Featured

• Obesogens beyond Vertebrates: Lipid perturbation by Tributyltin in the Crustacean Daphnia magna.
• Plexin D1 determines body fat distribution by regulating the type V collagen microenvironment in visceral adipose tissue.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• No association of maternal gestational weight gain with offspring blood pressure and hypertension at age 18 years in male sibling-pairs: A prospective register-based cohort study.
• “Intervention programs based only on counseling are effective in promoting changes in dietary patterns, but show poor results in the changes of anthropometric parameters of children and adolescents.”
• RCT: No differential effects of effects of single- and multi-screen use on energy intake.
• “Our instrumental variable analyses did not support a causal relationship between higher BMI and major depression.”

Rigor & Scholarly Dialogue

• World Health Organization recommendations are often strong based on low confidence in effect estimates.
• World Health Organization strong recommendations based on low-quality evidence (study quality) are frequent and often inconsistent with GRADE guidance.
• Maternal, Paternal, and Societal Efforts Are Needed to “Cure” Childhood Obesity.
• In reply--Maternal, paternal, and societal efforts are needed to "cure" childhood obesity.

Basic Science

• Guts of people in hunter-gatherer societies share bacteria industrialized people lack.
• Stress of endoplasmic reticulum modulates differentiation and lipogenesis of human adipocytes.
• Activation of AMPKα2 in adipocytes is essential for nicotine-induced insulin resistance in vivo.
• Review: The Hunger Genes: Pathways to obesity.

Clinical

• Development of a theory-based, peer support intervention to promote weight loss among Latina immigrants.
• Improvements in body satisfaction among obese preadolescent African American girls after participation in a weight-loss intervention.
• Body shape index versus BMI as correlates of health risk in young healthy sedentary men.

Epidemiology

• Associations of Fibroblast Growth Factor-23 with markers of inflammation, insulin resistance and obesity in adults.
• Association of late-night carbohydrate intake with glucose tolerance among pregnant African American women.

Food

• Dietary protein: Carbohydrate balance is a critical modulator of lifespan and reproduction in Drosophila melanogaster: A test using a chemically defined diet.
• RCT: Effects of choice architecture and chef-enhanced meals on the selection and consumption of healthier school foods.
• Can direct conversion of used nitrogen to new feed and protein help feed the world?

Caloric Restriction

• Long-term hyperphagia and caloric restriction caused by low- or high-density husbandry have differential effects on Zebrafish postembryonic development, somatic growth, fat accumulation and reproduction.
• Subacute calorie restriction and rapamycin discordantly alter mouse liver proteome homeostasis and reverse aging effects.
• Caloric restriction increases ketone bodies metabolism and preserves blood flow in aging brain.

Diet

• Factors influencing individual variability in high fat diet-induced weight gain in out-bread MF1 mice.
• Statistical review of US macronutrient consumption data, 1965-2011: Americans have been following dietary guidelines, coincident with the rise in obesity.
• Effects of dietary protein levels during rearing and dietary energy levels during lay on body composition and reproduction in broiler breeder females.

Diabetes

• Association of adverse pregnancy outcomes with glyburide vs insulin in women with gestational diabetes.
• Age- and gender- related differences in LDL-cholesterol management in outpatients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
• Parental characteristics associated with outcomes in youth with Type 2 Diabetes: Results from the TODAY clinical trial.

Metabolic Syndrome

• Pharmacological inhibition of PI3K reduces adiposity and metabolic syndrome in obese mice and Rhesus monkeys.
• Treatment of equine metabolic syndrome: A clinical case series.
• Evening chronotype is associated with metabolic disorders and body composition in middle-aged adults.

Drugs

• RCT: Efficacy and safety of fasiglifam (TAK-875), a GPR40 agonist, in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled by diet and exercise.
• Naltrexone extended-release plus bupropion extended-release for treatment of obesity.
• FDA expands uses of Vyvanse to treat binge-eating disorder.

Exercise

• Are active video games useful to combat obesity?
• Energy intake adaptations to acute isoenergetic active video games and exercise are similar in obese adolescents.
• RCT: Evaluation of a workplace treadmill desk Intervention.
• Effects of nordic walking and pilates exercise programs on blood glucose and lipid profile in overweight and obese postmenopausal women.
• Inflammatory cytokines in general and central obesity and modulating effects of physical activity.

Telemonitored Exercise

• “Fitnet, a free exercise app supported by NSF that uses the camera on your phone to automatically assess the quality of the exercise and give you a score.”
• Video: George Orwell 1984 Telescreen Exercise.

Heart Disease

• RCT: Comparing the effect of exercise training and weight loss on microvascular function in coronary artery disease.
• The maternal-age-associated risk of congenital heart disease is modifiable.

Psychology

• Eat now or later: Self-control as an overlapping cognitive mechanism of depression and obesity.
• See it, grab it, or STOP! Relationships between trait impulsivity, attentional bias for pictorial food cues and associated response inhibition following in-vivo food cue exposure.
• Social phobia and quality of life in morbidly obese patients before and after bariatric surgery.

Pediatrics

• Trends in energy intakes by type of fast food restaurant among US children from 2003 to 2010.
• Evaluation of DXA vs. MRI for body composition measures in 1-months olds.
• Episodic future thinking reduces delay discounting and energy intake in children.
• CD36 AA genotype is associated with decreased lipid taste perception in young obese, but not lean, children.

Surgery

• Standardized outcomes reporting in metabolic and bariatric surgery.
• A review of depression and quality of life outcomes in adolescents post bariatric surgery.
• Risk of an asthma exacerbation after bariatric surgery in adults.

Methods

• “In conclusion, there is substantial under-reporting of dietary energy intake in populations across the whole range of the HDI [human development index], and this systematic reporting error increases according to the BMI of an individual.”
• Energy intake estimation from counts of chews and swallows.
• Patent: Method for determining aerobic capacity.
• Inter- and intraindividual correlations of background abundances of ²H, ¹⁸O, and ¹⁷O in human urine and implications for DLW measurements.

Economics & Sociology

• Factors affecting food choices of older adults from high and low socioeconomic groups: a discrete choice experiment.
• Price promotions on healthier compared with less healthy foods: A hierarchical regression analysis of the impact on sales and social patterning of responses to promotions in Great Britain.

Stigma

• Stigma, obesity and adolescent risk behaviors: Current research and future directions.
• Obesity, perceived weight discrimination, and psychological well-being in older adults in England.

Aging

• Overweight and obesity in midlife and brain structure and Dementia 26 years later: the AGES-Reykjavik Study.
• Caloric restriction, resveratrol and melatonin: Role of SIRT1 and implications for aging and related-diseases.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Sci-Fly study explores how life forms know to be the right size.
• The effect of prey availability on offspring survival depends on maternal food resources.
• Food availability, energetic constraints, and reproductive development in a wild seasonally breeding songbird.

Policy Related

• Major medical conference highlights the need for better evidence for future dietary advice.
• Food policy and cognitive bias (PDF).
• Public policy & obesity: Overview and update (PDF).
• Choice, respect and value: The ethics of healthy eating policy (PDF).
• Tackling obesity—is coercion an option?
• Keep Food Legal Foundation files amicus curiae brief in landmark USDA Supreme Court case.
• Open letter to the Secretaries of the US Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Sciences on the creation of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Video & Audio

• Connect & Explore: A deeper dive into childhood obesity declines.
• Daniel Bessesen: "Dietary fat and body weight regulation."

Commentary

• Obesity as disease and deviance: Risk and morality in early 21^st century.
• Sugar Vs. Salt: Which has the greater impact on your heart health?
• The obesity gene and the (misplaced) search for a personalized approach to our weight gain problems (PDF).

General Science

• Influence of the cardiomyocyte circadian clock on cardiac physiology and pathophysiology.
• Frumkin commentary says greater focus on the consequentiality of epidemiologic research is needed.
• Studies of health information exchanges yet to show strong evidence of benefits.
• National Science Foundation announces plan for comprehensive public access to research results.
• Major publisher retracts 43 scientific papers amid wider fake peer-review scandal.
• Fyn inhibition rescues established memory and synapse loss in Alzheimer mice.
• Superhealing drug travels in nanoparticles to wounds.
• Molecular cloning and tissue expression of uncoupling protein 1, 2 and 3 genes in Chinese perch (Siniperca chuatsi).
• Brain feminization requires active repression of masculinization via DNA methylation.

Announcements

• Conference: Safeguarding the American food supply: April 10-11, 2015.
• Development of the Global Energy Balance Network.
• New Scientist Careers Guide.
• Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Obesity Solutions on April 14-15, 2015.
• The Obesity Society's abstract submission is open for TOS Annual Meeting.
• Hot Topic Conference: Obesity and Pregnancy registration is open.
• NYC Regional Diabetes Meeting 2015.