Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Obesity Reduces Left Ventricular Strains, Torsion, And Synchrony In Mouse Models: A Cine Displacement Encoding With Stimulated Echoes (Dense) Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Study, Sage P. Kramer, David K. Powell, Christopher M. Haggerty, Cassi M. Binkley, Andrea C. Mattingly, Lisa A. Cassis, Frederick H. Epstein, Brandon K. Fornwalt

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Obesity affects a third of adults in the US and results in an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. While the mechanisms underlying this increased risk are not well understood, animal models of obesity have shown direct effects on the heart such as steatosis and fibrosis, which may affect cardiac function. However, the effect of obesity on cardiac function in animal models is not well-defined. We hypothesized that diet-induced obesity in mice reduces strain, torsion, and synchrony in the left ventricle (LV).

METHODS: Ten 12-week-old C57BL/6 J mice were randomized to a high-fat or low-fat diet. After 5 months on …

An Acacb Variant Implicated In Diabetic Nephropathy Associates With Body Mass Index And Gene Expression In Obese Subjects, Lijun Ma, Mariana Murea, James A. Snipes, Alejandra Marinelarena, Jacqueline Krüger, Pamela J. Hicks, Kurt A. Langberg, Meredith A. Bostrom, Jessica N. Cooke, Daisuke Suzuki, Tetsuya Babazono, Takashi Uzu, Sydney C. W. Tang, Ashis K. Mondal, Neeraj K. Sharma, Sayuko Kobes, Peter A. Antinozzi, Matthew Davis, Swapan K. Das, Neda Rasouli, Philip A. Kern, Nathan J. Shores, Lawrence L. Rudel, Matthias Blüher, Michael Stumvoll, Donald W. Bowden, Shiro Maeda, John S. Parks, Peter Kovacs, Robert L. Hanson, Leslie J. Baier, Steven C. Elbein, Barry I. Freedman

Internal Medicine Faculty Publications

Acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase B gene (ACACB) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs2268388 is reproducibly associated with type 2 diabetes (T2DM)-associated nephropathy (DN). ACACB knock-out mice are also protected from obesity. This study assessed relationships between rs2268388, body mass index (BMI) and gene expression in multiple populations, with and without T2DM. Among subjects without T2DM, rs2268388 DN risk allele (T) associated with higher BMI in Pima Indian children (n = 2021; p-additive = 0.029) and African Americans (AAs) (n = 177; p-additive = 0.05), with a trend in European Americans (EAs) (n = 512; p-additive = 0.09), but not Germans (n …

Carrots, Sticks And False Carrots: How High Should Weight Control Wellness Incentives Be? Findings From A Population-Level Experiment, Harald Schmidt

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Employers are increasingly using wellness incentives, including penalties for unhealthy behavior. Survey data suggests that people are willing to accept the principle of penalizing those perceived to take health risks, but the equally relevant question of the magnitude of acceptable penalties is unclear.

While the principle of penalizing overweight and obese people has some support, findings from a population-level experiment (n=1,000) suggest that the acceptable size of penalties is comparatively small, around $50: more than 10-fold below levels favored by advocates. Reward-based incentives are favored over penalty-based ones by a factor of 4. Of two different ways of framing penalty …

Using Geospatial Technologies To Characterize Relationships Between Travel Behavior, Food Availability, And Health, Warren J. Christian

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Epidemic obesity in the U.S. has prompted exploration of causal factors related to the built environment. Recent research has noted statistical associations between the spatial accessibility of retail food sources, such as supermarkets, convenience stores, and restaurants, and individual characteristics such as weight, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. These studies typically use residential proximity or neighborhood density to food sources as the measure of accessibility. Assessing food environments in this manner, however, is very limiting. Since most people travel outside of their neighborhood on a daily basis, the retail food sources available to individuals residing in the same area could vary …

An Investigation Of Perinatal Polychlorinated Biphenyl Exposure On Body Composition And Glucose Homeostasis, Cetewayo S. Rashid

Theses and Dissertations--Nutritional Sciences

Recent advancements have uncovered environmental contributions to obesity and diabetes etiology. In fact, perinatal malnutrition resulting in low birth weight (LBW) has been shown to correlate with later life obesity and impaired glucose tolerance in aged offspring. LBW can result from a myriad of developmental perturbations including macronutrient restriction, hypoxia, maternal stress and toxin exposure.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are ubiquitous environmental pollutants that bioaccumulate in the food chain resulting in dietary exposure in humans. Maternal and cord blood PCB levels are inversely associated with birth weight, and recent studies indicate that perinatal exposures to PCBs contribute to gender-specific obesity development …

Novel Insights Into The Function And Regulation Of Group X Secretory Phospholipase A2, Joseph D. Layne Jr

Theses and Dissertations--Nutritional Sciences

Group X secretory phospholipase A₂ (GX sPLA₂) hydrolyzes membrane phospholipids producing free fatty acids and lysophospholipids. Previous studies from our lab suggest that mice with targeted deletion of GX sPLA₂ (GX KO) have increased age-related weight gain due to an increase in overall adiposity. Paradoxically, this increased adiposity is associated with improved age-related glucose intolerance. GX KO mice also demonstrate a reduced inflammatory response to lipopolysaccharide injection. In vitro studies indicate this phenotype may be attributable to blunted macrophage mediated inflammatory responses. Given the role of macrophages in promoting adipose tissue (AT) inflammation and metabolic dysfunction …