Obesity and Energetic Offerings, June 7, 2013

David Allison, PhD, Distinguished Professor, University of Alabama

For several months now, my colleagues at the University of Alabama have been compiling a weekly list of selected obesity related articles in a list they call Obesity and Energetic Offerings.

The list is compiled by David B. Allison, Michelle Bohan-Brown, Emily Dhurandhar, Kathryn Kaiser, and Andrew Brown.

The following is a selection of articles from this week’s list that caught my attention –  – the link headings are theirs, not mine:

Featured

• Sustained energy intake debate gets more complex.
• Elephant obesity is focus of Lincoln zoo research.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• No association found between fast food density and overweight or obesity in NYC.
• Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study shows no discernible association of exposure to fast food at the residential neighborhood with children’s weight.
• No association of proximity to fast food locations and weight status among children living in low-income cities in NJ.
• Postpartum diet quality was not associated with weight retention.
• Higher prevalence of obesity in Greek children living in rural areas despite increased levels of physical activity.
• No association between BMI and time spent playing computer games in teens.
• RCT: No adverse effect of a high-protein weight-loss diets in people with type 2 diabetes and renal disease.
• RCT: No effect of a parental intervention involving lifestyle counseling and motivational interviewing on weight in total sample of overweight children.
• RCT: Using a smaller dining plate does not suppress food intake from a buffet lunch meal in overweight, unrestrained women.
• RCT: Intervention produces increases in reported daily breakfast intake and reductions in chip and sweetened beverage intake, but no effects on BMI among children.

Misinformation and Its Correction

• Why we are becoming a country of medical know-nothings.
• Worst. Reported. Study. Ever.
• What Do Scientific Studies Show?
• Anti-obesity campaign Photoshops kids to make them look fat.

Commentary

• Standards and classification: A perspective on the ‘obesity epidemic’.
• The inadequacy of self-reported energy intake.

Aging

• Mitochondrial targeted peptide rapidly improves mitochondrial energetics and skeletal muscle performance in aged mice.
• Life-long caloric restriction reduces oxidative stress and preserves nitric oxide bioavailability and function in arteries of old mice.
• Metabolic phenotype modulation by caloric restriction in a life-long dog study.

Basic Science

• High fat feeding-induced hyperinsulinemia increases cardiac glucose uptake and mitochondrial function despite peripheral insulin resistance.
• Chemerin connects fat to arterial contraction.
• Formula Feeding Monkeys Linked to Metabolic Stress and Risk of Later Disease.
• “Browning” of adipose tissue – regulation and therapeutic perspectives.
• Obesity skips a generation, affects grandchildren (in mice) the most.
• Muscle disease gene identified in fish.
• Mechanism of body weight reducing effect of oral boric acid intake in mice.

Caloric Restriction

• Sex differences in body composition, fat storage and gene expression profile in Caenorhabditis elegans in response to dietary restriction.
• A dietary regimen of caloric restriction or pharmacological activation of sirt1 to delay the onset of neurodegeneration.
• Fasting or caloric restriction for healthy aging.

Clinical

• RCT: Achieving long-term weight maintenance in Mexican-American adolescents with a school-based intervention.
• Size Matters: Obese patients more likely to trust overweight physicians for diet advice.

Drugs

• Synthetic compound developed from sun anemone venom, ShK-186 boosts metabolism.
• Patent: Mast cell stabilizers in the treatment of obesity.
• EU targets childhood obesity with computer-simulated testing of medicines.
• New evidence suggests no dependency/addictive potential of phentermine.
• Phentermine and topiramate extended-release : a new treatment for obesity and its role in a complications-centric approach to obesity medical management.

Surgery

• Tongue Patch Surgery: Risky Weight Loss Procedure Draws Criticism.
• Calorie restriction is a major determinant of the short-term metabolic effects of gastric bypass surgery in obese type 2 diabetic patients.
• UAB bariatric surgery earns highest accreditation level.
• RCT: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass vs intensive medical management for the control of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.
• Bariatric surgery for weight loss and glycemic control in nonmorbidly obese adults with diabetes: A systematic review.
• Gastric Bypass in Mild Obesity and Diabetes?

Exercise

• High- vs low-intensity exercise on postprandial lipemia, vascular function, oxygen consumption and energy consumption after a meal.
• RCT: Diet and diet combined with chronic aerobic exercise decreases body fat mass and alters plasma and adipose tissue inflammatory markers in obese women.
• RCT: Social support from teachers mediates physical activity behavior change in children participating in the Fit-4-Fun intervention.
• RCT: High-intensity resistance training reduces visceral fat more than compaartor exercise.
• Is there an upper limit to exercise?

Food

• Offering chocolate milk increases milk and calcium intake in short-term study.
• RCT: Benefit of a low-fat over high-fat diet on vascular health during alternate day fasting.
• Review of RCTs finds inconclusive effects of vegetable consumption on weight.
• ‘Cheese is from plants’ – study reveals child confusion.

Potatoes

• Vegetable cost metrics show that potatoes and beans provide most nutrients per penny.
• White potatoes, human health, and dietary guidance.
• Sweet potato and cassava can modify cholesterol profile in humans with moderately raised serum cholesterol levels.

Evolution, Ecology & Energetics

• Individual energetic state can prevail over social regulation of foraging in honeybees.
• Surviving the cold, dry period in Africa: Behavioral adjustments as an alternative to heterothermy in the African Lesser Bushbaby (Galago moholi).
• The evolution of mammal body sizes: responses to Cenozoic climate change in North American mammals.
• Energetics and metabolite profiles during early flight in American robins (Turdus Migratorius).
• A grassy trend in human ancestors’ diets.
• Resource unpredictability promotes species diversity and coexistence in an avian scavenger guild: a field experiment.
• Seasonal mass variation as a life history trait in West African savannah birds.

Epidemiology

• Childhood obesity is associated with increased risk of most lower extremity fractures.
• The influence of BMI on injury pattern in polytrauma: thorax as the main source of complications.
• Population-adjusted street connectivity, urbanicity and risk of obesity in the U.S.
• Reducing racial/ethnic disparities in childhood obesity.

Genetics

• Phospholipid biosynthesis genes and susceptibility to obesity: Analysis of expression and polymorphisms.
• An overview of STRUCTURE: applications, parameter settings, and supporting software.
• The Power of Meta-Analysis in Genome-Wide Association Studies.
• Detection and impact of rare regulatory variants in human disease.
• Central precocious puberty caused by mutations in the imprinted gene MKRN3.

Methods

• On the accuracy of instantaneous gas exchange rates, energy expenditure and respiratory quotient calculations obtained from indirect whole room calorimetry.
• Assessment of dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry for use in evaluating the effects of dietary and environmental management on Hermann’s tortoises (Testudo hermanni).
• Establishing disability weights from pairwise comparisons for a US burden of disease study.

Microbiota

• A mucus colonizer manages host metabolism.
• Gut microbiota composition in male rat models under different nutritional status and physical activity and its association with serum leptin and ghrelin levels.
• Gut microbiota after gastric bypass in human obesity: Increased richness and associations of bacterial genera with adipose tissue genes.

Policy

• Scientific decision making, policy decisions, and the obesity pandemic.
• New York expands fight against soda to juice drinks.
• New BAI code bans promotion of certain products during children’s programming in Ireland.
• Overweight and obesity: Can we reconcile evidence about supermarkets and fast food retailers for public health policy?

Psychology

• In times of stress, people lean on established routines — even healthy ones.
• Intertemporal discounting as a risk factor for high BMI.

Stigma

• Inequities in healthcare: A review of bias and discrimination in obesity treatment.
• Media representations of obesity: First amendment friendly approach to addressing hate speech in the media.
• NYU visiting professor accused of insulting obese Ph.D. applicants with ‘impulsive’ tweet.

General Science

• Trust in science would be improved by study pre-registration.
• Accord aims to create global trove of genetic data.
• Epigenetics play cupid for prairie voles.
• Career exploration resources for grad students and postdocs.
• Temporal cloak erases data from history.

For a complete list and to directly join this list, please click here.

AMS
Toronto, ON