Featured

• Anti-ghrelin immunoglobulins modulate ghrelin stability and its orexigenic effect in obese mice and humans.
• The Power of Negative Thinking: Gaining ground in the ongoing struggle to coax researchers to share negative results.
• Liquid calories, energy compensation and weight: what we know and what we still need to learn.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Beliefs

• No association between skipping breakfast and overweight, neither at age 2 nor at age 5, among Dutch children.
• The occupational class gradient in BMI was strong among Finnish employees but absent among Japanese employees.
• Bariatric surgery not associated with hypothesized reduction in opioid use.
• There were no significant relationships found between BMI and parenting style, emotional eating and emotional regulation.
• Low intake of cheese associated with higher prevalence of excess weight.

Video

• SciVee: Belief beyond the evidence: using the presumed effect of breakfast on obesity.
• Prof Claude Bouchard on the Benefits and Detriments of Exercise.
• Prof Steven Blair on Physical Inactivity: The Biggest Public Health Problem of the 21st Century.
• Prof Paul Campos: 2013 Bicknell Lecture - author of 'The Obesity Myth'; with responses from Frank Hu and ABIGAIL C. SAGUY.
• Prof Arya Sharma: Dr. Sharma: How I got into obesity research.
• NAS Sackler Symposium: The Science of Science Communication II.
• SciVee: Evidence-based strategies in weight-loss mobile apps.

Exercise

• Effects of exercise training on gut hormone levels after a single bout of exercise in middle-aged Japanese women.
• Energy Expenditure during Sexual Activity in Young Fit Healthy Couples Together for About 13 Months.
• Meta-analysis: No significant effect of school-based physical activity on BMI, body weight, or blood pressure.

Food

• RCT: Effects of milk as a recovery drink following exercise on subsequent appetite and energy intake in female recreational exercisers.
• Meta-analysis: Equivocal influences of either low-fat or high-fat diets on cardiovascular disease risk factors in overweight or obese patients.
• Sucrose given in soft drinks was partially compensated for by obese women.

Food Away from Home

• The association of fast food consumption with poor dietary outcomes and obesity among children: is it the fast food or the remainder of diet?
• No population level changes were noted in calories purchased or fast food visits after calorie menu labeling.
• Habitual street food intake and subclinical carotid atherosclerosis.
• Food eaten away from home associated with obesity among Korean men but not women.

Drugs

• RCT: Weight and Body Composition Changes During Oral Contraceptive Use in Obese and Normal Weight Women.
• Drug Shows Potential for Obesity-Related Diseases in Mouse Study.
• Study: 2 peptides better than 1 in targeting diabetes, obesity.
• RCT: Effects of Naltrexone Sustained- Release/Bupropion Sustained Release Combination Therapy on Body Weight and Glycemic Parameters in Overweight and Obese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.

Evolution, Energetics, and Ecology

• The influence of load carrying on the energetics and kinematics of terrestrial locomotion in a diving bird.
• High saturated fat-sucrose feeding affects lactation energetics in control mice and mice selectively bred for high wheel-running behavior.
• Mitochondrial genetics and obesity: evolutionary adaptation and contemporary disease susceptibility.

Psychology

• Impulsivity makes more susceptible to overeating after contextual appetitive conditioning.
• A systematic review of variables associated with the relationship between obesity and depression.

Interpersonal Influences

• Weight Gain among Men and Women Who Have a Child Enter Their Home.
• Going the same ‘weigh’: spousal correlations in obesity in the United Kingdom.
• Energetic Consequences of Human Sociality: Walking Speed Choices among Friendly Dyads.
• Meta-Analysis: Peer Similarity and Influence for Weight-Related Outcomes in Adolescence.

Brain

• Brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression ex vivo in obesity.
• Complex relationship between BMI and white matter characterized by potentially different neuroanatomic vulnerability.

Stigma

• Weight- and race-based bullying: Health associations among urban adolescents.
• Weight stigma consciousness and perceived physical appearance : their key precursors and relationship to health behaviors.

Genetics

• Newborns of obese parents have altered DNA methylation patterns at imprinted genes.
• Meta-analysis: Association between angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/ deletion gene polymorphism and the risk of overweight/obesity.

Clinical

• RCT: Meal provision was a more effective and accepted method for weight loss over a 12-week period compared to a self-directed diet.
• RCT: Pediatrician-led Motivational Interviewing to Treat Overweight Children.
• Readiness redefined: A behavioral task during screening predicted 1-year weight loss in the look AHEAD study.
• Does bone loss begin after weight loss ends? Results 2 years after weight loss or regain in postmenopausal women.
• Abdominal obesity indicators are stronger predictors for CVD mortality than general obesity indicator of BMI.
• Meta-analysis: Risk of childhood overweight or obesity associated with excessive weight gain during pregnancy.

Surgery

• Bariatric Surgery and Effects on Calcium and Bone Metabolism.
• Executive control circuitry differentiates degree of success in weight loss following gastric-bypass surgery.
• Meta-analysis: Bariatric surgery leads to greater body weight loss and higher remission rates of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Economics and Policy

• There is insufficient evidence that physical education laws reduce student weight gain.
• Systematic Review: The effectiveness of a taxation policy to curb obesity is doubtful and available evidence in most studies is not very straightforward due to the multiple complexities in consumer behavior and the underlying substitution effects.
• Obesity, alcohol misuse and smoking on employment and hours worked: evidence from the Icelandic economic collapse.
• Encouraging Healthful Dietary Behavior in a Hospital Cafeteria: A Field Study Using Theories from Social Psychology and Behavioral Economics.
• Obese employees record more occupational injuries than those with recommended healthy weight.
• Meaningful, measurable, and manageable approaches to evaluating healthy food financing initiatives: an overview of resources and approaches.
• Using Behavioral Economics to Design More Effective Food Policies to Address Obesity.
• Should Extreme Obesity in Children be Considered Child Abuse?

Methods

• A comparison of energy expenditure estimation of several physical activity monitors.
• Identifying accelerometer nonwear and wear time in older adults.
• A modeling approach for compounds affecting body composition.
• Evaluation of a Screening System for Obesogenic Compounds.
• The fat mass index: why its height exponent should be 3 and not 2.
• Profiling motives behind hedonic eating. Preliminary validation of the Palatable Eating Motives Scale.
• Defining metabolically healthy obesity.

Temperature

• Effects of mammalian in utero heat stress on adolescent body temperature.
• Thermal sensation by BMI.

Brown Fat

• Accurate detection of metabolically active "brown" and "white" adipose tissues with computed tomography.
• Adipose tissue browning and metabolic health.
• Melatonin induces browning of inguinal white adipose tissue in Zucker diabetic fatty rats.
• Cell Nucleus Protein in Brown Fat Cells Governs Daily Control of Body Temperature.
• Oleoylethanolamide enhances ß-adrenergic-mediated thermogenesis and white-to-brown adipocyte phenotype in epididymal white adipose tissue in rat.

Dogs

• Associations between obesity and physical activity in dogs: A preliminary investigation.
• Dogs motivate obese children for physical activity: Key elements of a motivational theory of animal-assisted interventions.

Basic Science

• Renal tubular Sirt1 attenuates diabetic albuminuria by epigenetically suppressing Claudin-1 overexpression in podocytes.
• Interaction Between Energy Homeostasis and Reproduction: Central Effects of Leptin and Ghrelin on the Reproductive Axis.
• Lifelong Caloric Restriction Reprograms Hepatic Fat Metabolism in Mice.
• Waking and sleeping in the rat made obese through a high-fat hypercaloric diet.
• Obesity higher in patients with Clostridium difficile infections.
• Leptin and paraoxonase activity in cord blood from obese mothers.
• Insulin Sensitizing and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Thiazolidinediones Are Heightened in Obese Patients.

Mathematics

• On the Assessment of Treatment Levels in Relation to BMI Value through Fuzzy Mathematical Modelling.
• Computational model of midbrain dopaminergic neuron activity in ageing and obesity.

Research Enterprise

• Empirical estimates suggest most published medical research is true.
• Empirical evidence for low reproducibility indicates low pre-study odds.
• Inconvenient Truth-Tellers: What Happens When Research Yields Unpopular Findings.
• Science has lost its way, at a big cost to humanity.
• Government-commissioned researchers leaned on by state.
• Some nutrition and diet studies may overstate results.
• More on the crisis in research: Feynman on 'cargo cult science'.

Commentary

• The Irrational Fear of GM Food.
• Increased sugary soda consumption may be balanced by lower caloric intake, study finds.
• The next generation of obesity treatments: Beyond suppressing appetite.
• Communicating About Food: It’s Not All about the Science.
• Arya Sharma: Overstatement of Findings in Nutrition and Obesity Research?
• The Case for Taste Bud Rehab.
• The Race to Redefine Calories: Iconoclasts, Start Your Engines!

Announcements

• PubMed Commons: Frequently asked questions
• 3rd Short course on next-generation sequencing: Technology and statistical methods.
• Technology and the Future of America’s Waistline: A Future Tense Event.
• 3rd International Conference on Food Digestion.
• Experimental Biology abstracts due November 8.