Link dumping ground

This is a (hopefully) temporary holding place for useful links. If you add one, please put a specific note about its content.

Not used to reading published medical literature? It helps to be familiar with study design and how the process works.

Want to contribute? Fork this site on GitHub and submit a pull request, or create a gist containing the markdown for your addition, and bother someone on the IRC channel with a link to it.

• Body-mass index and all-cause mortality - large (over 10M participants) study of the relationship between body mass index and mortality. “All-cause mortality was minimal at [normal BMI] and increased significantly both just below this range…and throughout the overweight range…mortality increased approximately log-linearly with BMI”

• USDA Dietary Reference Intakes - 2005 compilation of information on macronutrition.

  • Reference for minimum intake of each macro, literature on under-reporting eating, TDEE estimation, and much much more
• Minimum Intake “Is there a minimum acceptable caloric intake?”

  • Effects of alternate fasting or very low calorie diet and low calorie diet on metabolic syndrome in severely obese patients. - a study of LC/VLC intervention in 64 obese patients with metabolic syndrome.
    “None of the patients had significant adverse effects.”
  • The evolution of very-low-calorie diets: an update and meta-analysis. - Large review of VLC studies and comparison to LC
• Loose skin

  • University of Pittsburgh Medical Center bariatric patient guide - “Predicting who is going to have problems with hanging skin after weight loss is hard to determine”
  • Assessment of Excess Skin and … - University of Gothenburg Dept of Plastic Surgery - Review of prevalence of loose skin in post-bariatric patients, and outcome of abdominoplasty proceedures.
  • Will I need reconstructive plastic surgery after weight-loss? (Obesity Action Coalition) - “The main factor determining skin recoil is the amount of stretch…the more weight you lose, the more likely you will [have loose skin]”
• Relations of Thyroid Function to Body Weight… - At baseline, adjusted mean weight increased progressively from 64.5 to 70.2 kg in the lowest to highest TSH concentration quartiles in women (P < .001 for trend), and from 82.8…to 85.6 kg…in men (P = .007 for trend).

• Exercise

  • Effects of Running and Walking on Osteoarthritis and Hip Replacement Risk - large review of runners and outcomes for OA/hip replacement. “Whereas other exercise increased OA and hip replacement risk, running significantly reduced their risk due, in part, to running’s association with lower BMI.”
  • Effects of intensive diet and exercise on knee joint loads, inflammation, and clinical outcomes among overweight and obese adults with knee osteoarthritis - Study of weight loss outcomes on joint health, in particular with quantitative results on joint loading.
  • The Real Facts about HRMs and Calories - Information about HRMs and how they work with calorie counting.
• Self-weighing in weight management: a systematic literature review - Review of 17 longitudinal studies from 1995-2015, focusing on self-monitoring. “The findings from prospective, longitudinal studies provide evidence that regular self-weighing has been associated with weight loss and not with negative psychological outcomes.” See also Self-Monitoring in Weight Loss: A Systematic Review of the Literature.

• Reduced dietary salt for the prevention of cardiovascular disease: a meta-analysis… - Meta-analysis of seven studies of salt restriction. ” there is still insufficient power to exclude clinically important effects of reduced dietary salt on mortality or CVD morbidity.” If you’re worried about it, talk to a doc, but there isn’t much to worry about.

• Can’t wait to lose weight? Characterizing temporal discounting parameters for weight-loss - Study of tendency of overweight subjects to value small weight losses over a short term more than larger weight losses over a long term (i.e. “lose X lbs today, or Y lbs over Z weeks”). ‘…people who express a desire to lose less weight sooner, showed stronger beliefs that obesity is under an individual’s control and obesity is due to a lack of “willpower.”’

• Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break the Chain!” philosophy

• Comparison of predictive equations for resting metabolic rate in healthy nonobese and obese adults - a review of predictive equations for BMR/RMR. “The Mifflin-St Jeor equation is more likely than the other equations tested to estimate RMR to within 10% of that measured”

• “You are eating more than you think” - video demonstration of the large estimation error that is possible when not using a food scale

• “Which Diet Will Help You Lose The Most Weight?” - fivethirtyeight summary of JAMA article, which concludes “Weight loss differences between individual named diets were small. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight.”

• “The Effects of Exercise Training in Addition to Energy Restriction on Functional Capacities and Body Composition in Obese Adults during Weight Loss” - Large meta-analysis of multiple studies, see Table 6 for a summary of body composition changes across each type, showing that lean mass decreases with caloric restriction, i.e. eating a deficit necessarily causes muscle loss to some extent. Contains supporting evidence for exercise regimens helping reduce the lean tissue loss.

• Resistance weight training during caloric restriction enhances lean body weight maintenance - “Lean body weight (LBW) increased…for [diet with resistance training group] (0.43 kg) compared with [diet only].” (should be noted that muscle mass will generally decrease on a deficit, but this suffices to show that resistance training greatly prevents how much muscle is lost)

• Influence of exercise training on physiological and performance changes with weight loss in men - “These data indicate that a weight-loss dietary regimen in conjunction with aerobic and resistance exercise prevents the normal decline in fat-free mass and muscular power” Specifically, over the 12 weeks, the diet+endurance+strength group lost only 0.33 kg of FFM, and the diet-only and diet+endurance group lost 2.96 kg and 2.00 kg, respectively.

• A High-Protein Diet With Resistance Exercise Training Improves Weight Loss and Body Composition in Overweight and Obese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes - “Overall, more fat mass loss occurred in participants consuming the [high protein] diet…compared with the [control] diet” (Specifically, a protein intake of around 0.6 g/lb was used in this study)

• “Can you actually break your metabolism?” - /u/tahlyn responds to this inquiry with MANY excellent references for supporting evidence that underestimating intake is the primary cause of apparently anomalous metabolisms.

• “Energy intake and energy expenditure: a controlled study comparing dietitians and non-dietitians.” - small (N=20) study comparing 7-day food records of a group of dietitians against a group of non-dietitians. “The dietitians underreported their energy intake obtained from the food records by an average of 223 +/- 116 kcal/day.”

• “How I Recovered From Binge Eating Disorder (Guide)” - Reddit user /u/MBDDigital shares some tips and philosophy for tackling binge/emotional eating.

• Walking doesn’t burn enough calories to bother counting

• Neither does most exercise:

  • “We…examined the effects of exercise training upon REE during the rehabilitation of severely burned pediatric patients…Exercise training…[did not cause] exaberation of post-burn hypermetabolism.”](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856323/) *“Results indicated that exercise modality had no effect on REE.”
• Long-term metabolic activity is not substantially affected by exercise“No change in physical activity energy expenditure was found in any of the groups. These results suggest that endurance and resistance training does not chronically alter TEE”

• Meal frequency and energy balance - “We conclude that there is robust evidence from several independent laboratories…[that] feeding frequency has no significant impact on the rate of weight loss during energy restriction.” Also shows clear strong correlation between meal frequency and total daily intake.

• What is the required energy deficit per unit weight loss? - “The [3500 cal/lb] rule of thumb approximately matches the predicted energy density of lost weight in obese subjects” (it should be noted that this study does show evidence supporting that this overestimates the required deficit for people with much lower initial bodyfat; however, in practice, the rule applies universally)

• Who succeeds in maintaining weight loss? A conceptual review of factors associated with weight loss maintenance and weight regain. (full text available on ResearchGate) - Massive literature review covering common patterns in subjects who succeed/fail in long-term weight control.

  • “Weight maintenance seems to require an ongoing adherence to weight-related behaviours.”
  • “In weight regainers, self-monitoring has been shown to decline with time”
  • “flexible [food choices] predicts better long-term weight loss results (36), and flexible and rigid controls have been related to lower and higher body weights respectively (50).”
  • “Participating in a maintenance support group…[has] been related to better weight maintenance.”
• What predicts weight regain in a group of successful weight losers? - “this study shows that [NWCR] individuals who regain weight report marked decreases in physical activity…with no change in overall calorie intake”

• Chronic neural adaptation induced by long-term resistance training in humans - “These results indicate that changes in the CNS [Central Nervous System] are sustained in the [long]-term practices of resistance training and permit a higher voluntary activation at several intensities of the MVC [Maximum Voluntary Contraction]”

• Weight loss and growth velocity in obese children after very low calorie diet, exercise, and behavior modification. - “The linear growth and growth velocity data in this [very low calorie intervention] study suggest that most male and female subjects are able to sustain growth at a normal rate for their chronological age, height age or both.”

• Aspartame: a safety evaluation based on current use levels, regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies. (full text available on ResearchGate) - “there is no credible evidence that aspartame is carcinogenic”, “There is no evidence to support an association between consumption of aspartame and the development of obesity. On the contrary, when used in multidisciplinary weight control programs, aspartame may actually aid in long-term control of body weight.”

• Effect of dietary adherence on the body weight plateau: a mathematical model incorporating intermittent compliance with energy intake prescription - A study of how dynamically intermittent adherence to an energy difference alters progress. “The intermittent lack-of-adherence model generated oscillating weight graphs that have been frequently observed in weight-loss studies.”

• Carbohydrate Consumption and Fatigue - “Though the findings of the studies reviewed vary, the preponderance demonstrated a positive relationship between simple carbohydrate consumption and fatigue…Additionally, a ketogenic (very low carbohydrate) diet tended to increase the feeling of fatigue and a calorie restricted diet tended to decrease fatigue with no difference between high and low glycemic diets.” “Although the majority of the studies reviewed demonstrate an improvement in fatigue with a diet low in simple carbohydrates, there is relatively little research specifically focused on the impact of carbohydrate consumption on fatigue.” In short: YMMV, try varying your carb intake and see how you feel.

• TinyHabits - a program designed to help change behaviors by taking very small steps consistently.

  • Dr. Fogg’s behavior model states that “three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger. When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing.” As pertains to weight control, many of us are already motivated (if you’re reading this, you’ve got motive!), we all have the ability to make changes, so quite a lot of our behavior hinges upon managing triggers for behavior. E.g. emotional stress may trigger a desire to eat, but this behavior can be avoided if we install a new behavior in its place: “when the trigger of this desire arises, I will open MyFitnessPal and pre-log the thing I am thinking about eating.” Many people find that this simple step disrupts the emotional cascade enough that they can reason their way out of stress eating.
• National Weight Control Registry: Common Behaviors in Weight Maintenance - A video on how most people need to add in some sort of exercise to assist with maintaining their weight loss. A very good watch.