SHR

Smoking is associated with increased resting energy expenditure Cigarette smoking is known to be associated with lower bodyweight and weight gain is a common feature of smoking cessation. It is believed that nicotine acts by various mechanisms on the body’s energy balance and affects both the central nervous system and peripheral tissues by regulating the release of a wide range of neurotransmitters and hormones. Now, Blauw et al show in the first large-scale cohort of its kind that smokers have a 4.7% higher resting energy expenditure per kilogram of fat-free mass than never smokers. This result came from analysis of 1189 men and women from the Netherlands Epidemiology of Obesity (NEO) study. Where do we get our protein? According to Pasiakos et al from the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, who analyzed the NHANES 2007-2010 data on 10,977 adults, the average protein intake from animal, dairy, and plants was...

Energy restriction and weight loss lead to several fundamental changes in physiology that make weight regain easy and continued dieting more difficult. A lot of it comes down to the p-ratio of the dieting individuals, but one hormone that is central to the puzzle is leptin. That is because leptin levels decline both during dieting and after there is a return to caloric maintenance regardless of the weight-loss protocol. The suppression post-dieting is one aspect that makes maintaining a lower body weight so difficult. Interestingly, administration of exogenous leptin during this time has been shown to reverse the reduction in energy expenditure, the reduction in neuromuscular adaptations, and the increased food-reward cues. This begs the question, to what extent does leptin influences these changes? The answer comes from the work of Stefan Camps at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He and his colleagues recruited 82 obese but otherwise healthy middle-aged men and...