Baxter International will provide financing for a grant-funded fellowship coordinated in conjunction with the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN), which will significantly contribute to the ESPEN Fellowship Grants initiative and increase the number of early-career researchers awarded, allowing to fund and develop more original research in topics related to nutrition and metabolism.

Preoperative weight loss, even at a moderate degree (ie >0% to <5%), is associated with lower risk of 30-day mortality following bariatric surgery, according to a study involving nearly half a million patients by researchers from University of Iowa College of Public Health, the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.

Allurion is supporting customers around the world during COVID-19 with an expanded digital offering, in response to recent data that indicates that individuals with obesity are at higher risk of poorer outcomes from COVID-19 and that quarantine measures may lead to weight gain. The company has expanded access to telenutrition for both existing and new patients and providers, and enhanced its proprietary program to include at-home fitness, mental health and nutritional content.

Researchers from the Hubrecht Institute and Utrecht University have generated an in-depth description of the human hormone-producing cells of the gut in a large collaborative effort with other research teams. In the study, ‘High Resolution mRNA and Secretome Atlas of Human Enteroendocrine Cells’, published in the journal Cell, the researchers developed an extensive toolbox to study human hormone-producing cells in tiny versions of the gut grown in the lab called organoids.

Analysis of data from 147 countries has uncovered new insights into the positive relationship between national income and obesity rates, according to researchers from State University of New York at Buffalo. The study, ‘The association between national income and adult obesity prevalence: Empirical insights into temporal patterns and moderators of the association using 40 years of data across 147 countries’, was published in PLoS ONE.