The conceptual potential of 'more-than-human care': A reflection with an artisanal fishing village in Brazil.

As dominant approaches to biodiversity loss and climate change continue to fail in mitigating current socio-environmental crises, scholars and activists are exploring novel conceptual frameworks to drive transformative change in conservation. Among these, more-than-human care has emerged as a concept at the intersection of feminist debates about care and post-humanist discussions around the more-than-human. Although more-than-human care is increasingly referenced in the literature, it remains sparsely situated in the Global South.

Effects of snake fungal disease (ophidiomycosis) on the skin microbiome across two major experimental scales.

Emerging infectious diseases are increasingly recognized as a significant threat to global biodiversity conservation. Elucidating the relationship between pathogens and the host microbiome could lead to novel approaches for mitigating disease impacts. Pathogens can alter the host microbiome by inducing dysbiosis, an ecological state characterized by a reduction in bacterial alpha diversity, an increase in pathobionts, or a shift in beta diversity.

Arsenic exposure is associated with elevated sweat chloride concentration and airflow obstruction among adults in Bangladesh: a cross sectional study.

Arsenic is associated with lung disease and experimental models suggest that arsenic-induced degradation of the chloride channel CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) is a mechanism of arsenic toxicity. We examined associations between arsenic exposure, sweat chloride concentration (measure of CFTR function), and pulmonary function among 285 adults in Bangladesh. Participants with sweat chloride ≥ 60 mmol/L had higher arsenic exposures than those with sweat chloride < 60 mmol/L (water: median 77.

Arsenic exposure and measures of glucose tolerance in Bangladeshi adults: A cross-sectional study.

Background: Arsenic has been associated with diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance in many studies, although some reports have shown null findings.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among 300 adults in Bangladesh. Participants were randomly selected from a roster of 1800 people who previously participated in studies of arsenic and skin lesions.

On the pathogenesis of obesity: causal models and missing pieces of the puzzle.

Application of the physical laws of energy and mass conservation at the whole-body level is not necessarily informative about causal mechanisms of weight gain and the development of obesity. The energy balance model (EBM) and the carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM) are two plausible theories, among several others, attempting to explain why obesity develops within an overall common physiological framework of regulation of human energy metabolism. These models have been used to explain the pathogenesis of obesity in individuals as well as the dramatic increases in the prevalence of obesity worldwide over the past half century.

Philosophy without natural kinds: a reply to Reydon & Ereshefsky.

The tradition of natural kinds has shaped philosophical debates about scientific classification but has come under growing criticism. Responding to this criticism, Reydon and Ereshefsky present their grounded functionality account as a strategy for updating and defending the tradition of natural kinds. This article argues that grounded functionality does indeed provide a fruitful philosophical approach to scientific classification but does not convince as a general theory of natural kinds.

Trapped fat: Obesity pathogenesis as an intrinsic disorder in metabolic fuel partitioning.

Our understanding of the pathophysiology of obesity remains at best incomplete despite a century of research. During this time, two alternative perspectives have helped shape thinking about the etiology of the disorder. The currently prevailing view holds that excessive fat accumulation results because energy intake exceeds energy expenditure, with excessive food consumption being the primary cause of the imbalance.

Design and conduct of a randomized controlled feeding trial in a residential setting with mitigation for COVID-19.

Background: Evaluating effects of different macronutrient diets in randomized trials requires well defined infrastructure and rigorous methods to ensure intervention fidelity and adherence.

Methods: This controlled feeding study comprised two phases. During a Run-in phase (14-15 weeks), study participants (18-50 years, BMI, ≥27 kg/m) consumed a very-low-carbohydrate (VLC) diet, with home delivery of prepared meals, at an energy level to promote 15 ± 3% weight loss.

Increased low-density lipoprotein cholesterol on a low-carbohydrate diet in adults with normal but not high body weight: A meta-analysis.

Background: Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol change with consumption of a low-carbohydrate diet (LCD) is highly variable. Identifying the source of this heterogeneity could guide clinical decision-making.

Objectives: To evaluate LDL cholesterol change in randomized controlled trials involving LCDs, with a focus on body mass index (BMI) in kg/m.

Physiologic Adaptation to Macronutrient Change Distorts Findings from Short Dietary Trials: Reanalysis of a Metabolic Ward Study.

An influential 2-wk cross-over feeding trial without a washout period purported to show advantages of a low-fat diet (LFD) compared with a low-carbohydrate diet (LCD) for weight control. In contrast to several other macronutrient trials, the diet order effect was originally reported as not significant. In light of a new analysis by the original investigative group identifying an order effect, we aimed to examine, in a reanalysis of publicly available data (16 of 20 original participants; 7 female; mean BMI, 27.

Low-fat diet Redux at WHO.

Worldwide dietary guidelines in the late 20th century promoted a low-fat diet, based, in part, on the notion that dietary fat, the most energy dense macronutrient, causes excess weight gain. However, high-quality evidence accumulating since then refute a direct association between dietary fat and adiposity. Moreover, substitution of carbohydrates for unsaturated fat can increase insulin resistance and cardiometabolic disease, especially among populations with highly prevalent insulin resistance.

Carbohydrate-insulin model: does the conventional view of obesity reverse cause and effect?

Conventional obesity treatment, based on the First Law of Thermodynamics, assumes that excess body fat gain is driven by overeating, and that all calories are metabolically alike in this regard. Hence, to lose weight one must ultimately eat less and move more. However, this prescription rarely succeeds over the long term, in part because calorie restriction elicits predictable biological responses that oppose ongoing weight loss.

Back by popular demand, ontology: Productive tensions between anthropological and philosophical approaches to ontology.

In this paper we analyze relations between in anthropology and philosophy beyond simple homonymy or synonymy and show how this diagnosis allows for new interdisciplinary links and insights, while minimizing the risk of cross-disciplinary equivocation. We introduce the ontological turn in anthropology as an intellectual project rooted in the critique of dualism of culture and nature and propose a classification of the literature we reviewed into first-order claims about the world and second-order claims about ontological frameworks. Next, rather than provide a strict definition of in anthropological literature, we argue that the term is used as a heuristic addressing a web of sub-concepts relating to interpretation, knowledge, and self-determination which correspond to methodological, epistemic, and political considerations central to the development of the ontological turn.

Obesogens and Obesity: State-of-the-Science and Future Directions Summary from a Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruptors Strategies Workshop.

On September 7 and 8, 2022, Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruptors Strategies, an Environmental Health Sciences program, convened a scientific workshop of relevant stakeholders involved in obesity, toxicology, or obesogen research to review the state of the science regarding the role of obesogenic chemicals that might be contributing to the obesity pandemic. The workshop's objectives were to examine the evidence supporting the hypothesis that obesogens contribute to the etiology of human obesity; to discuss opportunities for improved understanding, acceptance, and dissemination of obesogens as contributors to the obesity pandemic; and to consider the need for future research and potential mitigation strategies. This report details the discussions, key areas of agreement, and future opportunities to prevent obesity.

Sugar- or artificially-sweetened beverage consumption, physical activity, and risk of cardiovascular disease in US adults.

Background: The extent to which physical activity attenuates the detrimental effects of sugar (SSBs)- or artificially-sweetened beverages (ASBs) on the risk of cardiovascular disease is unknown.

Methods: We used Cox proportional-hazards models to calculate hazard ratios and 95% confidence interval [HR (CI)] between SSB or ASB intake and physical activity with cardiovascular disease risk among 65,730 women in the Nurses' Health Study (1980-2016) and 39,418 men in the Health Professional's Follow-up Study (1986-2016), who were free from chronic diseases at baseline. SSBs and ASBs were assessed every 4-years and physical activity biannually.