Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America?

Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America?

Obesity rates in the United States have been growing rapidly in recent years. Whereas 15 percent of Americans were obese in 1980 (defined as having a body mass index of at least 30), 34 percent were obese in 2004 (Center for Disease Control 2007). The time series of obesity rates in the United States, plotted in Figure 1 (solid line), reveals that the rate of increase over the past quarter-cent...

Online Appendix for “ Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America ? ”

The obesity data used in this study come from a confidential extract of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), an ongoing, large-scale telephone survey. BRFSS randomly samples phone numbers using a disproportionate stratified sample method. Within each household, individuals aged 18 or older are randomly selected for interviews. Business and nonworking phone numbers are omitted...

Titin isoforms in heart failure: are there benefits to supersizing?

Titin is a giant sarcomeric protein that functions as a complex, molecular spring. Its presence in the sarcomere of striated muscle was recognized in the 1980s,1 but its functions have been appreciated only over the past decade, in considerable measure because of the efforts of Granzier, Labeit, Linke, and coworkers.2–4 Earlier work by these investigators and others4 delineated the spring prope...

Supersizing the Mind

Infectious diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean: are they really emerging and increasing?

During 1995, infectious disease epidemics in Latin America and the Caribbean received wide publicity: dengue throughout the region, Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) in Venezuela and Colombia, and hemorrhagic fever in Nicaragua. Increased awareness of these diseases followed extensive reports in the scientific community about the threat of emerging infections (1,2). Are infectious diseases i...