The baseline time span for this database is (publication years)
1999-December 31, 2009 from the sixth bimonthly update (an 11-year period).
The resulting database contained 78,904 (10 years) and 23,666 (2 years)
papers; 172,795 authors; 168 nations; 4,043 journals; and 30,223
institutions. See additional information below in the overview &
methodology sections.
Interviews, first-person essays, and profiles about people in a
wide variety of fields which pertain to this special topic of
Obesity.
OVERVIEW
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
"American society has become 'obesogenic,' characterized by
environments that promote increased food intake, nonhealthful foods, and
physical inactivity."1 Being overweight or obese means that a
person is carrying a greater weight than is considered healthy for their
height, leaving them at greater risk for a host of other diseases, such as
cardiovascular disease, type 2
diabetes, cancers, stroke, and
respiratory problems. Obesity also carries a significant healthcare price
tag.
The CDC estimated that one-third of US adults in 2007-2008 were obese. The
World Health Organization also acknowledges that obesity is a growing
international problem. WHO estimated that in 2005, 1.6 billion adults
(people over the age of 15 years) were overweight, and 400 million were
obese globally. By the year 2015, WHO estimates that 2.3 billion adults
will be overweight, and 700 million will be obese. In addition, in 2005,
WHO estimated that there were at least 20 million children under the age of
five years around the world who were overweight.2
This month, Special Topics looks at the literature on obesity over the past
decade and over the past two years. To construct the initial data pool, the
string "obesity" OR
"obese" OR
"overweight" was employed to search titles,
abstracts, and keywords of original articles, reviews, and proceedings
papers published between January 1, 1999 and October 31, 2009. To make the
paper lists more on-target to the topic, we restricted to the title keyword
"obes*."
When we last visited the topic of obesity, in
December of 2001, the prevalent themes among the
most-cited papers for 1991-2000 included the search for an obesity gene,
the physiological action of leptin in humans, the link between obesity
and insulin resistance, and the prevalence of obesity in different
population groups, particularly children and adolescents. Some of these
topics are still relevant in the current literature.
The bulk of papers in the 10-year period relate to prevalence and trends of
obesity in adults or children and adolescents, the prevalence of obesity
and diabetes in the US, the disease burden of obesity and overweight, and
the need to establish a standard definition for childhood overweight and
obesity worldwide.
Other topics covered on the 10-year list include the relationship between
adiponectin, insulin resistance, and obesity; the link between obesity and
diabetes via the protein resistin; the role of circulating ghrelin levels
in obesity; C-reactive proteins and the potential role for cytokines
originating from adipose; macrophage accumulation in adipose tissue; and
the role of chronic inflammation in fat tissue in the development of
obesity-related insulin resistance.
Gene studies dominate the two-year list, and include such topics as
variants near MC4R associated with fat mass, weight, and obesity risk;
genetics variants in particular Asian populations, including the Chinese
Han population; and the strength of genetics on childhood adiposity.
The two-year list also covers topics related to gut microbiota in obesity
in humans and in mice; the progression and cost of the US obesity epidemic;
using the Nurses' Health Study to examine abdominal obesity and the risk of
all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality in women in a 16-year
follow-up study; pharmacological achievement of weight loss with rimonabant
or exenatide; and the implications of T-lymphocyte infiltration in visceral
adipose tissue.
Adipocyte dysfunction, epidemiology problems, adipokines, the link between
abdominal obesity and metabolic syndrome, and the relationship between the
brain, appetite, and obesity are reviewed.
Methodology: The baseline time span for this database
is (publication years) 1999-December 31, 2009 from the sixth bimonthly
update (an 11-year period). The resulting database contained 78,904 (10
years) and 23,666 (2 years) papers; 172,795 authors; 168 nations; 4,043
journals; and 30,223 institutions.
Rankings: Once the database was in place, it was used to
generate list of authors, journals, institutions, and nations. Rankings for
author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways:
according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper*. The paper
thresholds and corresponding percentages used to determine scientist,
institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper,
and total papers respectively are as follows:
Entity
Authors
Institutions
Nations
Journals
Thresholds
21
118
8
5*
Percentage:
1%
1%
50%
50%
*Unless otherwise specified, all rankings have a
5 paper threshold for all measures.