Although adolescents with obesity are choosing bariatric surgery as a way to lose a significant amount of weight, many of those with severe obesity, especially Hispanic and Black adolescents, are not being offered that treatment option. There findings were reported in a retrospective study, ‘Disparity Between United States Adolescent Class II and III Obesity Trends and Bariatric Surgery Utilization, 2015-2018’, published in Annals of Surgery by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

UC Berkeley Nutritional Sciences investigators have discovered that a microRNA (non-coding RNA that prevent genes from making proteins) is associated with energy storage and metabolic diseases such as obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The findings, ‘A MicroRNA Linking Human Positive Selection and Metabolic Disorders’, were published in Cell.

Swedish researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital, examining the risk of additional myocardial infarctions and early death in patients with severe obesity who undergo metabolic surgery following a myocardial event, have reported a lower risk of additional myocardial infarctions and improved survival that cannot be simply attributed to the loss of weight in this group of patients.

Scientists from across the globe will present the latest research in obesity  science and medicine and related topics at the 38th Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society (TOS) at ObesityWeek Interactive. This online event will take place November 2–6, 2020 at www.obesityweek.org. On-demand materials and other elements of the interactive conference will remain available online through to December 31, 2020.

Researchers from Israel have reported both patients with obesity and healthcare professionals (HCPs) need to improve awareness regarding the physiologic basis and clinical management of obesity. Specifically, they noted that physicians need to improve how to approach weight and weight management discussions during patient consultations.

Body image is a mediating factor of depression in subgroup of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) patients with poor psychological outcome, report researchers from the Medical University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen and the University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany. They noted that the current preparation and aftercare regimes for patients that undergo bariatric surgery often focus on nutrition and physical activity, but hardly target psychological components, and interventions to improve body image should be incorporated into aftercare regimes.

Researchers from Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF), Oklahoma City, OK, have redefined how the so-called gut microbiome operates and how our bodies coexist with some of the 100 trillion bacteria that make it up. The findings, ‘Proximal colon–derived O-glycosylated mucus encapsulates and modulates the microbiota’, were published in the journal Science, and could lead to new therapies for inflammatory bowel disease and people who've had portions of their bowels removed due to conditions like colon cancer and ulcerative colitis.

A study by Princeton University and Mpala Research Center, in Kenya, has found evidence for the ‘mismatch’ hypothesis when they found that obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses increased among whose diet changed from animal-based to carbohydrate-based. The mismatch hypothesis argues that our bodies have evolved and adapted to digest the foods that our ancestors ate and that human bodies will struggle and largely fail to metabolise a radically new set of foods.

Undertaking aerobic exercise prior to bariatric surgery in addition to standard medical care decreased the length of hospital stay in patients receiving bariatric surgery, compared to standard medical care alone, according to the outcomes of a small pilot trial by researchers from University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. The outcomes were featured in the paper, ‘Pre-operative aerobic exercise on metabolic health and surgical outcomes in patients receiving bariatric surgery: A pilot trial’, published in PLOS One.

Access to bariatric surgery should be increased as part of the main treatment considerations in women with obesity and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The paper, ‘A Review of the Impact of Bariatric Surgery in Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome’, published in Cureus, led by California Institute of Behavioral Neurosciences & Psychology, Fairfield in the US, also recommends that additional research with better study designs are required in the future to investigate the relationship between PCOS and bariatric surgery.

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered a neural subnetwork of connected regions between the brain and gastric basal electric frequency that correlates with future weight loss based on connectivity patterns.

Vietnamese-American adults who did not have obesity were 60% more likely to have diabetes than those without obesity, non-Hispanic, White Americans, after accounting for age, sex, sociodemographic factors, smoking history and exercise level. Overall, only 9% of Vietnamese Americans with diabetes in the study had obesity. In comparison, half of all non-Hispanic White Americans with diabetes had obesity.

Researchers from Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center who are trying to determine the mechanisms underlying abnormal development of the enteric nervous system in Hirschsprung disease, have reported delineating interactions between migrating neural crest cells and the extracellular matrix in a model of Hirschsprung disease using a variety of in vitro and in vivo approaches.

According to the latest The Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) in the Republic of Ireland (COSI) survey - carried out as part of the World Health Organization and European Union's effort to measure weight trends in young children - obesity rates in primary school children across Ireland are decreasing. The prevalence of obesity in children aged six to ten has continued to go down year on year.

Too much abdominal fat amongst the Mexican Americans population predicts the beginning of atherosclerosis, but researchers at McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX, report that this is only true for those who were born in the US.

People who have had bariatric surgery live three years longer, on average, than those given conventional treatment for their obesity, a University of Gothenburg study has reported. Compared with the general population, however, both groups' excess mortality is higher.

The probability that a person with obesity will develop severe COVID-19 is high regardless of age, sex, ethnicity and the presence of co-morbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart or lung disease, according to a Brazilian study.

Limiting the hours of television advertising for foods and beverages high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) could make a meaningful contribution to reducing childhood obesity, according to a study published by Oliver Mytton of the University of Cambridge, UK, and colleagues.

People with eating disorders are 12 times more likely to be preoccupied with perceived flaws in their physical appearance than those without, according to researchers from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU). The study authors claim their research provides more evidence of the complex relationship that exists between body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and eating disorders. Furthermore, they recommended that practitioners working with BDD subjects should screen for eating disorders due to the high morbidity associated with eating disorders.

Duodenal mucosal resurfacing (DMR) endoscopic therapeutic procedure may lead to the discontinuation of insulin treatment in a significant number of people with type 2 diabetes, according to research presented at UEG Week 2020 Virtual.