2010 is over, so here is my annual list of favorite research that has been published over the year.

Last year’s list was large as I was able to drag/drop references from Mendeley where I save papers, but for whatever reason it is not letting me do that this year.  So this time I had to link to things I blogged about or do it all manually (which might take until 2012!).

My favorite post topics this year:

As always, I am overwhelmed by so many things to read and write about, but here are some of the things I was most interested in:

• Holidays & weight gain: what the science suggests.  I went through all of the holiday research that I could find and described and summarized them.
• The Incredible Egg.  Probably the post I am most proud of to this point (but I will rewrite and update it a bit this year); a summary of the majority of research on eggs.  The research does not suggest they are harmful because of the large amounts of cholesterol, and if anything are probably beneficial on cardiovascular health.  I went through more than 20 papers and think it is one of the best articles on the web on eggs (I was motivated to write it because of so much misinformation).
• The caffeine content in coffee can vary significantly, even with the same brand.  Buyer beware!
• Coffee has soluble fiber, and this fiber influences neuroimmunity.
• Nitrate.  This year brought about more research on nitrate and exercise performance and an important animal study showing it ameliorates metabolic syndrome.  See them here.
• I wrote a few posts about fruit, polyphenols, and antioxidants in 2010.  More this year.
• Evidence for paternally influenced epigenetic fetal programming?  Not very convincing, but will be interesting to see what follows up.
• Organic labeling seems to influence food and exercise choices.  Environmental factors influence our food intake.
• I critized the ADA for partnering with Hershey, with a bit of evidence-based reasoning.  See these posts.
• The lipidome can be measured.
• An increasing number of researchers seem to be promoting the focus on foods instead of nutrients, which makes sense as research on individual nutrients is so difficult to do with so many variables and debate rages especially on what macronutrients are idea.
• A mechanism for muscle memory: myonuclei
• Something(s) about ageing per se influence physiological responses to certain nutrients or milieu
• Does nutrition need a new research paradigm?  New ‘omics’ technologies are adding to nutritional insight.  More this year on this topic.
• I wrote several organic v. conventional posts this year.  We can’t label organic farming as blanketly superior (or maybe rarely is it ever) than conventional farming.  The most effective techniques should be merged and the battle between the 2 should be dropped.
• A preference for sugar can be formed in animals even if they can’t taste it.
• I had over half a million SNPs tested by 23andme this year and explored a few of my health related traits here.
• UVB may have important immunoregulatory effects independent of stimulating vitamin D production.
• For all of 2010′s posts, click here.

This year i’ll also add some of my favorite bloggers and people on twitter, in no particular order.

Favorite Bloggers of 2010:

• Travis and Peter at Obesity Panacea continue to set a great example of how scientists can effectively translate research findings to the public.  They also started Science of Blogging which is already becoming a great resource for why blogging can be great.
• Yoni at Weighty Matters sees right through food companies and holds nothing back against food absurdities.
• James at Weightology clearly has read a ton of research on weight and organizes his thoughts very clearly.  I especially like how he recognizes logical fallacies and points out poor reasoning by what seems like most people in the fitness/weight loss industry.
• CarbSanity- my new favorite (anonymous) blogger, very intelligently tackles low carb science.  She is one of the few taking on the abuse of science by most low-carb promoters, including Gary Taubes.
• Larry Parnell’s blog Variable Genome is a constant inspiration for me to learn more about nutrigenomics.
• Keith Grimaldi’s Eurogene blog is great for history and context of nutrition and genetics, and keeping up with changing regulations and perspectives in nutrigenetics.
• Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, invaluable for the political happenings related to food around the globe.
• SweatScience by Alex Hutchinson, who keeps up with important fitness/nutrition research.
• Biofortified, a group blog started by Karl Haro von Mogel and Anastasia Bodnar.  A great agriculture resource!
• Tidbits on Health by David Despain- great science journalism on interesting topics.

Favorite Twitter-ers of 2010:

@TravisSaunders, @sweatscience, @geneticmaize, @YoniFreedhoff, @DrSharma, @daviddespain, @pvanbaarlen, @larry_parnell, @marionnestle, @nutrigenomics, @eurogene, @PMJaniszewski, @stevemagness, @k_hettinga, @Weightology

I can’t thank all of these people (and those who I inevitably forgot to list) enough for using social media and sharing all the important information that they do!