Featured

• Shades of grey. It is risky to oversimplify science for the sake of a clear public-health message.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: Results suggest that skipping breakfast may be an effective means to reduce daily energy intake in some adults.
• The potential for Daylight Savings Time to serve as a broad-based intervention that encourages greater sports/recreation participation is not supported by this analysis.
• Observational study finds high amounts of daily walking-biking in pregnancy has adverse associations with HDL cholesterol, diastolic blood pressure and BMI in offspring.
• Observational study results do not support a causal association between caesarean section and childhood obesity.
• Paleolithic Diet is Associated With Unfavorable Changes to Blood Lipids in Healthy Subjects
• Recent vitamin D study data could be skewed by sick participants
• No Association between Dietary Energy Density and Type 2 Diabetes in Europe: Results from the EPIC-InterAct Study.
• Marijuana use associated with lower levels of fasting insulin and HOMA-IR, and smaller waist circumference.
• RCT: Web-based familial risk information reduced worry related to diabetes risk and decreased saturated fat intake of those at greatest need of preventative care.

Aging, Caloric Restriction, Nutrient Sensing

• Effects of caloric restriction on oxidative stress parameters.
• Caloric restriction and its mimetics.
• Inhibit Mitochondria to Live Longer?
• Chronic Caloric Restriction and Exercise Improve Metabolic Conditions of Dietary-Induced Obese Mice in Autophagy Correlated Manner without Involving AMPK.
• Role of energy- and nutrient-sensing kinases AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) in adipocyte differentiation.

Basic Science

• Harnessing the beneficial properties of adipogenic microbes for improving human health.
• Evidence of a direct link between obesity and ER stress resulting in altered POMC processing
• Effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on the control of body energy balance in developing rat.
• Timing of Maternal Exposure to a High Fat Diet and Development of Obesity and Hyperinsulinemia in Male Rat Offspring.
• Obesity Induces Hypothalamic Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Impairs Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) Post-translational Processing.
• Cross-talk between Akkermansia muciniphila and intestinal epithelium controls diet-induced obesity

Policy Related

• EXAMINING STATE SUGAR-SWEETENED-BEVERAGE TAX POLICY FROM A MULTIPLE STREAMS APPROACH.
• Dietary Fats and Health: Dietary Recommendations in the Context of Scientific Evidence
• Obesity and Blame: Elusive Goals for Personal Responsibility
• National Obesity Rates: A Legitimate Health Policy Endpoint?
• Employer Wellness Issue Heats Up.
• Children reclassified from underweight to normal weight in changing from CDC 2000 to WHO 2006 growth charts may still be affected by morbidities associated with underweight
• A protocol for a systematic review of the effectiveness of public health interventions at reducing socioeconomic inequalities in obesity among adults.

Methods

• Issues in characterizing resting energy expenditure in obesity and after weight loss.
• A Comparison of Energy Expenditure Estimation of Several Physical Activity Monitors.
• Chemical-shift water-fat MRI of white adipose depots: inability to resolve cell size differences.
• Technique analyzing hair may allow accurate measurement of sugar-sweetened beverage history.

Stigma

• Implicit Association Test Finds Obesity Bias in Physicians
• Whose fault is obesity?
• Incentivizing Wellness in the Workplace: Sticks(Not Carrots) Send Stigmatizing Signals
• Obesity as a status cue: perceived social status and the stereotypes of obese individuals
• Do Media Portrayals of Obesity Influence Support for Weight-Related Medical Policy?

Clinical

• RCT: Effectiveness of Abdominal Acupuncture for Patients with Obesity-Type Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.
• RCT: Intensive Weight Loss Intervention in Older Individuals: Results from the Action for Health in Diabetes Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Trial.
• RCT: Motivational Interviewing to Enhance Self-Efficacy and Promote Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Adolescents.
• Children reclassified from underweight to normal weight in changing from CDC 2000 to WHO 2006 growth charts may still be affected by morbidities associated with underweight.

Drugs

• RCT: Bupropion for overweight women with binge-eating disorder.
• RCT: Liraglutide suppresses postprandial triglyceride and apolipoprotein B48 elevations after a fat-rich meal in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Sugar

• RCT: Effects of small amounts of glucose through an oral spray device on weight loss.
• RCT: Glucose and Fructose Ingestion following High Intensity Exercise does not Affect Subsequent Exercise Capacity.

Food

• In nutrition, can we "see" what is good for us?
• NYT’s Jane E. Brody on “Many Fronts in Fighting Obesity.”
• Inconsistent Associations of Density and Proximity of Fast Food Restaurants with BMI Among African Americans.
• Acute satiety response to mammalian, avian or fish proteins in dogs.
• RCT: Polydextrose results in a dose-dependent reduction in ad libitum energy intake at a subsequent test meal.
• RCT: Extent and determinants of thermogenic responses to 24 hours of fasting, energy balance, and five different overfeeding diets in humans.
• The Great Salt Debate: So Bad?
• Treatment of Diabetes and Diabetic Complications With a Ketogenic Diet.
• Association between Milk and Milk Product Consumption and Anthropometric Measures in Adult Men and Women in India: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Chocolate

• Female Fetuses are More Reactive When Mother Eats Chocolate.
• Chocolate in history: food, medicine, medi-food.
• Resisting chocolate temptation using a brief mindfulness strategy.

Mortality

• Commentary in Nature: The big fat truth.
• Annual deaths attributable to physical inactivity: whither the missing 2 million?
• Mortality rate and overweight: Overblown or underestimated? A commentary on a recent meta-analysis of the associations of BMI and mortality.
• Obesity and Life Expectancy among Long-Lived Black Adults.

Epidemiology

• Family Structure, Parental Marital Status, and Obesity among U.S. Children.
• Decomposing the American Obesity Epidemic.

Exercise

• Non-Randomized Study finds association (not necessarily causation) of State PE Requirements with Less Obesity, and Only in Boys.
• RCT: Exercise acutely reduces cravings for cigarettes and snacks.
• RCT: Racial differences in the response of cardiorespiratory fitness to aerobic exercise training in Caucasian and African American postmenopausal women.
• RCT: Effects of pre- and post-exercise consumption of multi-ingredient performance supplements on cardiovascular health and body fat in trained men after six weeks of resistance training.
• RCT: Individual variability in compensatory eating following acute exercise in overweight and obese women.
• RCT: Clinically Significant Improved Fitness and Weight Loss among Overweight Persons with Serious Mental Illness.
• Cold exposure enhances fat utilization but not non-esterified fatty acids, glycerol or catecholamines availability during submaximal walking and running.
• Influence of Friends on Children's Physical Activity: A Review.

Psychology

• The better the story, the bigger the serving: narrative transportation increases snacking during screen time in a randomized trial.
• Childhood ADHD tied to obesity decades later.
• Who is to blame for the rise in obesity?

General Science

• After 168 Years, Potato Famine Mystery Solved.
• Reprogramming the Maternal Zebrafish Genome after Fertilization to Match the Paternal Methylation Pattern.
• Assortative mating in animals.
• Are randomized trials obsolete or more important than ever in the genomic era?

Announcements

• Inga Kadish: Scientist of the Week for Ghrelin Hunger Study.
• UAB posts job ad for med school dean.
• UAB offering first undergraduate Public Health degree in Alabama.
• UAB 1st Annual Workshop on Metabolomics - July 22 - 25, 2013.