Obesity & Energetic Offerings, March 29, 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:

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Neighborhood walkability was not independently associated with greater walking.
• Food pattern modeling shows that the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for sodium and potassium cannot be met simultaneously.
• Limited evidence that work/college-based interventions employing a combination of strategies prevents adult weight gain.
• Duration of Breastfeeding and Childhood Obesity: A Generalized Propensity Score Approach.
• RCT: Randomized trial of a family-based, automated, conversational obesity treatment program for underserved populations shows no effect on anthropometric variables.
• RCT: The theoretical advantages of omentectomy in regard to weight loss and obesity-related abnormalities are not confirmed.

Basic Science

• A superactive leptin antagonist alters metabolism and locomotion in high leptin mice.
• Adipose tissue and adipocytes support tumorigenesis and metastasis.
• AMP Activated Protein Kinase Is Indispensable for Myocardial Adaptation to Caloric Restriction in Mice.
• An inhibitor of the protein kinases TBK1 and IKK-ε improves obesity-related metabolic dysfunctions in mice.
• Evidence of behavioral growth compensation and reduced body condition in an aquatic predator exposed to low nutrient inputs.
• Ghrelin and NUCB2/nesfatin-1 are expressed in the same gastric cell and differentially correlated with body mass index in obese subjects.
• Microbes May Slim Us Down After Gastric Bypass.
• The role of MCH in energy homeostasis.

Basic Science: Nutrition

• Chromium supplementation in overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
• Facts and Controversies in Our Understanding of How Caloric Restriction Impacts the Mitochondrion.
• Meat consumption and mortality – results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.
• Oral and small intestinal sensitivity to fats in lean and obese humans: implications for energy intake regulation in obesity.

Behavior

• The Effect of Deceptive Advertising on Consumption of the Advertised Good and its Substitutes: The Case of Over-the-Counter Weight Loss Products.
• RCT: A Behavioral Weight-Loss Intervention in Persons with Serious Mental Illness.
• RCT: Community approach effective in fight against diabetes.
• Using facebook and text messaging to deliver a weight loss program to college students.
• What types of nutrition menu labeling lead consumers to select less energy-dense fast food? An experimental study.

Body Composition

• Relationships between body roundness with body fat and visceral adipose tissue emerging from a new geometrical model.
• Body adiposity index and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in men.
• General and abdominal obesity parameters and their combination in relation to mortality: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis.
• Measurement of waist circumference predicts coronary atherosclerosis beyond plasma adipokines.

Ethics

• Truth, Bias, and Conflict.
• Does consent bias research?
• Informed Consent, Big Data, and the Oxymoron of Research That Is Not Research (Comment on “Does consent bias research?”).
• Is It Really All about the Money? Reconsidering Non-Financial Interests in Medical Research.
• Physicians build less rapport with obese patients.

Genetics

• Genes may be reason some kids are picky about food.
• Genome-Wide Association of Pericardial Fat Identifies a Unique Locus for Ectopic Fat.
• Obesity polymorphisms identified in genome-wide association studies interact with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid intake and modify the genetic association with adiposity phenotypes in Yup’ik people.
• This I believe in genetics: discovery can be a nuisance, replication is science, implementation matters.
• Use of genomic biology to study companion animal intestinal microbiota.

Life course

• Increasing maternal age is associated with taller stature and reduced abdominal fat in their children.
• Relationship Between Obesity and Obesity-Related Morbidities Weakens With Aging.

Medical

• Electronic implant designed to reduce obesity to undergo trials.
• RCT: Ascending Dose Controlled Trial of Beloranib, a Novel Obesity Treatment for Safety, Tolerability and Weight Loss in Obese Women.
• Swallowable Obalon® Gastric Balloons as an Aid for Weight Loss: A Pilot Feasibility Study.
• Telmisartan for Visceral Adiposity in HIV Infection: The Metabolic Abnormalities, Telmisartan, and HIV Infection (MATH) Trial.
• Weight gain and increase of body mass index among children and adolescents treated with antipsychotics: a critical review.
•  Why do we need drugs to treat the patient with obesity?

Methods

• Breath Test Might Predict Obesity Risk.
• Measurement error of self-report relative to accelerometer appeared to be affected by intervention.
• SVELTE: Evaluation device of energy expenditure and physical condition for the prevention and treatment of obesity-related diseases through the analysis of a person’s physical activities.
• The ’39 steps’: an algorithm for performing statistical analysis of data on energy intake and expenditure.

Nutrition

• Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live.
• RCT: High caloric intake at breakfast vs. dinner differentially influences weight loss of overweight and obese women.
• RCT: A low glycemic diet lifestyle intervention improves fat utilization during exercise in older obese humans.
• RCT: Canola, High-Oleic Canola Oils Reduce Belly Fat in Adults.
• RCT: Effects of prescribing 1,000 versus 1,500 kilocalories per day in the behavioral treatment of obesity.
• RCT: Effects of sugar-sweetened beverages on plasma acylation stimulating protein, leptin & adiponectin and metabolic parameters.
• RCT: Low-carbohydrate vs energy restricted diets resulted in similar changes in body weight and fat mass but different effects on blood lipids in Chinese women.
• RCT: Modest Changes in Military Dining Facilities Promoted Healthier Eating.

Stigma and Policy

• The psychological burden of obesity: the potential harmful impact of health promotion and education programmes targeting obese individuals.
• Primum Non Nocere: Obesity Stigma and Public Health.
• The Stigma of Obesity Surgery: Negative Evaluations Based on Weight Loss History.
• To pay or not to pay: Public perception regarding insurance coverage of obesity treatment.

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

AMS
Edmonton, Alberta