Featured

• Editorial on Breakfast: Next will be apple pie.
• Leptin levels in free ranging striped mice (Rhabdomys pumilio) increase when food decreases: The ecological leptin hypothesis.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• Systematic Review: "Menu labeling with calories alone did not have the intended effect of decreasing calories selected or consumed (-31 kcal [P=0.35] and -13 kcal [P=0.61], respectively)."
• Observed associations between BMI and perceived neighborhood environment measures (crime, heavy traffic, proximity to fast food, etc.) were largely attenuated after accounting for residential property values.
• RCT: Initial evidence that GLP-1 receptor blockade fails to suppress postprandial satiety or promote food intake in humans.
• Obesity and insulin resistance are not associated with endothelial dysfunction in rat aortas.
• Higher BMI increases current depressive episode; no association is found between BMI and lifelong depression; contradictive with literature, alexithymia and its severity are not found to be related with BMI.
• Systematic review of alcohol mixed with caffeine: caffeine had no effect on the judgement of subjective intoxication.
• RCT: No difference in weight loss between two energy deficit healthy diet advice groups differing only by doubling the serving (portion) sizes of vegetables.

Clinical

• RCT: “We are presenting results of the first randomized controlled intervention trial demonstrating that increased water consumption is an effective weight loss strategy,”
• RCT: Treatment Outcomes of Overweight Children and Parents in the Medical Home.
• Specific appetite, energetic and metabolomics responses to fat overfeeding in resistant-to-bodyweight-gain constitutional thinness.
• RCT: The feasibility and acceptability of regular weighing of pregnant women by community midwives to prevent excessive weight gain.
• RCT: Inpatient Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Severe Obesity in the Netherlands.
• Systematic review and meta-analysis: Non-surgical weight loss interventions have the potential to improve urinary incontinence and should be considered part of standard practice in the management of urinary incontinence in overweight women.
• The complex relationship among weight, bone marrow and osteoporosis.

Food

• RCT: Sucrose compared with artificial sweeteners: a clinical intervention study of effects on energy intake, appetite, and energy expenditure after 10 wk of supplementation in overweight subjects.
• Study found blood sugar levels not affected by sucralose-sweetened desserts.
• RCT: Acute and Second Meal Effects of Peanuts on Glycemic Response and Appetite in Obese Women with High Type 2 Diabetes Risk.
• A review of the effect of dietary composition on fasting substrate oxidation in healthy and overweight subjects.

Drugs

• RCT: Liraglutide's Safety, Tolerability, Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacodynamics in Pediatric Type 2 Diabetes.
• Anti-obesity effect of polymeric microparticles containing capsaicinoids.

Exercise

• Effects of exercise and diet on weight loss maintenance in overweight and obese adults: a systematic review.
• A Phenomenological Study of Obesity and Physical Activity in Southern African American Older Women.

Caloric Restriction

• Partial rescue of memory deficits induced by calorie restriction in a mouse model of tau deposition. .
• How much should we weigh for a long and healthy life span? The need to reconcile caloric restriction versus longevity with body mass index versus mortality data.
• Caloric restriction and the aging process: A critique.
• Caloric restriction and Lamarckian evolution.
• Calorie restriction mimicking effects of roflumilast prevents diabetic nephropathy.

Psychology

• Obese women 'show signs of food learning impairment'.
• Mediators of the Relation between Depression and Obesity in Youth.
• CDC report: Nearly 48% of obese boys and 36% of obese girls consider themselves to be about the right weight.
• Survey: 31% of parents with an obese child say their child is healthy.

Computational

• Development of a dynamic, mechanistic model of nutritional and reproductive processes in dairy cattle.
• This study combines knowledge of nutrition, physical activity and body metabolism into a system dynamics model called SIMULObese.

Technology

• A Framework for Obesity Control Using a Wireless Body Sensor Network.
• Better Physical Activity Classification using Smartphone Acceleration Sensor.

Surgery

• Weight-loss surgery: A gut-wrenching question.
• The Effect [association] of Medicaid Status on Weight Loss, Hospital Length of Stay, and 30-Day Readmission After Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery.
• Long-term sympathoinhibitory effects of surgically induced weight loss in severe obese patients.

Methods

• Getting Started with Microbiome Analysis: Sample Acquisition to Bioinformatics.
• Rectal Swabs for Analysis of the Intestinal Microbiota.
• Conducting a Microbiome Study: A Primer.
• Using crowdsourcing to evaluate published scientific literature: Methods and example.

Genetics

• Systems genetics of obesity in an F2 pig model by genome-wide association, genetic network, and pathway analyses.
• Contribution of genetic background and antiretroviral therapy to body fat changes in antiretroviral-naive HIV-infected adults.

Low Carbohydrate Diets

• Researchers recommend carbohydrate restriction as primary method of diabetes control.
• Crossover trial: Women with polycystic ovary syndrome lost more total fat and had a lower insulin AUC on a reduced-carbohydrate diet, compared with a eucaloric standard diet.

Gut Microbiota

• Gut microbes of Mojave Desert woodrats facilitate intake of plant toxins.
• Incorporation of therapeutically modified bacteria into gut microbiota inhibits obesity, in mice.

Epidemiology

• Comparing Indices of Diet Quality With Chronic Disease Mortality Risk in Postmenopausal Women in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study: Evidence to Inform National Dietary Guidance.
• Body Composition and Mortality in a Large Cohort With Preserved Ejection Fraction: Untangling the Obesity Paradox.
• The associations of BMI with all-cause, CVD, expanded CVD mortality in the elderly are represented by U-shaped curves, suggesting unilateral promotions or interventions in weight reduction in the elderly may be inappropriate. Heterogeneous effects of grades 1 and 2-3 obesity on mortality were observed and should be treated as different levels of obesity.
• Exploring Causality between TV Viewing and Weight Change in Young and Middle-Aged Adults. The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study.
• Childhood obesity and educational attainment.
• Trends in the Association Between Socioeconomic Status and Obesity in U.S. Adults: 2002-2012.
• Weekend-weeknight shifts in sleep duration predict risk for metabolic syndrome.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Sexual size dimorphism, diet, and reproduction in the Mexican garter snake, thamnophis eques.
• The Definition and Measurement of Individual Condition in Evolutionary Studies.
• Larger Mammalian Body Size Leads to Lower Retroviral Activity.

Ethics and Scientific Integrity

• Researchers cleared of misconduct in row over sugar link to obesity.
• â–º The article in question: The Austrailian Paradox: A Substantial Decline in Sugars Intake over the Same Timeframe that Overweight and Obesity Have Increased.
• Literature review of probiotics and intestinal cancer retracted due to plagiarism of five papers.
• Self-interest may have prompted an exaggeration of radiation risks that led to the adoption of the LNT cancer risk assessment model in 1956.

Thermoregulation

• Obesity associated with risk of heat illness among army trainees.
• Deficiency in adipocyte chemokine receptor CXCR4 exacerbates obesity and compromises thermoregulatory responses of brown adipose tissue in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity.

Policy Related

• Systematic review: Interventions shown to be ineffective in those with lower socioeconomic position were primarily information provision, directed at individual behaviour change; effective interventions included community-based strategies or policies aimed at structural changes to the environment.
• UK Labour Party considers adding 'no junk food ads before 9 o'clock' to policy goals in run-up to next year's general election.

Commentary

• “Over the last year or so two senior Australian nutritionists have been subjected to a sustained social media campaign to denigrate them and their research. Their alleged crime? Daring to say what they believed to be true.”
• Family Matters in Health and Weight.
• Dr. Henry Blackburn Defending Ancel Keys’ legacy.
• Should you eat wheat? The great gluten debate.
• Four corporate wellness trends favoring carrots over sticks.
• Embrace patient heterogeneity and allow for approval of drugs that show efficacy in only a subset of treated patients.
• â–º Counterpoint from the past: The subgroup finding that set the stage for the conviction of a biotech CEO (and didn't pan out).
• How overparenting makes kids overweight.

Basic Science

• Effect of photoperiod on the feline adipose transcriptome as assessed by RNA sequencing.
• The Chemical Uncoupler 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) Protects against Diet-induced Obesity and Improves Energy Homeostasis in Mice at Thermoneutrality.
• HO-1 Promotes Unhealthy Obesity.
• Myeloperoxidase Deletion Prevents High-Fat Diet-induced Obesity and Insulin Resistance.
• Beyond salty and sweet: Are soapy and metallic joining the budding club of tastes?

General Science

• Why Ineffective Psychotherapies Appear to Work: A Taxonomy of Causes of Spurious Therapeutic Effectiveness.
• The heritability (phenotypic variability due to genetic differences) of autism is estimated at 52%.
• Video: Mapping each and every cell in a fly embryo.
• Risk is never strictly a numbers game.
• Systematic review and meta-analysis: Subjects are generally capable of correctly judging their level of intoxication, regardless of concurrent caffeine consumption.
• The gene that turns worms into Pavlov's dogs.
• RNA-directed gene editing specifically eradicates latent and prevents new HIV-1 infection.
• The microbial contents of sand fly stomachs may have important consequences for the spread of leishmaniasis.

Announcements

• In memoriam: Another tribute to Dr. Albert J. Stunkard.
• 17th International Conference of Functional Food Center - 5th International Symposium of the Academic Society for Functional Foods and Bioactive Compounds, November 18-19, 2014, San Diego, California, USA.
• NIGMS RFI: Soliciting Comments on a Potential New Program for Research Funding.
• Dr. Judith D. Singer to be honored with 13th Janet L. Norwood award for outstanding achievement by a woman in the statistical sciences.
• IOM report: Assessing Genomic Sequencing Information for Health Care Decision Making.
• ACN 55th Annual Conference: Translational Nutrition: Turning Research Into Practice, October 15 - 18, 2014 in San Antonio, TX.
• Submit abstracts now for ICDAM9 in Brisbane Australia, September 1-3, 2015