Changes in genetic expression during weight loss and weight maintenance

by Amanda Jensen* 

Losing weight is an ambition with no end. To get fit, live longer, reduce injury, look better, feel better and sleep better will pave the road toward your skinny. Yes, losing weight is known to help the heart and boost insulin sensitivity, but the question still asked is: how?

There are differences between losing weight and keeping it off. From the Department of Clinical Sciences Malmo in Sweden, researchers found seven key genes expressed in adipose tissue (fat tissue) that change with weight loss and weight maintenance—a finding that brings science one step closer to understanding how the body responds to and regulates fat loss.

Videos from the EB2012 Sugar Showdown and a Few Comments from Dr. Lustig

If you've been following this blog, then you're probably aware that back in April I blogged about a highly attended debate at Experimental Biology 2012 in San Diego (dubbed the #sugarshowdown in a hashtag on Twitter; here's the Storify story in case you missed it). The event was sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association.  

In that symposium, Dr. Robert Lustig, of University of California, San Francisco, who is famed for sensationalizing the position that sugar is "toxic" in media coverage and the scientific literature, was seriously challenged by not only speakers, but also by fellow scientists (from industry and non-industry alike) in the crowd during the question-and-answer period.

One of those scientists was Dr. John Sievenpiper, of St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, who told me in an interview after the event, "Having both sides better represented was far more balanced than what came out of his two-million hit sensation on YouTube and a lot of the media coverage."