Featured

• When less is more: Like humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) misperceive food amounts based on plate size.
• When Research Should Come with a Warning Label.
• RCT: Comparative effects of TV watching, recreational computer use, and sedentary video game play on spontaneous energy intake in male children.
• RCT: High calorie diet could slow progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

Headline vs. Study

• Headline: Eating large amounts of meat, cheese may be as deadly as smoking.
• Study: Low Protein Intake Is Associated with a Major Reduction in IGF-1, Cancer, and Overall Mortality in the 65 and Younger but Not Older Population.
• Commentary: Now we can't eat protein. What can we eat?

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: Over 500 kcal/day of SSB consumption over 8 days led to no discernable effects on body weight.
• RCT: A low-intensity dietary intervention with a Low GI diet compared with an HE diet in pregnancy did not result in any significant differences in birth weight, fetal percentile, or ponderal index.
• BMI not significantly associated with sperm quality.
• Evidence on built environment/adiposity relationships remains modest and could be strengthened through improvements in measurement methods and with further evidence from prospective studies.
• Green coffee polyphenols do not attenuate features of the metabolic syndrome and improve endothelial function in mice fed a high fat diet.

Temperature

• Impacts of Moderate Cold Exposure on Energy Metabolism, Obesity, and Cardiovascular Function.
• Overcompensation of Circulating and Local Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 During Catch-up Growth in Hybrid Striped Bass (Morone chrysops X Morone saxatilis) Following Temperature and Feeding Manipulation.
• Fuel selection during short-term submaximal treadmill exercise in the cold is not affected by pre-exercise low-intensity shivering.

Sugar

• New Book: Fructose, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sucrose and Health.
• Sugar, Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, and Obesity: Separating Supposition from Demonstrated Fact, from Misinformation.
• WHO cuts sugar intake advice to 5 percent of daily energy.
• The reward value of sucrose in leptin-deficient obese mice.
• RCT: Hydration status when increasing daily fluid intake with various beverages.
• RCT: Glycemic and insulinemic response to four different sweeteners in healthy individuals.

Methods

• Objective measurement of minimal fat in normal skeletal muscles of healthy children using T2 relaxation time mapping (T2 maps) and MR spectroscopy.
• Adjusting Body Mass for Measurement Error with Invalid Validation Data.

Intergenerational Effects

• Maternal nutrition and risk of obesity in offspring: The Trojan horse of developmental plasticity.
• Maternal tract factors contribute to paternal seminal fluid impact on metabolic phenotype in offspring.

Food

• Low-protein diets are linked to longer life spans in mice and humans.
• Low-fat yoghurt intake in pregnancy associated with increased child asthma and allergic rhinitis risk: a prospective cohort study.
• What Are We Putting in Our Food That Is Making Us Fat? Food Additives, Contaminants, and Other Putative Contributors to Obesity.
• Review: Probiotics for preventing gestational diabetes.

Epidemiology

• Nutritional Risk and BMI Predict Hospitalization, Nursing Home Admissions, and Mortality in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Results From the UAB Study of Aging With 8.5 Years of Follow-Up.
• Mode of Delivery and Offspring BMI, Overweight and Obesity in Adult Life: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
• Causal Effects of BMI on Cardiometabolic Traits and Events: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis.
• Cardiorespiratory fitness in older adult women: relationships with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D.
• Gonadal dysfunction in morbidly obese adolescent girls.
• Is very high C-reactive protein in young adults associated with indicators of chronic disease risk?
• Obesity in show cats.
• Which weight-loss programmes are as effective as Weight Watchers®? Non-inferiority analysis.
• Systematic Review: Little evidence for an effect of the retail food environment surrounding schools on food purchases and consumption.
• Casinos Associated With Lower Rate of Overweight Children in that Community.
• Nutritional Risk and BMI associated with Hospitalization and Mortality.
• Adiposity and breast cancer recurrence and survival.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Allometries of Maximum Growth Rate versus Body Mass at Maximum Growth Indicate That Non-Avian Dinosaurs Had Growth Rates Typical of Fast Growing Ectothermic Sauropsids.
• Scaled body-mass index shows how habitat quality influences the condition of four fish taxa in north-eastern Spain and provides a novel indicator of ecosystem health.

Drugs

• Factors affecting the ability of baclofen to reduce fat intake in rats.
• RCT: Effect of liraglutide on adipose insulin resistance and hepatic de-novo lipogenesis in non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis.
• Therapeutic use of a clinical stage CCR2 inhibitor, CCX872, in obesity-associated Steatohepatitis in mice.
• RCT: Melatonin for prevention of metabolic side-effects of olanzapine in patients with first-episode schizophrenia.
• RCT: A 12-Week Weight Reduction Intervention for Overweight Individuals Taking Antipsychotic Medications.

Cocoa

• Oligomeric cocoa procyanidins possess enhanced bioactivity compared to monomeric and polymeric cocoa procyanidins for preventing the development of obesity, insulin resistance, and impaired glucose tolerance during high-fat feeding in mice.
• RCT: The effects of polyphenol rich chocolate on cardiovascular risk and glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• Anxiety behaviour displayed in C57BL/6J mice consuming coffee and cocoa, but not observed in mice consuming Japanese green tea in a high fat diet induced obesity model.

Clinical

• Liver but not adipose tissue is responsive to the pattern of enteral feeding.
• RCT: Effects of Exercise Training on Outcomes in Women With Heart Failure.
• RCT: The impact of a low glycemic index (GI) diet on BMI in obese adolescents.
• Transfusion of older stored blood may be harmful.

Brown Fat

• Genetic variation in brown fat activity and body weight regulation in mice: Lessons for human studies.
• Brown Adipose Tissue in the Buccal Fat Pad during Infancy.

Basic Science

• Carboxylated and Uncarboxylated Forms of Osteocalcin Directly Modulate the Glucose Transport System and Inflammation in Adipocytes.
• Changes in Dopamine Release and Dopamine D2/3 Receptor Levels with the Development of Mild Obesity.
• SIRT1 Activator SRT1720 Extends Lifespan and Improves Health of Mice Fed a Standard Diet.
• MicroRNA-196a and the regulation of body-fat distribution in man.
• Inhibiting C-reactive protein for the treatment of cardiovascular disease: Promising evidence from rodent models.
• Peripheral monocytes of obese women display increased chemokine receptor expression and migration capacity.
• Rapamycin Inhibits Murine Adipocyte Differentiation and Reduces Fat Mass of C57BL/6J Mice despite High Fat Diet.
• New insights into the mechanisms of polyphenols beyond antioxidant properties; lessons from the green tea polyphenol, epigallocatechin 3-gallate.
• Review: Update on human health concerns of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) use in dairy cows.

Aging/Longevity

• Aging genomes: A necessary evil in the logic of life.
• BMI categories and mortality risk in US adults: The effect of overweight and obesity on advancing death.
• Increased production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species and reduced adult life span in an insecticide-resistant strain of Anopheles gambiae.
• Compound That May Mimic Calorie Restriction Extends Life Span in Mice.

Stigma

• The stress of stigma: exploring the effect of weight stigma on cortisol reactivity.
• Obese fans will have special seats at the World Cup.

Video

• Steven N. Blair: Fitness Trumps Fatness.
• James Hill: Physical Activity: The Other Side of Energy Balance.
• Joseph Houmard: Severe Obesity: Is there a Metabolic Program?
• Double Feature from NIDDK: (1) Kevin Hall - The Calculus of Calories: What Mathematics Can Teach Us About Obesity (2) Kristina I. Rother - Artificial Sweeteners and Obesity: More than an Association?
• Dennis Bier: ILSI RF: Junk Food for Thought.
• David Moher: ILSI RF: Fidelity and Transparency of Research Reporting.
• Andrew W. Brown: ILSI RF: Recent Initiatives to Improve Research Fidelity.
• Kevin Coombes: ILSI RF: Methods to improve public data sharing.
• David Allison: ILSI RF: Discussant Remarks.
• Eugeni Roura: Taste and the control of appetite.

Commentary

• The fallacy of impartiality: competing interest bias in academic publications.
• US Youth Should Get Moving.
• A Social Connection Approach to Corporate Responsibility: The Case of the Fast-Food Industry and Obesity.
• First Look: The FDA's Nutrition Label Gets A Makeover.
• David Katz: Have we turned the tide on childhood obesity?
• Book Review: ‘A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic — and How We Can End It’ by Deborah Cohen.
• Alternative Review: A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic—and How We can End It.
• Diet Myth: Cut or Burn 3,500 Cals, Lose a Pound?

General Science

• Improving My Lab, My Science With the Open Science Framework.
• Mathematics: The Missed Opportunity in STEM Education.
• Public's Right to Access Medical Discoveries Based on Federally Funded Research?
• How Academia and Publishing are Destroying Scientific Innovation: A Conversation with Sydney Brenner.
• Britain sets out plans for first 3-parent IVF babies.

Announcements

• Risk, Perception, and Response Conference – Boston, March 20-21, 2014.
• Analyzing Risk: Principles, Concepts, and Applications - March 10–13, 2014, Boston.
• The 2014 Pennington Biomedical Research Center Childhood Obesity & Public Health Conference.
• 29th Annual Clinical Conference on Diabetes, May 22-25, 2014, Marco Island.