Obesity & Energetic Offerings, July 26, 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.

Obesity & Energetic Offerings are brought to you by the UAB NORC and Office of Energetics and compiled by David B. Allison, Michelle Bohan-Brown, Emily Dhurandhar, John Dawson, and Andrew Brown.

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

Featured

• Is Sugar Really Toxic? Sifting through the Evidence.

Headline vs Study

Headline: Cambridge University study says obesity is down to genes, not a bad diet or lack of exercise.

• Study:  MRAP2 study: Studied one type of knock-out mice, very few humans found to have the mutation in question, headline ignores decades of research showing genes and environment both matter and genes often work through behavior.

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• RCT: No effect of a governmentally-led physical activity program on BMI in young children attending child care centers.
• No change in obesity rate after subsidised fruit and vegetable program for Aboriginal children in New South Wales.
• RCT: No effect on obesity of an early feeding practices intervention to prevent childhood obesity.
• No association of changes in test scores with the availability of universal free school breakfasts.
• RCT: Supplementing Menu Labeling With Calorie Recommendations leads to (if anything) increased caloric intake

Temperature

• Brown fat activation mediates cold-induced thermogenesis in adult humans in response to a mild decrease in ambient temperature.
• Correlation between Abdominal Fat Distribution and Abdominal Temperature in Korean Premenopausal Obese Women.
• Cold acclimation recruits human brown fat and increases nonshivering thermogenesis
• Recruited brown adipose tissue as an antiobesity agent in humans.

Psychology

• Counter-regulation triggered by emotions: Positive/negative affective states elicit opposite valence biases in affective processing.
• I Know Not To, but I Can’t Help It: Weight Gain and Changes in Impulsivity-Related Personality Traits.
• Verbal descriptors influence hypothalamic response to low-calorie drinks.

Methods

• Functionalities and input methods for recording food intake: A systematic review.
• Development and evaluation of a brief questionnaire to assess dietary fat quality in low-income overweight women in the southern United States.
• Ratio of trunk to leg volume as a new body shape metric for diabetes and mortality.
• Establishing the optimal body mass index – body esteem relationship in young adolescents.

Food

• RCT: Changes in daily leptin, ghrelin and adiponectin profiles following a diet with carbohydrates eaten at dinner in obese subjects.
• RCT: Extent and determinants of thermogenic responses to 24 hours of fasting, energy balance, and five different overfeeding diets in humans.
• RCT: Low-fat diet with omega-3 fatty acids increases plasma insulin-like growth factor concentration in healthy postmenopausal women.
• Breakfast: a multidisciplinary approach.
• Food Sources of Saturated Fat and the Association With Mortality: A Meta-Analysis
• Dairy products and prevention of type 2 diabetes: ‘There is strong, consistent, and accumulating evidence that dairy intake reduces the risk of T2D.’
• Cooked rice prevents hyperlipidemia in hamsters fed a high-fat/cholesterol diet by the regulation of the expression of hepatic genes involved in lipid metabolism
• RCT: Beneficial effects of Zizyphus jujuba fruits on lipid measures in obese adolescents

Exercise

• RCT: An Age-Tailored Intervention Sustains Physical Activity Changes in Older Adults.
• RCT: Exercise improves quality of life in indigenous polynesian peoples with type 2 diabetes and visceral obesity.
• RCT: Moderate-intensity high-volume aerobic exercise > 200 minutes/week produces greater improvements in sexual function, testosterone, weight, WC, and fat mass than smaller exercise volume.
• RCT: Comparison of traditional versus mobile app self-monitoring of physical activity and dietary intake among overweight adults participating in an mHealth weight loss program.
• Reducing the Intensity and Volume of Interval Training Diminishes Cardiovascular Adaptation but Not Mitochondrial Biogenesis in Overweight/Obese Men.
• Exercise in obese pregnant women: positive impacts and current perceptions.

Epidemiology

• Dog ownership and physical activity: A review of the evidence.
• Oxygen cost of walking, physical activity, and sedentary behaviours in rheumatoid arthritis.
• Obesity paradox in Japanese patients after percutaneous coronary intervention: An observation cohort study
• Utilising infant growth to predict obesity status at 5 years
• An observational study of the association between adenovirus 36 antibody status and weight loss among youth
• Early onset obesity predicts heart disease development
• Overweight and Obesity Less Often Associated with Stroke Recurrence.
• Continuous Nasogastric Feeding With High Caloric Intakes in Anorexia Nervosa is Safe and Effective
• First-day weight loss predicts eventual weight nadir for breastfeeding newborns.

Evolution, Energetics and Ecology

• Turn costs change the value of animal search paths.
• Brown fat in a protoendothermic mammal fuels eutherian evolution.
• Energy allocation patterns in a multiple spawning sunfish: evidence for an income-based reproductive strategy.
• Modelling Blood Flow and Metabolism in the Piglet Brain During Hypoxia-Ischaemia: Simulating Brain Energetics.
• Schooling reduces energy consumption in swimming male European eels, Anguilla anguilla
• Evolutionary perspectives on the obesity epidemic: adaptive, maladaptive, and neutral viewpoints.

Trans-generational

• Familial intergenerational and maternal aggregation patterns in nutrient intakes in the Lifeways Cross-Generation Cohort Study
• Maternal chocolate and sucrose soft drink intake induces hepatic steatosis in rat offspring associated with altered lipid gene expression profile.

Drugs

• RCT: Evaluation of effect of acarbose consumption on weight losing in non-diabetic overweight or obese patients.
• RCT: Effect of Metformin compared with hypocaloric diet on serum C-reactive protein level and insulin resistance in obese and overweight women with polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Chemotherapy dosing in overweight and obese patients with cancer.

Clinical

• RCT: Effects of a comprehensive intervention program, including hot bathing, on overweight adults.
• RCT: Maybe Breakfast Really Is the Most Important Meal of the Day
• A church-based diet and physical activity intervention for rural, lower mississippi delta african american adults: Delta body and soul effectiveness study, 2010-2011
• RCT: Dietary weight loss and exercise improves body measures and biomarkers of glucose metabolism and inflammation independent of antidepressant use
• Pilot RCT: For obese pregnant women, suggestion of greater potential for change in dietary intake than for change in physical activity

Caloric Restriction

• Effects of calorie restriction and IGF-1 receptor blockade on the progression of 22Rv1 prostate cancer xenografts.
• Effects of alternate-day fasting on high-fat diet-induced insulin resistance in rat skeletal muscle.
• Lifelong caloric restriction increases working memory in mice.

Basic Science

• Pleiotropic regulation of mitochondrial function by adipose triglyceride lipase-mediated lipolysis.
• Evaluation of Ultrasound Combined with Chitosan for the Control of Weight and Local Fat in Mice.
• Consuming a low-fat diet from weaning to adulthood reverses the programming of food preferences in male, but not in female, offspring of ‘junk food’-fed rat dams.
• Increased oxygen consumption in human adipose tissue from the ‘brown adipose tissue’ region.
• Rev-erb-alpha modulates skeletal muscle oxidative capacity by regulating mitochondrial biogenesis and autophagy
• Association of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha/delta/gamma with obesity, and gene-gene interaction, in the Chinese Han population
• Using gene expression and molecular biology data to understand pet obesity
• Oxidative damage associated with obesity is prevented by overexpression of CuZn- or Mn-superoxide dismutase.
• Dim Light at Night Exaggerates Weight Gain and Inflammation Associated with a High-Fat Diet in Male Mice.
• The disproportionate economic burden associated with severe and complicated obesity: multiplier effects from 1.5 to 3.9 for direct costs, and from 1.7 to 8.0 for productivity costs
• Father’s Age At Conception Could Determine Child’s Height And Cholesterol
• University at Buffalo researchers find link between obesity and asthma

Stigma

• Follow-up: Obesity Action Coalition Calls on Boy Scouts of America to Revise BMI Policy
• The Wall Around Obesity Treatment
• Psyched Out by Weight Bias.
• Adults with Greater Weight Satisfaction Report More Positive Health Behaviors and Have Better Health Status Regardless of BMI.
• The Stigma That Overweight People Face Could Spur More Weight Gain

Scientific Integrity

• Statistician Andrew Gelman discusses spurious findings, ‘researcher degrees of freedom’ and what we can learn from a dead fish
• Scientific integrity and the market for lemons
• Too Good to be True: Animal studies biased towards reporting positive results

Policy Related

• Scientific decision making, policy decisions, and the obesity pandemic
• Review: Self-regulation of junk food marketing largely ineffective
• Next focus for Bloomberg: Stair use
• Progress on reducing calories

Commentary

• Lesser souls: Caring for fat people.
• Exercising their influence. As policymakers struggle in battle against obesity, providers and insurers are offering their own solutions.
• The science of obesity: what exactly makes us fat?
• Documentary Film CARB-LOADED: A CULTURE DYING TO EAT.
• National Geographic on Sugar.
• Dr. David Katz on Breakfast.
• ‘Dodgy’ diet foods (little nutritive value, with more calories) may be contributing to weight gain

General Science

• Cooperation, Trust, and Antagonism: How Public Goods Are Promoted
• Dying worms emits an ethereal glow
• Bacterial blockade: Research explains how gut microbes can inactivate cardiac drugs
• Females lead population collapse of the endangered hawaii creeper.
• New model suggests Mars was snowy in ancient times
• Scientists may have found a cure for cat allergies, but still at least 5 years off

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

@DrSharma
Kananaskis, AB