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Background The demand and the utilization of intensive treatments of obesity have been increased tremendously. Objectives This study aimed to investigate trends in interest related to the intensive treatments of obesity in both academic research and the public domain, and assess whether they match each other. Setting The BMI Clinic, Double Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Methods Intensive treatment of obesity is defined as meal replacement, pharmacologic treatments, and surgical or endoscopic bariatric procedures identified by the national guidelines. To identify the academic research interests, the number of academic research publications for each search topic was identified as converted into relative popularity. To identify the public's interests, Google Trends relative search volume and Twitter message relative intensity for each topic was mined to identify the most recent interests in intensive obesity treatment among the public. Results There was an increase in academic publications in all treatment domains between 2007 and 2017, but that the research emphasis correlated poorly with public interest. Between 2007 and 2017, the most popular and increasing academic research interest in the intensive treatment of obesity was bariatric surgery, followed by weight loss medication. In 2007, the most popular public-interest treatment was weight loss medication followed by bariatric surgery. In contrast, in 2017, meal replacement and bariatric surgery were equally popular, while the interests in weight loss medication declined. Significant seasonal patterns were also recognized for the public's interests. Conclusion Academic research and public interest are not currently sufficiently aligned in the area of obesity treatment.

Considerable progress has been made in understanding both evolutionary and mechanistic aspects of biological aging, although the two areas remain poorly integrated. We suggest that a greater emphasis on ecology can help to remedy this, by focusing on the interface between biological mechanisms and the environments in which they evolved by natural selection. Among the most salient aspects of the environment relevant to aging is nutrition, and yet in the bulk of aging research nutrition is coarsely represented as dietary restriction or caloric restriction, without consideration for how specific components of diet, beyond “energy” (the undifferentiated mix of macronutrients), are driving the observed effects. More recently, it has become clear that specific nutrients (notably amino acids) and interactions among nutrients (i.e., nutritional balance) play important roles in the biology of aging. We show how a method developed in nutritional ecology, called the Geometric Framework for nutrition, can help to understand the nutritional interactions of animals with their environments, by explicitly distinguishing the roles of calories, individual nutrients and nutrient balance. Central to these models are the active regulatory responses that animals use to mediate between variation in the nutritional environment and fitness-related consequences such as lifespan and reproduction. These homeostatic responses provide a guide for researchers that can help to link the biological mechanisms with evolutionary processes in the context of a multi-dimensional nutritional environment.

Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) populations residing in interior ecosystems of North America are known to frequent harvested areas and areas burnt by wildfires, as both disturbances encourage growth of early seral vegetation preferred by them. This is especially evident in places where there is a paucity of large natural openings and areas with a long history of wildfire suppression, such as the foothill forests of west-central Alberta. Little has been done, however, to directly quantify and compare grizzly bear food-supply in both disturbance types and at early stages of forest regeneration. In this paper, we explore whether harvested areas can act as surrogates to wildfires for grizzly bear food-supply in west-central Alberta, Canada. We sampled known fruit-bearing and herbaceous grizzly bear foods for their occurrence, productivity, and digestible energy supply among post-harvest, post-fire, and mature forests disturbance types, and across very young (~5 yrs), young (~20 yrs), and mid (~60 yrs) age-classes for post-harvest and post-fire disturbances. A variety of foods occurred at greater frequency in post-harvest stands, with the occurrence of most foods explained by the main effects of disturbance and age-class, or in combination with one environmental covariate. Overall, fruit productivity and digestible energy from fruits were highest in the young age-class, whereas forb productivity and digestible energy from forbs were highest in the very young age-class. There were no significant differences in total available digestible energy (fruit + forb) between post-harvest and post-fire stands within any age-class, but significant differences were evident between age-classes. These results suggest that harvested areas can potentially act as a surrogate to wildfires in relation to grizzly bear food-supply, but human access remains a key challenge for harvests given their association with roads. We suggest that harvested areas could be used as management tool to maintain or enhance grizzly bear food-supply and thus contribute to population recovery efforts, especially in areas of wildfire suppression.