Featured

• A heart–adipose tissue connection in the regulation of energy metabolism.
• Focusing on the satiety effect of a meal as the unit of analysis for human feeding behavior may be too myopic - we must view the control of energy intake over longer periods of time.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Common Beliefs

• No association between neighborhood built environment or change in built environment and BMI.
• RCT: No significant effect of assignment to different protein to carbohydrate ratios on weight loss.
• RCT: No effect of a school environment intervention on adolescent adiposity and physical fitness.
• Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa in 8-11 year old children.

Headline versus Study

• Headline: You are what your father eats.
• Study: Low paternal dietary folate alters the mouse sperm epigenome and is associated with negative pregnancy outcomes.

Basic Science

• Functional collaboration of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Receptor (IGF-1R), but not insulin receptor (IR), with acute GH signaling in mouse calvarial cells.
• Irisin, a novel myokine: potential role in obesity and diabetes.
• Oncostatin M Is Produced in Adipose Tissue and Is Regulated in Conditions of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.
• Macrophages, fat, and the emergence of immunometabolism.
• Obesity and breast cancer: role of inflammation and aromatase.

Video

• Christopher Kuzawa - Epigenetic, developmental and intergenerational influences on US cardiovascular health disparities.
• Philipp Gut – “A whole-organism approach to study metabolic networks.”
• Understanding Risk: A Primer for Journalists.
• What if blaming the obese is blaming the victim?

Sugar & Sweeteners

• European Food Safety Authority concludes aspartame safe at current levels of exposure.
• The reward value of sucrose in leptin deficient obese mice.
• Sugar-containing drinks. Why do men compensate more than women?
• RCT: Repeated consumption of a non-caloric sweetened beverage, instead of a sugar sweetened version, appears not to result in changes in the reward value.
• RCT: Artificial sweeteners (sucralose and AceK) have no effect on gastric emptying, glucagon-like Peptide-1, or glycemia after oral glucose in healthy humans.

Sleep

• RCT: Sleep deprivation increases plasma levels of ghrelin and food intake.
• RCT: Restricting night-time eating reduces daily energy intake in healthy young men.

Psychology

• Help Me Get Fat! Feederism as Communal Deviance on the Internet.
• Humans are not fooled by size illusions in attractiveness judgements.
• Perceived weight in youths and risk of overweight or obesity six years later.
• Review: Friendship networks and physical activity and sedentary behavior among youth.
• Correlates of daily leisure-time physical activity in a community sample: Narrow personality traits and practical barriers.
• Metabolic signals and food intake. Forty years of progress.
• Trajectory of Suicidal Ideation in Relation to Perceived Overweight From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.
• The hypothalamus and metabolism: integrating signals to control energy and glucose homeostasis.

Policy Related

• Greater obesity severity is associated with less obesity-related policymaking.
• RCT: Healthy, anti-obesity, and mixed food advertising reduced intakes of total calories, fat, sodium, and carbohydrates and increased selection of more healthy items and fewer unhealthy items from a menu.
• Commentary: Is a tax on sugary drinks too bitter to swallow?
• RCT: Especially when hungry, participants choose a French fry side dish presented as the default more often.
• Regarding food taxes, “Do We Know What We Do not Know? A Response to Celine Bonnet.”
• Is overweight and class I obesity associated with increased health claims costs?

Methods

• Using freedom of information requests to elicit data about looked after children's involvement in physical activity.
• How many days of accelerometer monitoring predict weekly physical activity behaviour in obese youth?
• Vibration platform for mice to deliver precise, low intensity mechanical signals to the musculoskeleton.
• Bias in Recording of BMI Data in the Electronic Health Record.
• Overadjustment in Regression Analyses: Considerations When Evaluating Relationships Between BMI, Muscle Strength, & Body Size.
• Volumetric differences in body shape among adults with differing BMI values.
• A comparison of the Slaughter skinfold-thickness equations and BMI in predicting fatness and CVD risk factor levels in children.
• Predictors of validity and reliability of a physical activity record in adolescents.
• How evidence-based medicine biases physicians against nutrition.

Mathematical

• An Actor-Based Model of Social Network Influence on Adolescent Body Size, Screen Time, and Playing Sports.
• Effects of Body Surface Area-Indexed Calculations in the Morbidly Obese: A Mathematical Analysis.

Carbohydrates

• Effects of low carb diets on energy and nitrogen balance and body composition in rats depend on the dietary protein/energy ratio.
• Effects of low-carbohydrate high-fat diets on apparent digestibility of minerals and trace elements in rats.
• Review: Greater short term weight loss among obese individuals on low carb vs low fat diet, no differences in long term effect.

Food

• Organic Production Enhances Milk Nutritional Quality by Shifting Fatty Acid Composition.
• RCT: Effects of changes in portion size on meal eating behaviour in overweight women.
• When and why carbohydrate restriction can be a viable option.
• RCT: Dietary strawberries increase the proliferative response of CD3/CD28-activated CD8+ T cells and the production of TNF-a in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes from obese human subjects.
• RCT:Yeast hydrolysate can reduce body weight and abdominal fat accumulation in obese adults.
• RCT: Antiobesity Effect of Caraway Extract on Overweight and Obese Women.
• RCT: Zinc supplementation improves BMI, body weight, and triglyceride concentration.
• RCT: Big breakfast rich in protein and fat improves glycemic control in type 2 diabetics.
• Roles for central leptin receptors in the control of meal size.

Fatty Liver

• RCT: The Effect of Helicobacter Pylori Eradication on Liver Fat Content in Subjects With Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
• Betaine attenuates hepatic steatosis by reducing methylation of MTTP promoter & elevating methylation in mice on high fat diet.
• Initial clinical application of modified Dixon with flexible echo times: hepatic & pancreatic fat assessments in comparison with 1H MRS.
• Treating fatty liver and insulin resistance.
• Surgical Management of Obesity in Patients with Morbid Obesity and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
• Review: Obesity and Liver Disease: The Epidemic of the Twenty-First Century.

Epidemiology

• BMI and Early Kidney Function Decline in Young Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis of the CARDIA Study.
• Inverse association between BMI and suicide?
• The differential gender effect of internalized racism on abdominal obesity in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
• Association between leisure time physical activity and metabolic syndrome: meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
• Mortality Risk of Obesity and Underweight Is Overestimated with Self-Reported BMI.
• Ambient indoor temperature inversely associated with BMI.

Reader Suggestion

• Last week we ran: New Dietary Guidelines in Sweden.
• Reader suggests better link is: Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment - Diets among obese individuals.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Assessing the role of body mass and sex on apparent adult survival in polygynous passerines: a case study of cetti's warblers in central Portugal.
• Effect of photoperiodism on metabolism of male and female redheaded bunting under natural day length.
• Stature, body mass, and brain size: A two-million-year odyssey.

Drugs

• The Paradox of Obesity Drugs.
• Metformin trims fats to restore insulin sensitivity.
• RCT: Efficacy and safety of canagliflozin in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus inadequately controlled with metformin and sulphonylurea.
• RCT: Acute effects of single-dose olanzapine on metabolic, endocrine, and inflammatory markers in healthy controls.
• Review: New Antiobesity Agents: Lorcaserin (Belviq) and Phentermine/Topiramate ER (Qsymia).

Clinical

• RCT: Impact of timing of serving vegetable salad and yogurt on anthropometric measures and cardiovascular risks.
• Preventing binge eating with deep brain stimulation – can compulsive eating be switched-off?
• Review: Long-term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?
• The views and attitudes of health professionals providing antenatal care to women with a high BMI.
• The Effect of an Automated Clinical Reminder on Weight Loss in Primary Care.
• Peer-delivered physical activity interventions: An overlooked opportunity for physical activity promotion.
• RCT: Use of the community-based behavioral weight loss program yields significantly greater weight loss than a self-help approach.
• ​Review: Can inflammatory status define metabolic health?

Pediatric

• Behavioral Mediators of Treatment Effects in the Weight Loss Maintenance Trial.
• How to Screen Obese Children at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus?
• Exercise and Insulin Resistance in Youth: A Meta-Analysis.
• What factors influence uptake into family-based obesity treatment after weight screening.
• Pass the popcorn: “Obesogenic” behaviors and stigma in children's movies.
• Exergaming as a Strategic Tool in the Fight against Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review.
• Association between low IQ and obesity is strongest among adolescents from high SES backgrounds.
• Parental stress increases BMI trajectory in pre-adolescents.

Aging

• In case of obesity, longevity-related mechanisms lead to anti-inflammation.
• Review: Caloric restriction, caloric restriction mimetics, and healthy aging in Okinawa: controversies and clinical implications.
• Rates of Complications and Mortality in Older Patients With Diabetes Mellitus.

Chocolate

• Non-randomized trial: Realistic intake of a flavanol-rich soluble cocoa product associated with HDL-cholesterol increases, but not without anthropometric changes in healthy and moderately hypercholesterolemic subjects.
• RCT: Dark chocolate consumption improves leukocyte adhesion factors and vascular function in overweight men.

Surgery

• Bariatric surgery benefits in type 2 diabetes linked to disease duration.
• RCT: Aspiration therapy leads to weight loss in obese subjects: A pilot study.

Genetics

• Common genetic variation in sFRP5 is associated with fat distribution in men.
• The bigger picture of FTO—the first GWAS-identified obesity gene.
• Commentary: A century after Fisher: time for a new paradigm in quantitative genetics.

General Science

• The Hidden Geometry of Complex, Network-Driven Contagion Phenomena.
• 15% of human codons are dual-use codons (“duons”) that simultaneously specify both amino acids and transcription factor recognition sites.
• Genetics and Genomics for the Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease: Update: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.
• First flight of Lunar plant growth experiment.
• The skin communicates with the liver.
• The seven deadly sins of health and science reporting.
• Age-Related Cognitive Decline Linked to Energy Available to Synapses in Prefrontal Cortex.
• How to Read About Science.
• NIH to experiment with high-risk grants.
• Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram.

Scientific Integrity

• Conflicts of Interest in Approvals of Additives to Food Determined to Be Generally Recognized as Safe: Out of Balance.
• Commentary: Conflicts of Interest in the Regulation of Food Safety A Threat to Scientific Integrity.

Commentary

• Fattening Foods: When is a Calorie Not a Calorie?
• 3 Reasons Objectivity Is Scarce on “Healthy Obesity”.
• Science, policy and politics cannot be separated: they are inextricably intertwined.
• How journals like Nature, Cell and Science are damaging science.
• Statins, Static, and the Status Quo: Is Anyone Getting the Signal?
• Is the Food Guide Pyramid and MyPlate Making Your Family Fat?

Announcements

• New Book: Satiation, satiety and the control of food intake: Theory and practice.
• The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States - A Workshop.
• 3rd International Conference on Food Digestion, Wageningen, The Netherlands, 11-13 March 2014.
• 3rd International Conference on Recent Advances and Controversies in Measuring Energy Metabolism (RACMEM), October, 2014.