Research Collected: January 2015

sleep and eating, birth control and brain cancer, diabetes and leptin and glucagon and insulin, placebos, bpa and bpa-free

Hormonal contraceptive use and risk of glioma among younger women a nationwide case-control study (2014)

A nearly two-fold increased risk of glioma was observed among long-term users of hormonal contraceptives.

The Role of Sleep in the Control of Food Intake (2014)

Observational studies describe greater intakes of energy, fat, and possibly carbohydrates in short sleepers and this is corroborated by clinical interventions.

 Effect of protein overfeeding on energy expenditure measured in a metabolic chamber (2015)

The 24EE over 8 wk in all 3 groups was correlated with protein intake (r = 0.60, P = 0.004) but not energy intake (r = 0.16; P = 0.70)… Protein and fat oxidation were reciprocally related during overfeeding… There was no relation between change in fat mass and change in EE.. Excess energy, as fat, does not acutely increase 24EE, which rises slowly as body weight increases. Excess energy as protein acutely stimulates 24EE and SleepEE

A New Biology of Diabetes Revealed by Leptin (2015)

Here we present evidence for two physiologic pathways: a pathway that protects nonadipose tissues from overaccumulation of potentially toxic lipids and unrecognized paracrine interactions between α and β cells revealed by leptin’s ability to suppress diabetic hyperglucagonemia.

Low-dose exposure to bisphenol A and replacement bisphenol S induces precocious hypothalamic neurogenesis in embryonic zebrafish (2014)

Here we demonstrate that bisphenol A (BPA) exposure during a time point analogous to the second trimester in humans has real and measurable effects on brain development and behavior. Furthermore, our study is the first, to our knowledge, to show that bisphenol S, a replacement used in BPA-free products, equally affects neurodevelopment. These findings suggest that BPA-free products are not necessarily safe and support a societal push to remove all structurally similar bisphenol analogues and other compounds with endocrine-disruptive activity from consumer goods. Our data here, combined with over a dozen physiological and behavioral human studies that begin to point to the prenatal period as a BPA window of vulnerability, suggest that pregnant mothers limit exposure to plastics and receipts.

Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions (2015)

These results suggest that only a third of the variation in cancer risk among tissues is attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions. The majority is due to “bad luck,” that is, random mutations arising during DNA replication in normal, noncancerous stem cells.

  • Comment: This link to PubMed is provided because the comments point out some of the problems with this research.

Hyperglycemia in rodent models of type 2 diabetes requires insulin-resistant alpha cells (2014)

To study the role of glucagon in T2D, rodent models of the disease were created lacking glucagon action. These animals failed to develop hyperglycemia unless glucagon action was restored or the animals were given the high concentrations of insulin typical of animals with T2D. This indicates that the unopposed glucagon action in T2D is necessary to support elevated blood glucose of diabetes. Suppressing glucagon or its action may benefit patients with T2D.

Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality (2012)

2002 adults aged 51–80 years (68% men) performed a sitting-rising test (SRT) to and from the floor, which was scored from 0 to 5, with one point being subtracted from 5 for each support used (hand/knee). Final SRT score, varying from 0 to 10, was obtained by adding sitting and rising scores and stratified in four categories for analysis: 0–3; 3.5–5.5, 6–7.5, and 8–10.

Median follow up was 6.3 years and there were 159 deaths (7.9%). Lower SRT scores were associated with higher mortality (p < 0.001). A continuous trend for longer survival was reflected by multivariate-adjusted (age, sex, body mass index) hazard ratios of 5.44 (95% CI 3.1–9.5), 3.44 (95% CI 2.0–5.9), and 1.84 (95% CI 1.1–3.0) (p < 0.001) from lower to higher SRT scores. Each unit increase in SRT score conferred a 21% improvement in survival.

Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (2010)

Placebos administered without deception may be an effective treatment for IBS. Further research is warranted in IBS, and perhaps other conditions, to elucidate whether physicians can benefit patients using placebos consistent with informed consent.

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