Featured

• RCT: The liberating effect of weight loss supplements on dietary control.
• A Farm to School Program increased children’s fruit and vegetable intake, but did not decrease energy intake or BMI  z-scores,
• Hawthorne effect with transient behavioral and biochemical changes in a sleep extension RCT of chronically short-sleeping obese adults: implications for the design and interpretation of clinical studies.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Feelings of energy are associated with physical activity and sleep quality, but not adiposity, in middle-aged postmenopausal women.
• BMI is not associated with eosinophilic airway inflammation.
• No association between body size and frequency of sexual intercourse among oral contraceptive users.
• Vibration training at 45 Hz and 0.6 g did not significantly impact the tibial bone and the surrounding musculature, but affected fat distribution in mice.
• “The health advantage generally attributed to higher SES does not appear consistently across racial/ethnic groups for obesity in youth”.

Basic Science

• Chronic activation of central AMPK attenuates glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and exacerbates hepatic insulin resistance in diabetic rats.
• Cardiolipin profiles as a potential biomarker of mitochondrial health in diet-induced obese mice subjected to exercise, diet-restriction and ephedrine treatment.
• Adipocytes in both brown and white adipose tissue of adult mice are functionally connected via gap junctions: Implications for Chagas disease.
• Evaluating the number of mitochondrial DNA copies in leukocytes and adipocytes from metabolic syndrome patients.
• Applications of computational modeling in metabolic engineering of yeast.

Clinical

• Dash of salt does no harm. Extremes are the enemy.
• Obesity increases the risk of persistent moderate or severe overall pain 6 months and 1 year after motor vehicle collision.

Drugs, Pills & Potions

• RCT: Administration of resveratrol significantly decreases weight, BMI, fat mass, WC, AUC of insulin, and total insulin secretion.
• St. John's wort has metabolically favorable effects on adipocytes in vivo.
• Cocaine cues activate similar, though not identical, pathways to those activated by food cues and that striatal D2/D3 receptors modulate these responses, suggesting that chronic cocaine exposure might influence brain sensitivity not just to drugs but also to food cues.
• Rosiglitazone reduces body wasting and improves survival in a rat model of cancer cachexia.
• RCT: Body weight loss, reduced urge for palatable food and increased release of GLP-1 through daily supplementation with green-plant membranes for three months in overweight women.
• New estrogen-based compound suppresses binge-like eating behavior in female mice.
• Drug Modulation via the quality control theory of aging.

Epidemiology

• The relationship between obesity and exposure to light at night: Cross-Sectional analyses of over 100,000 women in the Breakthrough Generations Study.
• The effect (association) of gender and social capital on the dual burden of malnutrition: A multilevel study in Indonesia.
• “There is an association between the presence of type unspecific anti-AdV antibodies in the serum and elevated body weight, BMI, WHR and waist circumference in lean and non-obese subjects from the Polish population”.
• Webcast: Moving beyond traditional epidemiologic research.

Methods

• The relationship between appetite scores and subsequent energy intake: An analysis based on 23 randomized controlled studies.
• Misreporting of dietary intake affects estimated nutrient intakes in low-income Spanish-speaking women.
• When studied in a laboratory environment and energy balance was closely monitored, subjects under-reported their food intake and decreased the actual intake when they were aware that their intake was being monitored.
• Whole animal experiments should be more like human RCTs.

Transgenerational Effects

• The role of placental nutrient sensing in maternal-fetal resource allocation.
• Short- and long-term effects of a maternal low-energy diet ad libitum during gestation and/or lactation on physiological parameters of mothers and male offspring.
• The anthropometry of children and adolescents may be influenced by the prenatal smoking habits of their grandmothers: A longitudinal cohort study.
• Aggressive behavioral phenotype in intrauterine growth restricted (IUGR) baboons exposed to moderate nutrient restriction early in development.
• Don't blame the mothers.

Evolution, Energetics, & Ecology

• Why hummingbirds love sweets - and detest anything sugar free.
• Seasonal metabolic adjustments and partitioning of evaporative water loss in Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit bat, Epomophorus Wahlbergi.
• Daily torpor and hibernation in birds and mammals.

Food

• Rethinking Eating.
• RCT: Effect of cooked white rice with high ß-glucan barley on appetite and energy intake in healthy Japanese subjects.
• Comparative study of the effects of sweeteners on the blood glucose level and weight of rattus norvegicus.
• RCT: Effects of brown and golden flaxseed on the lipid profile, glycemia, inflammatory biomarkers, blood pressure and body composition in overweight adolescents.
• Resisting chocolate temptation using a brief mindfulness strategy.
• Does increasing fruit and vegetable intake affect weight loss?

Breakfast

• Breakfast downgraded from 'most important meal of the day' to 'meal'.
• RCT: Satiety effects of a whole-grain fibre composite ingredient: reduced food intake and appetite ratings.
• Is a good breakfast key?

Caloric Restriction

• Protein and amino acid restriction, aging and disease: from yeast to humans.
• Growth hormone abolishes beneficial effects of calorie restriction in long-lived Ames dwarf mice.
• The roles of FoxOs in modulation of aging by calorie restriction.
• Effect of Resveratrol as caloric restriction mimetic and environmental enrichment on neurobehavioural responses in young healthy mice.
• Long-term calorie restriction of two laboratory mouse strains caused differential changes in infection susceptibility, reactive oxygen species/antioxidant production and parasite life history traits.
• FGF21 is an endocrine signal of protein restriction.
• Review: The health pros and cons of continuous versus intermittent calorie restriction: More questions than answers.

Diet

• Dietary regimens modify early onset of obesity in mice haploinsufficient for Rai1.
• Dietary effect on immunological energetics in mice.

Exercise

• RCT: Physical exercise reduces body fat in postpartum primiparous, lactating women.
• RCT: Body composition response to lower body positive pressure training in obese children.

Diabetes

• RCT: Impact of an Intensive Lifestyle Intervention on Use and Cost of Medical Services Among Overweight and Obese Adults With Type 2 Diabetes: The Action for Health in Diabetes.
• FDA clears 2 blood glucose monitors from Nipro.
• Exercise lowers type 2 diabetes risk after gestational diabetes.
• New scientific statement from the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association stress heart care for type 1 diabetes patients.

Gut Microbiota

• Microbiome science needs a healthy dose of skepticism.
• A gut microbe that stops food allergies.

Hypoxia

• Oxygen sensing and metabolic homeostasis.
• A genetic mechanism for Tibetan high-altitude adaptation.
• Effects of high-altitude trekking on body composition.

Mathematical

• The potential impact of a 20% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages on obesity in South African adults: A mathematical model.
• Public and health professionals' misconceptions about the dynamics of body weight gain/loss.
• Computer modeling of obesity links theoretical energetic measures with experimental measures of fuel use for lean and obese men.

Obesogens

• Perinatal lead (Pb) exposure results in sex-specific effects on food intake, fat, weight, and insulin response across the murine life-course.
• Association of low-level arsenic exposure in drinking water with cardiovascular disease: A systematic review and risk assessment.
• DDT and obesity.

Attitudes

• A content analysis of weight stigmatization in popular television programming for adolescents.
• “Don’t eat that, you’ll get fat!” exploring how parents and children conceptualise and frame messages about the causes and consequences of obesity.
• Beliefs, attitudes and phobias among medical and psychology students towards people with obesity.
• Obesity in minorities may be affected by demeaning stereotypes.
• Obesity Action Coalition creates petition against fat shaming apps such as Fatify.

Policy Related

• Listening to the experts: Is there a place for food taxation in the fight against obesity in early childhood?
• A systematic review on the affordability of a healthful diet for families in the United States.
• Venezuela battles obesity amid dearth of good food.
• Grants helped state exchanges enroll more people than HealthCare.gov.

Smoking

• A policy statement from the American Heart Association on E-cigarettes.
• Significant smoking-induced increase in arterial stiffness was not observed in physically active adults.

Surgery

• Preoperative dietary restriction reduces intimal hyperplasia and protects from ischemia-reperfusion injury in mice.
• Bariatric surgery and pregnancy outcome - the ultimate solution?
• Peripheral nerve interface applications, obesity.

Psychology

• I’ll drink to that: Differential effect of fat labeling, weight salience and dietary restraint on consumption.
• Can merely learning about obesity genes affect eating behavior?

Technology

• Microsoft partners on mobile-health plan for diabetes patients.
• Many patients don’t understand electronic lab results.

General Science

• Holding a Mirror Up to "White Hat Bias" in Research.
• Tiny twisters whirl around inside drops of helium.
• Research team says migrating fruit bats responsible for Ebola outbreak.
• A whole functional organ has been grown from scratch inside an animal for the first time.
• Dogs play dumb for our sake.
• Sedentary behavior and health outcomes: An overview of systematic reviews.
• RCTs of rheumatoid arthritis registered at clinicaltrials.gov: What gets published and when.

Commentary

• Rich or Poor, Fit or Fat — Beware Generalizations.
• Zafgen CEO: "Treating obesity with dietary prevention and exercise is like putting sunscreen on melanoma."
• What is important to early career researchers?
• Why are we so fat? The multimillion-dollar scientific quest to find out.
• How the world is becoming more equal.
• Should We Really Be Calling Obesity a Disease?
• Obscurity on obesity.

Announcements

• Southern Translational Education and Research Conference, Sept. 25-26 at the Augusta Marriott Hotel, will focus on obesity.
• Call for papers - Weight stigma and eating behaviors.
• Association-funded research database now available.
• Two job opportunities at Sense About Science. Deadline: Monday, September 8.               
• Register now for meeting 5 of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on Sept. 16 and 17.