Obesity & Energetic Offerings, May 17, 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:

Findings Contrary to Hypotheses or Popular Ideas

• Large chain restaurant meals had, on average, fewer calories than independent and small-chain restaurants.
• Most Georgia elementary schools participating in HealthMPowers programming experienced increases in mean BMI percentiles.
• No compelling evidence of association between Religiosity/Spirituality and the Metabolic Syndrome among U.S. Hispanics/Latinos.
• No Benefit Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet.
• Living in food desert was not significantly associated with BMI after potential covariates were considered.
• Ain’t no mountain high enough? Setting high weight loss goals predict effort and short-term weight loss.
• No clear association of the early introduction of solid food with childhood obesity.
• No association of sugar-sweetened beverage intake with weight status in national sample of children with measured heights and weights.

Aging

• Young and old genetically heterogeneous HET3 mice on a rapamycin diet are glucose intolerant but insulin sensitive.
• Do sirtuins promote mammalian longevity?: A Critical review on its relevance to the longevity effect induced by calorie restriction.
• Calorie restriction (CR) and CR mimetics for the prevention and treatment of age-related eye disorders.

Basic Science

• Effects of chronic exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on energy balance in developing rats.
• Latitudinal patterns in phenotypic plasticity: the case of seasonal flexibility in lizards’ fat body size.
• An increase in the accumulation of adipose tissue in growing male mice caused by disturbances in the sleep-wake cycle following night-shifts.
• The role of ghrelin in energy balance regulation in fish.
• Characteristics and metabolism of different adipose tissues in fish.
• Brown adipose tissue transplantation improves whole-body energy metabolism.
• Neural circuits and motivational processes for hunger.
• Leptin Sensitive Sensory Nerves Innervate White Fat.
• Developmental programming: Impact of prenatal testosterone excess on insulin sensitivity, adiposity, and free fatty acid profile in sheep.
• Metabolism: CBAT and rBAT crosstalk to regulate temperature and energy balance.

Clinical

• BMI in relation to sperm count: An updated systematic review and collaborative meta-analysis.
• RCT: Inspiratory muscle training effects on diaphragmatic mobility, pulmonary function and maximum respiratory pressures in morbidly obese individuals.
• RCT: Whole body vibration training improves leg blood flow and adiposity in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• RCT: Tight Calorie Control in geriatric patients following hip fracture decreases complications.
• Ketosis and appetite-mediating nutrients and hormones after weight loss.

Commentary

• Martin Binks on the Perils on Looking for Heroes and Villains in Food.
• Obesity and blame: elusive goals for personal responsibility.
• National obesity rates: a legitimate health policy endpoint?
• Good and bad ideas in obesity prevention.
• Exchanges on obesity and smoking.

Dietary Fat

• Review calls for reevaluation of dietary recommendations to minimize dietary SFAs, for which mechanisms for adverse health effects are lacking.
• High-fat, low-carbohydrate diet alters myocardial oxidative stress and impairs recovery of cardiac function after ischemia and reperfusion in obese rats.
• RCT: Analysis of esterified and nonesterified fatty acids in serum from obese individuals after breakfasts prepared with oils heated at frying temperature.
• RCT: Among patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors, n−3 fatty acids did not reduce cardiovascular mortality and morbidity.

Food

• RCT: Fattening Fasting: Hungry Grocery Shoppers Buy More Calories, Not More Food.
• Restaurant Meals: Almost a Full Day’s Worth of Calories, Fats, and Sodium.
• Eating Out Without Overeating.
• FDA studies caffeine’s effects on children, teens.
• Very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet v. low-fat diet for long-term weight loss: a meta-analysis of RCTs.
• Adherence to National Diet and Physical Activity Objectives among Military Personnel: What Are the Implications?
• Do Environmental Interventions Impact Elementary School Students’ Lunchtime Milk Selection?
• Normal protein intake required for weight loss and maintenance, elevated protein intake for preservation of REE and FFM.
• Eating insects could help fight obesity, U.N. says.
• RCT: Smaller breakfasts lead to lesser total intake in day.
• Meals inspired by ancestors show some short term benefits.

Gut Microbiota

• Gut microbe may fight obesity and diabetes.
• 100 Trillion Friendly Germs: Some Might Control Your Weight.

Methods

• Estimating Obesity Rates in the Presence of Measurement Error.
• Observational Bias during Nutrition Surveillance: Results of a Mixed Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Data Collection System in Northern Nigeria.
• Measurement error is altered by participation in a physical activity intervention.
• Panel regression formulas for estimating stature and body mass from immature human skeletons: A statistical approach without reference to specific age estimates.
• Apples and oranges: a comparison of costing methods for obesity.
• Accuracy and preference of measuring resting energy expenditure using a handheld calorimeter in healthy adults.
• Fat tissue measurements by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry: Cross-calibration of 3 different fan-beam instruments.

Neighborhoods

• Change in Neighborhood Traffic Safety: Does It Matter in Terms of Physical Activity?
• Disentangling neighborhood contextual associations with child BMI, diet, and physical activity: Role of built, socioeconomic, and social environments.
• Neighborhood deprivation and change in BMI among adults with type 2 diabetes.

Physical Activity

• The energy expenditure of sedentary behavior: a whole room calorimeter study.
• Web-Enabled Feedback Control Over Energy Balance Associated with an Increase in Physical Activity and a Reduction of Body Weight.

Policy Related

• Law as a Tool in “The War on Obesity”: Useful Interventions, Maybe, But, First, What’s the Problem?
• If Sugar Is Addictive…What Does It Mean for the Law?

Psychology

• Greater impulsivity is associated with decreased brain activation in obese women during a delay discounting task.
• Happy Eating And Obesity: Happiness Tied To Comfort Eating And Weight Gain

Research Reproducibility and Integrity

• Whither research integrity? Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and coercive citation in an age of research assessment.
• The Matilda Effect in Science Communication: An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest.
• Biomarkers in cardiovascular medicine: The shame of publication bias.
• Half of researchers have reported trouble reproducing published findings.

Salt

• Changes in Sodium Levels in Processed and Restaurant Foods, 2005 to 2011.
• IOM Report: Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence.

Stigma

• Obesity stigma: a failed and ethically dubious strategy.
• If Shaming Reduced Obesity, There Would Be No Fat People.
• Bootcamp, brides, and BMI: Biopedagogical narratives of health and belonging on canadian size-transformation television.

Sugar, SSBs, and related

• Whey protein sweetened beverages reduce glycemic and appetite responses and food intake in young females.
• Short-term association of sugar consumption with hunger and ad libitum food intake in young women.
• Building a Strategy for Obesity Prevention One Piece at a Time: The Case of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxation.
• Mondo/ChREBP-Mlx-Regulated Transcriptional Network Is Essential for Dietary Sugar Tolerance in Drosophila.

Surgery

• Weight Loss after Gastric Bypass Surgery in Human Obesity Remodels Promoter Methylation.
• Operator independent focused high frequency ISM band for fat reduction: Porcine model.
• Unrealistic weight loss goals and expectations among bariatric surgery.

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

AMS
Edmonton, Alberta