Drew Sayer

• University of Alabama at Birmingham

Exogenous ketone ester and ketone ester mixed with ketone free acid formulations are rapidly entering the commercial marketspace. Short-term animal and human studies using these products suggest significant potential for primary or secondary prevention of a number of chronic disease conditions. However, a number of questions need to be addressed by...

Objective: Weight loss of ≥10% improves glucose control and may remit type 2 diabetes (T2D). High-protein (HP) diets are commonly used for weight loss, but whether protein sources, especially red meat, impact weight loss-induced T2D management is unknown. This trial compared an HP diet including beef and a normal-protein (NP) diet without red meat...

Background: Behavioral weight loss interventions can lead to an average weight loss of 5%-10% of initial body weight, however there is wide individual variability in treatment response. Although built, social, and community food environments can have potential direct and indirect influences on body weight (through their influence on physical activ...

Background Body composition is an important determinant of athletic performance that is directly influenced by training and detraining. Collegiate athletes experience substantial variability in training intensity during a season, but little research has been conducted to track changes in body composition across periods of intense training and break...

Despite well-documented health benefits from exercise, a study on national trends in achieving the recommended minutes of physical activity guidelines has not improved since the guidelines were published in 2008. Peer interactions have been identified as a critical factor for increasing a population’s physical activity. The objective of this study...

Background: Interventions to prevent and treat obesity-related conditions often comprise multiple behavioral and pharmacological components. Very little is known about the possible independent or synergistic effects of intervention components on disease risk and progression, and the data supporting intervention adaptations are lacking. The objectiv...

Background: Randomization is critical for reducing biases that affect statistical inference in intervention studies. However, allocation to a preferred vs. non-preferred treatment may affect study engagement and outcomes. The aims of this study were to report participant preferences for study conditions in a pilot Sequential Multiple Assignment Ran...

Background Personalizing approaches to prevention and treatment of obesity will be a crucial aspect of precision health initiatives. However, in considering individual susceptibility to obesity, much remains to be learned about how to support healthy weight management in different population subgroups, environments and geographical locations. Subj...

Objectives People with physical disabilities (PWD) are at increased risk for developing obesity and weight-related comorbidities compared to the general population. While some barriers to weight loss (WL) are known, many behavioral, environmental, and psychological contributors to WL and weight loss maintenance (WLM) have yet to be identified for P...

Objectives Despite ongoing disagreement among the obesity research community, we have seemed to arrive at a paramount conclusion: there is no one-size-fits-all approach for weight loss. Thus, it is imperative to identify individual and contextual factors affecting intervention response. Emerging data suggests that pretreatment metabolic status may...

Objectives Socioeconomically disadvantaged populations are more likely to have both low nutrition literacy and low cooking efficacy. This combination often results in a high consumption of convenience foods that are typically energy-dense, nutrient poor, and promote the development or exacerbation of chronic disease. The objective of this study is...

Objectives There are well-established regional differences in obesity prevalence in the U.S., but relatively little is known about whether these differences impact efforts for weight loss. The objective of the study was to determine whether changes in body weight, engagement in physical activity (PA), and psychosocial factors differed in Colorado (...

Adherence to healthy eating patterns (HEPs) is often short-lived and can lead to repetitive attempts of adopting—but not maintaining—HEPs. We assessed effects of adopting, abandoning, and readopting HEPs (HEP cycling) on cardiovascular disease risk factors (CVD-RF). We hypothesized that HEP cycling would improve, worsen, and again improve CVD-RF. D...

Background/Objective While the benefit of improving the diet through the intake of different food groups such as fruits and vegetables is well established, many nutrient specific intervention studies have failed to demonstrate the effectiveness of specific foods in preventing or altering disease progression. This may be due to exposome and microbio...

Higher protein (HP) diets may increase satiety, postprandial thermogenesis, and preservation of lean mass compared to normal protein diets, which has contributed to the popularity of HP diets for weight loss. However, recommendations to restrict red meats – a major contributor to overall protein intake – are common among dietary patterns for weight...

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is consistently related to higher obesity risk, especially in women living in developed countries such as the United States and Western Europe. Prevailing theories to describe this relationship have focused primarily on proximate level factors such as the generally poorer food environment (e.g. relative lack of heal...

Increasing physical activity through structured aerobic exercise should be a cornerstone of behavioral weight loss programs. Recently, numerous scientific and popular media pieces have discounted the role of exercise for weight loss, which may discourage those trying to lose weight from exercising. However, existing data clearly demonstrate that ex...

The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages people to adopt a healthy eating pattern (HEP) for disease prevention. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet and the Mediterranean‐Style Eating Pattern (Med) are representative of HEPs and are known to improve cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. Unfortunately, for ma...

Hypertension is a major, modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular and kidney disease and mortality that is improved by the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. The DASH diet emphasizes increased consumption of fruits/vegetables, whole‐grains, lowfat dairy, and poultry/fish and reduced intakes of sodium and red meats (including pork...