Obesity Clinical Trials

The purpose of this study is to understand how daily rhythms of behavior affect the expression of genes in fat cells, and how these daily cycles affect the way fat cells respond to insulin (a hormone that controls blood sugar levels) before and after bariatric surgery. Read Less

This study is investigating the effect of different intensities of exercise on levels of the hormone, ghrelin. In addition, we will be examining the relationship between any exercise induced changes in ghrelin and insulin sensitivity, obesity, and vascular function. Read Less

This is a multisite clinical trial of healthy lifestyle programs for middle-to-older-aged adults (50 -74 years) to improve their weight and, therefore, reduce risk for chronic disease. This study will investigate whether a proven, self-directed video-based lifestyle program can be significantly enhanced with the assistance of a coach via videoconference or phone to help people as they adopt healthy eating and exercise behaviors. Additionally, the study will examine what factors might explain why some people achieve better outcomes than others. Understanding this can help to tailor the program to an individual for personalized care in the future. Importantly, this study aims to demonstrate how readily a digital lifestyle program, with or without remote coaching, can be seamlessly delivered to patients at home via the patient portal of their electronic health record. This practical use of existing telehealth tools could be a feasible and effective means to offer behavioral treatments during routine medical care. Read Less

Childhood obesity is a national epidemic that disproportionately burdens low income and ethnic minority populations. By preschool, nearly one-third of low income children are already overweight or obese, setting the stage for adverse health outcomes over their life course. Evidence is mounting that individual-focused, single-component interventions fail to produce long-term population-level changes in obesity-related outcomes. Evidence increasingly supports creating entire environments (e.g., schools) in which the healthy choice is the default option. The investigators will conduct a pragmatic cluster randomized trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a multilevel (organization, teacher, parent, child) intervention to support healthy eating and physical activity in preschools. The study is being conducted in partnership with Child Care Resource Center (CCRC), a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all children receive high quality preschool experiences. The investigators will randomly assign 60 preschool sites (stratified by size), located in underserved areas of Los Angeles, to the intervention or a usual practice control conditions. The investigators will evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on child BMI z-scores (primary outcome) and parent-reported child nutrition and physical activity (secondary outcomes). The investigators will systematically examine the implementation process to understand factors that may facilitate or hinder intervention uptake and success. The findings from this work will be critical for informing future dissemination efforts. Read Less

Obesity is pro-inflammatory, impairs metabolism, and physically limiting. Specifically, muscle in obese persons does not synthesize proteins normally. This further increases metabolic and physical dysfunction. As such, obesity programs should not only focus on weight loss, but muscle metabolic health. Dairy nutrients have anti-inflammatory and anabolic properties, but mostly evaluated in isolation and/or pre-clinical designs. Also, it is unknown if the circulating benefits extend to the muscle. We hypothesize that dairy full-fat milk will improve these obesity characteristics. Read Less

The main objective is to examine DNA hypomethylation as an underlying mechanism for the increased production of inflammatory cytokines and the impaired vascular function in obese individuals and as a potential target for nonpharmacological preventive/therapeutic interventions such as aerobic exercise. Read Less

Interventions that promote water consumption in place of sugar-sweetened beverages have shown promise for preventing childhood obesity in schoolchildren. Yet to date, no studies have examined whether applying this approach in childcare centers could help to prevent childhood obesity at an even earlier stage of development. This cluster-randomized controlled trial will fill gaps by examining how a multilevel childcare-based healthy beverage intervention affects young children's consumption of beverages and obesity. Read Less

Once written consent is obtained, the participant will be provided with an accelerometer to be worn for 7 days to assess current physical activity levels. Subjects will be provided with a standardized diet (55/15/30% CHO/PRO/FAT) prior to collection of pre-intervention data of insulin sensitivity. Individuals will then participate in an 8-week electrical stimulation intervention (30min/day, 3x/week) and randomized into placebo/control, NMES, resistance training combined with NMES (RT +NMES), or resistance training (RT) group (n=15 per group), followed by collection of post-intervention data. The control group will receive electrical stimulation up to sensory level, the NMES group will receive stimulation up to tolerable intensity to induce visible muscle contraction, the RT+ NMES will receive stimulation up to tolerable intensity during resistance training, and the RT group will only receive exercise training. Pre-and post-intervention data includes measurements for body composition, resting metabolic rate, VO2max, insulin sensitivity, and comprehensive blood work. Read Less

This 12-week controlled diet and weight intervention study seeks to define the molecular pathways that link excess body weight to the development of insulin resistance (IR). Blood, adipose and stool are sampled at three timepoints; baseline, peak weight (4 weeks) and post weight loss to monitor changes in cellular processes. Additionally, direct insulin sensitivity testing, and radiological measurement of visceral fat and intrahepatic fat content is measured at three timepoints to correlate clinical indices with cellular changes. Read Less

The primary aim of this randomized clinical trial is to compare the effects of three different HIIT protocols and a control group on cardiometabolic health in young adults with obesity. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the following three groups, with each having varying work-to-rest ratios: 1) HIIT-A, 2) HIIT-B, 3) HIIT-C, and 4) control group. HIIT-A, HIIT-B, and HIIT-C groups will participate in six sessions of a running based HIIT program over a 2-week training period. Pre-clinical markers of cardiovascular disease, blood lipids and fasting glucose will be measured at the following three time points: baseline, post-intervention, and 2 weeks after the training cessation (i.e., measure for detraining effect). All measurements will be performed three days before the training program and three days after the intervention to avoid the effect of the last training session. Afterwards, the detraining test will be measured 2 weeks post intervention. Read Less

This project seeks to better understand dietary lapses (instances of nonadherence to dietary goals), a major cause of poor outcomes during behavioral obesity treatment (BOT). Investigators propose to conduct multimodal real-time assessment of behavioral, psychosocial, and contextual characteristics to uncover lapse phenotypes (i.e., meaningful clusters of lapse behaviors, such as lapsing via overeating vs. lapsing via eating an off-plan food). Using wearable sensors and a smartphone-based assessment platform, this research will identify latent characteristics underlying different phenotypes of dietary lapses reported by individuals who are participating in an online BOT. This study will also evaluate how these emerging lapse phenotypes vary over time, between individuals, and within individuals. Such information will ultimately help the field understand how best to reduce lapses in future treatments (e.g., how much to personalize future interventions for lapse vs. generalizability of lapse phenotypes across individuals). Therefore, this study has three goals. First, investigators aim to establish lapse phenotypes by identifying clusters of behavioral, psychosocial, contextual and individual-level factors (e.g., sex, race) that differentiate lapse behaviors during weight loss and maintenance. Second, the investigators aim to test the association of lapse phenotypes with energy intake and weight change during weight loss and maintenance to determine which lapse phenotypes have the greatest impact on BOT outcomes (e.g. personal, environmental, and behavioral factors). Lastly, investigators aim to evaluate individual variability in the occurrence of lapse phenotypes during weight loss and maintenance to determine the generalizability of lapse phenotypes across individuals. Participants will be recruited through various methods including advertisements in local media, targeted online advertising, advertisements in medical and minority communities, and direct mailers. All participants will receive a well-established online BOT program for 12 months, with a 6-month maintenance period, for a total study participation of 18 months. In conjunction, they will complete 14-day monitoring periods (at baseline, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months) consisting of: 1) repeated daily smartphone surveys to assess personal, environmental, and behavioral factors, including automatic capture of geographic location; 2) wearing two wrist-based sensor devices to passively capture physical activity, sleep, and eating behaviors; and 3) completing telephone-based 24-hour dietary recalls to assess overall energy intake. Weight will be measured at all visits to the research center. Read Less

Postmenopausal women are at a risk of excessive weight gain, bone loss, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome. Obesity-induced chronic low-grade inflammation is initiated by excess nutrients in metabolic cells. Recent studies have indicated tocotrienols (one kind of vitamin E, a potent antioxidant) supplement may be good for mitigating negative impacts of obesity in postmenopausal women. The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of 24-week tocotrienols on obesity-associated outcome measurements in postmenopausal women. The investigators will enroll 60 qualified women at the start of the study and randomly assigned to no tocotrienols (placebo) or tocotrienols group for 24 weeks. Obesity-associated measurements will be recorded using blood, urine, adipose tissue, and fecal samples. All data will be analyzed statistically. Read Less