch children.
• The occupational class gradient in BMI was strong among Finnish employees but absent among Japanese employees.
• Bariatric surgery not associated with hypothesized reduction in opioid use.
• There were no significant relationships found between BMI and parenting style, emotional eating and emotional regulation.
• Low intake of cheese associated with higher prevalence of excess weight.

Video

• SciVee: Belief beyond the evidence: using the presumed effect of breakfast on obesity.
• Prof Claude Bouchard on the Benefits and Detriments of Exercise.
• Prof Steven Blair on Physical Inactivity: The Biggest Public Health Problem of the 21st Century.
• Prof Paul Campos: 2013 Bicknell Lecture - author of 'The Obesity Myth'; with responses from Frank Hu and ABIGAIL C. SAGUY.
• Prof Arya Sharma: Dr. Sharma: How I got into obesity research.
• NAS Sackler Symposium: The Science of Science Communication II.
• SciVee: Evidence-based strategies in weight-loss mobile apps.

Exercise

• Effects of exercise training on gut hormone levels after a single bout of exercise in middle-aged Japanese women.
• Energy Expenditure during Sexual Activity in Young Fit Healthy Couples Together for About 13 Months.
• Meta-analysis: No significant effect of school-based physical activity on BMI, body weight, or blood pressure.

Food

• RCT: Effects of milk as a recovery drink following exercise on subsequent appetite and energy intake in female recreational exercisers.
• Meta-analysis: Equivocal influences of either low-fat or high-fat diets on cardiovascular disease risk factors in overweight or obese patients.
• Sucrose given in soft drinks was partially compensated for by obese women.

Food Away from Home

• The association of fast food consumption with poor dietary outcomes and obesity among children: is it the fast food or the remainder of diet?
• No population level changes were noted in calories purchased or fast food visits after calorie menu labeling.
• Habitual street food intake and subclinical carotid atherosclerosis.
• Food eaten away from home associated with obesity among Korean men but not women.

Drugs

• RCT: Weight and Body Composition Changes During Oral Contraceptive Use in Obese and Normal Weight Women.
• Drug Shows Potential for Obesity-Related Diseases in Mouse Study.
• Study: 2 peptides better than 1 in targeting diabetes, obesity.
• RCT: Effects of Naltrexone Sustained- Release/Bupropion Sustained Release Combination Therapy on Body Weight and Glycemic Parameters in Overweight and Obese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• The influence of load carrying on the energetics and kinematics of terrestrial locomotion in a diving bird.
• High saturated fat-sucrose feeding affects lactation energetics in control mice and mice selectively bred for high wheel-running behavior.
• Mitochondrial genetics and obesity: evolutionary adaptation and contemporary disease susceptibility.

Psychology

• Impulsivity makes more susceptible to overeating after contextual appetitive conditioning.
• A systematic review of variables associated with the relationship between obesity and depression.

Interpersonal Influences

• Weight Gain among Men and Women Who Have a Child Enter Their Home.
• Going the same ‘weigh’: spousal correlations in obesity in the United Kingdom.
• Energetic Consequences of Human Sociality: Walking Speed Choices among Friendly Dyads.
• Meta-Analysis: Peer Similarity and Influence for Weight-Related Outcomes in Adolescence.

Brain

• Brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression ex vivo in obesity.
• Complex relationship between BMI and white matter characterized by potentially different neuroanatomic vulnerability.

Stigma

• Weight- and race-based bullying: Health associations among urban adolescents.
• Weight stigma consciousness and perceived physical appearance : their key precursors and relationship to health behaviors.

Genetics

• Newborns of obese parents have altered DNA methylation patterns at imprinted genes.
• Meta-analysis: Association between angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/ deletion gene polymorphism and the risk of overweight/obesity.

Clinical

• RCT: Meal provision was a more effective and accepted method for weight loss over a 12-week period compared to a self-directed diet.
• RCT: Pediatrician-led Motivational Interviewing to Treat Overweight Children.
• Readiness redefined: A behavioral task during screening predicted 1-year weight loss in the look AHEAD study.
• Does bone loss begin after weight loss ends? Results 2 years after weight loss or regain in postmenopausal women.
• Abdominal obesity indicators are stronger predictors for CVD mortality than general obesity indicator of BMI.
• Meta-analysis: Risk of childhood overweight or obesity associated with excessive weight gain during pregnancy.

Surgery

• Bariatric Surgery and Effects on Calcium and Bone Metabolism.
• Executive control circuitry differentiates degree of success in weight loss following gastric-bypass surgery.
• Meta-analysis: Bariatric surgery leads to greater body weight loss and higher remission rates of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Economics and Policy

• There is insufficient evidence that physical education laws reduce student weight gain.
• Systematic Review: The effectiveness of a taxation policy to curb obesity is doubtful and available evidence in most studies is not very straightforward due to the multiple complexities in consumer behavior and the underlying substitution effects.
• Obesity, alcohol misuse and smoking on employment and hours worked: evidence from the Icelandic economic collapse.
• Encouraging Healthful Dietary Behavior in a Hospital Cafeteria: A Field Study Using Theories from Social Psychology and Behavioral Economics.
• Obese employees record more occupational injuries than those with recommended healthy weight.
• Meaningful, measurable, and manageable approaches to evaluating healthy food financing initiatives: an overview of resources and approaches.
• Using Behavioral Economics to Design More Effective Food Policies to Address Obesity.
• Should Extreme Obesity in Children be Considered Child Abuse?

Methods

• A comparison of energy expenditure estimation of several physical activity monitors.
• Identifying accelerometer nonwear and wear time in older adults.
• A modeling approach for compounds affecting body composition.
• Evaluation of a Screening System for Obesogenic Compounds.
• The fat mass index: why its height exponent should be 3 and not 2.
• Profiling motives behind hedonic eating. Preliminary validation of the Palatable Eating Motives Scale.
• Defining metabolically healthy obesity.

Temperature

• Effects of mammalian in utero heat stress on adolescent body temperature.
• Thermal sensation by BMI.

Brown Fat

• Accurate detection of metabolically active "brown" and "white" adipose tissues with computed tomography.
• Adipose tissue browning and metabolic health.
• Melatonin induces browning of inguinal white adipose tissue in Zucker diabetic fatty rats.
• Cell Nucleus Protein in Brown Fat Cells Governs Daily Control of Body Temperature.
• Oleoylethanolamide enhances ß-adrenergic-mediated thermogenesis and white-to-brown adipocyte phenotype in epididymal white adipose tissue in rat.

Dogs

• Associations between obesity and physical activity in dogs: A preliminary investigation.
• Dogs motivate obese children for physical activity: Key elements of a motivational theory of animal-assisted interventions.

Basic Science

• Renal tubular Sirt1 attenuates diabetic albuminuria by epigenetically suppressing Claudin-1 overexpression in podocytes.
• Interaction Between Energy Homeostasis and Reproduction: Central Effects of Leptin and Ghrelin on the Reproductive Axis.
• Lifelong Caloric Restriction Reprograms Hepatic Fat Metabolism in Mice.
• Waking and sleeping in the rat made obese through a high-fat hypercaloric diet.
• Obesity higher in patients with Clostridium difficile infections.
• Leptin and paraoxonase activity in cord blood from obese mothers.
• Insulin Sensitizing and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Thiazolidinediones Are Heightened in Obese Patients.

Mathematics

• On the Assessment of Treatment Levels in Relation to BMI Value through Fuzzy Mathematical Modelling.
• Computational model of midbrain dopaminergic neuron activity in ageing and obesity.

Research Enterprise

• Empirical estimates suggest most published medical research is true.
• Empirical evidence for low reproducibility indicates low pre-study odds.
• Inconvenient Truth-Tellers: What Happens When Research Yields Unpopular Findings.
• Science has lost its way, at a big cost to humanity.
• Government-commissioned researchers leaned on by state.
• Some nutrition and diet studies may overstate results.
• More on the crisis in research: Feynman on 'cargo cult science'.

Commentary

• The Irrational Fear of GM Food.
• Increased sugary soda consumption may be balanced by lower caloric intake, study finds.
• The next generation of obesity treatments: Beyond suppressing appetite.
• Communicating About Food: It’s Not All about the Science.
• Arya Sharma: Overstatement of Findings in Nutrition and Obesity Research?
• The Case for Taste Bud Rehab.
• The Race to Redefine Calories: Iconoclasts, Start Your Engines!

Announcements

• PubMed Commons: Frequently asked questions
• 3rd Short course on next-generation sequencing: Technology and statistical methods.
• Technology and the Future of America’s Waistline: A Future Tense Event.
• 3rd International Conference on Food Digestion.
• Experimental Biology abstracts due November 8.

Featured

• Overstatement of Results in the Nutrition and Obesity Peer-Reviewed Literature.
• RCT: Increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, as advocated in public-health advice, has no effect on IR in overweight individuals who are at high risk of CVD.
• Nutrition research must overcome pseudoscientific measures and self-interest to make progress in the fight against obesity.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• RCT: Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation had no effect on body weight but reduced energy intake in overweight and obese females.
• The number of food outlets was not significantly associated with BMI-score over 4 years among German children.
• No association of food stores with obesity in a sample of Brazilian adults.
• RCT: No effect of low glycemic index diet on body weight and blood pressure in overweight adolescent girls.
• No association between author COI and drugs recommended in guidelines for Glycemic Control in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
• Among over 11,000 Spanish individuals, those with obesity generally had a lower consumption of sugary drinks (see Table 2).
• Meta-analysis of data from 11 randomized, school-based physical activity interventions show no effect on BMI.

Headline vs. Study

• Study: Nucleus accumbens C-Fos expression is correlated with conditioned place preference to cocaine, morphine and high fat/sugar food consumption.
• Headline: College study finds Oreo cookies are as addictive as drugs.
• University Press Release: Student-faculty research shows Oreos are just as addictive as drugs in lab rats.
• Commentary: Oreos = Cocaine (Huh?).
• Commentary: Cookies, Cocaine, and Culture.
• Study: Meat intake and semen parameters among men attending a fertility clinic.
• Headline: Bacon Everyday Might Keep Baby Away.
• Headline: Is bacon a male contraceptive?
• Commentary: Bacon bad for your sperm - news stories hit below belt again.
• Misleading Press Release: Based on association study, states “For the first time, it has been proved that obesity regardless of the students social background influences school performance.”

Video

• Videos now available from UAB NORC conference on Evaluating Bioactive Food Components in Obesity and Cancer Prevention (see bottom of page).
• Jake Lusis: A Systems Genetics Approach to Complex Cardio-metabolic Traits (see bottom of page).
• Michael Thorner: Ghrelin Regulation and Its Implications for Its Physiological Role (see bottom of page).
• Jeff Sindelar - Discovering the History and Science of Meat Products.

Saturated Fat

• From the Heart: Saturated fat is not the major issue.
• Scapegoats, Saints, and Saturated Fats: Old Mistakes in New Directions.
• CardioBuzz: How Bad Is Saturated Fat?

Brown Fat

• MRI Detection of Brown Adipose Tissue with Low Fat Content in Newborns with Hypothermia.
• FABP3 and brown adipocyte-characteristic mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation enzymes are induced in beige cells in a different pathway from UCP1.

Caloric Restriction & Lifespan Extension

• Calorie restriction and sirtuins revisited.
• Synergistic effects of caloric restriction with maintained protein intake on skeletal muscle performance in 21-month-old rats: a mitochondria-mediated pathway.
• Prevention of Neuromusculoskeletal Frailty in Slow-Aging Ames Dwarf Mice: Longitudinal Investigation of Interaction of Longevity Genes and Caloric Restriction.
• Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) and gonadotropin-releasing hormones (GnRH) in Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua: Tissue distributions, early ontogeny and effects of fasting.
• A pharmacological network for lifespan extension in C. elegans.

Psychology

• High energy diets prevent the enhancing effects of emotional arousal on memory.
• RCT: Choosing between an Apple and a Chocolate Bar: the Impact of Health and Taste Labels.
• Obesity and self-control: food consumption, physical activity and weight-loss intention.

Surgery

• Bariatric surgery versus non-surgical treatment for obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs.
• Effects of Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass and Ileal Transposition Surgeries on Glucose and Lipid Metabolism in Skeletal Muscle and Liver in Rats.
• Alabama investigators report that Robotic-assisted total laparoscopic hysterectomy can be a safe and effective method of performing hysterectomies in select morbidly obese patients.
• Psychological predictors of weight loss after bariatric surgery: A review of the recent research.
• Executive Control Circuitry Differentiates Degree of Success in Weight Loss Following Gastric-Bypass Surgery.

Epidemiology

• Prevalence of Obesity Among Adults: United States, 2011–2012.
• Is body mass human capital in sumo? Outcome of globalization and formation of human capital in Japan.
• On the effect of obesity on employment in the presence of observed and unobserved confounding.
• Slow metabolism 'obesity excuse' true.
• Obesity and Occupational Injury: A Prospective Cohort Study of 69,515 Public Sector Employees.
• Explaining Trends in BMI Using Demographic Counterfactuals.
• Seasonality and ambient temperature at time of conception in term-born individuals associated with obesity in adult life.
• Defining an epidemic: The BMI in British and US obesity research 1960-2000.
• Obesity Paradox in People Newly Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes With and Without Prior Cardiovascular Disease.
• Telomere length loss due to smoking and metabolic traits.
• Social and spatial patterns of obesity diffusion over three decades in a Norwegian county population: the HUNT Study.
• Impact of BMI on prevalence of multimorbidity in primary care: cohort study.
• Obesity-related Behaviors of US- and Non-US-born Parents and Children in Low-income Households.
• Pregnancy weight gain and childhood body weight: a within-family comparison.
• Alcohol consumption and risk of metabolic syndrome: A meta-analysis of prospective studies.
• Dinner rituals that correlate with child and adult BMI.

Policy Related

• Food labels: A critical assessment.
• USDA study evaluates Hannaford grocery stores feature the company's Guiding Stars rating system.
• Calorie labeling, Fast food purchasing and restaurant visits.
• Food and Beverage Policies and Public Health Ethics.
• Punishing Maternal Behavior: Potential Legal Consequences for Obesity-Associated Poor Fetal Outcome in the United States.
• Obesity experts appalled by EU move to approve health claim for fructose.

Methods

• Measurement and validation of the nature of salivary adiponectin.
• Hunger and thirst numeric rating scales are not valid estimates for gastric content volumes: a prospective investigation in healthy children.
• Interactive Effects of in Utero Nutrition and Genetic Inheritance on Cognition: New Evidence Using Sibling Comparisons suggests caution in interpreting previously reported associations.
• Exploiting the universAAL platform for the design and development of a physical activity monitoring application.
• Estimation of feature importance for food intake detection based on Random Forests classification.
• On the confounding effect of temperature on chemical shift-encoded fat quantification.
• How to use published complete case results from weight loss studies in a missing data sensitivity analysis.
• Reliability and Accuracy of Real-Time Visualization Techniques for Measuring School Cafeteria Tray Waste: Validating the Quarter-Waste Method.
• Solid anthropomorphic infant whole-body DXA phantom: design, evaluation, and multisite testing.
• Are Ethnic and Gender Specific Equations Needed to Derive Fat Free Mass from Bioelectrical Impedance in Children of South Asian, Black African-Caribbean and White European Origin?

Review

• Effect of weight loss on health-related quality of life: systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs.
• Prolactin and Adipose Tissue.
• Race and the Insulin Resistance Syndrome.

Food

• RCT: Alternate day fasting with a high fat or low fat diet equally effective in reducing weight and related risk factors.
• RCT: Short-term black pepper consumption effects on 24-hour energy expenditure and substrate utilization.
• RCT: Hypocaloric diet supplemented with probiotic cheese improves BMI and blood pressure indices of obese hypertensive patients.
• Hass avocado and postprandial vascular reactivity and postprandial inflammatory responses to a hamburger meal in healthy volunteers.

Exercise

• RCT: Whereas intense exercise reduces daily energy balance in adolescents with obesity by mainly affecting ad libitum dinner energy consumption, imposed sedentary behaviors lead to increased energy intake and then positive energy balance.
• RCT: Community Engagement Promotes Physical Activity in Parks.
• RCT: Effects of an acute bout of aerobic exercise on immediate and subsequent three-day food intake and energy expenditure in active and inactive men.
• RCT: Eight weeks of stretching training reduces aortic wave reflection magnitude and blood pressure in obese postmenopausal women.
• The effects of imposed sedentary behavior and exercise on energy intake in adolescents with obesity.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Ovarian function in Samoan women shows stronger association with signals of energy metabolism than fat reserves.
• Obesity accelerates ovarian follicle development and follicle loss in rats.
• Environmental Conditions during Breeding Modify the Strength of Mass-Dependent Carry-Over Effects in a Migratory Bird.
• Quantifying energy intake in Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) using the heat increment of feeding.
• Energetics of hibernation and reproductive trade-offs in brown bears.

Clinical

• RCT: Trial of a Community-based Behavioral Counseling Program.
• RCT: Efficacy of a daily self-weighing weight loss intervention using smart scales and e-mail.
• RCT: Chewing thoroughly reduces eating rate and postprandial food palatability but does not influence meal size in older adults.
• RCT: Personalized dietary intervention in managing gestational weight gain in a low-risk antenatal population.
• RCT: An active telephone-based recruitment strategy to increase childcare service staff attendance at a physical activity and nutrition training workshop.
• RCT: Evaluation of phentermine and topiramate versus phentermine/topiramate extended-release in obese adults.
• RCT: Changes to dietary intake during a 12-week commercial web-based weight loss program.
• RCT: The effect of topiramate on weight loss in patients with type 2 diabetes.
• Long-term testosterone therapy in hypogonadal men ameliorates elements of the metabolic syndrome.
• Obese Children in a Community YMCA “Fun 2B Fit” Program Have a Reduction in BMI Z-Scores.
• Adding Obesity to the Problem List Increases the Rate of Providers Addressing Obesity.

Basic Science

• Hypoxia-mimetic effects in the secretome of human preadipocytes and adipocytes.
• How dormice make optimal use of their body fat reserves.
• Obesity Alters Adipose Tissue Macrophage Iron Content and Tissue Iron Distribution.
• Investigation of adipocyte proteome during the differentiation of brown preadipocytes.
• Moving beyond energy homeostasis: New roles for glucagon-like peptide-1 in food and drug reward.
• Genetic identification of a neural circuit that suppresses appetite.
• Regulation of cuticle pigmentation in Drosophila by the nutrient sensing Insulin and TOR signaling pathways.
• Obesity is associated with an altered autonomic nervous system response to nutrient restriction.
• Adipose stromal-vascular fraction-derived paracrine factors regulate adipogenesis.
• Adipose Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 and Obesity: Correlation with insulin resistance and depot-specific release from adipose tissue in vivo and in vitro.

Commentary

• Do CDC’s Obesity Stats Tell the Whole Story?
• Research accomplishments that are too good to be true.
• Neuroscience wrongs will make a right.
• The next generation of obesity treatments: beyond suppressing appetite.

Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

• RCT: Effect of Sugar-Free Versus Sugar-Sweetened Beverages on Satiety, Liking and Wanting.
• American adults eligible for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program consume more sugary beverages than ineligible adults.

Pediatric

• Excess weight gain in the first 18 months of life is associated with later childhood overweight, obesity and greater arterial wall thickness.
• Declining and stabilising trends in prevalence of overweight and obesity in Dutch, Turkish, Moroccan and South Asian children 3-16 years of age.
• Social and behavioral risk factors for obesity in early childhood.
• ADHD is a risk factor for overweight and obesity in children.
• The Origins of Early Childhood Anthropometric Persistence.

Transgenerational

• DDT exposure in rats causes increased obesity in the third generation.

General Science

• How science goes wrong.
• UK Report on evidence use in public health highlights concerns about biases.
• Internships Boost Postdocs' Skills, Worldliness, and Marketability.
• Older Siblings' Cells Can Be Passed From Female Dogs to Their Puppies in the Womb: Discovery will help further research into health effects of microchimerism.
• Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To an alarming degree, it is not.
• Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future.
• History: Great myths die hard.
• Why does a beer bottle foam up after a sudden impact on its mouth?
• It Pays to Be Herr Kaiser-Germans With Noble-Sounding Surnames More Often Work as Managers Than as Employees.
• Scientists discover DNA body clock.
• For first time, drug developed based on zebrafish studies passes Phase I clinical trial.
• First Venomous Crustacean Found.
• Oldest known galaxy discovered in photos by Hubble.

Announcements

• ADA Position Statement: Nutrition Therapy Recommendations for the Management of Adults With Diabetes.
• Special Issue Published in Human Heredity on Genes and the Environment in Obesity.
• More Information on Moving Forward with NIH Applications, Review, and Awards.
• ECO2014, the 21st European Congress on Obesity, will take place in the wonderful city of Sofia, Bulgaria from 28 - 31 May 2014.
• Join PubMed’s Revolution in Post Publication Peer Review.
• NY Academy of Sciences offers small nutrition grants.
• AHA EPI Council offers travel and mentoring Awards.
• ICMJE Releases New Guidelines for Journals.