Like 2010 and 2009, here is my annual list of favorite personal posts, blogs, and twitter people. I hope it can help others discover new sources of information.

This year I changed the blog domain to nutsci.org and hope to continue highlighting interesting research as I have time.

Favorite Post Topics

I didn’t write as many posts this year, choosing to transition to more in depth posts instead of on single studies. Here are my favorites:

• Evidence that paternal diet can influence offspring through epigenetic mechanisms: A low-protein paternal diet alters hepatic gene expressions in progeny
• Also in epigenetics: Generational increases in stochastic epigenetic variability to sustained methyl donor supplementation in mice
• A little food science: Why chocolate pudding can turn green
• Distraction during eating reduces fullness & increases subsequent consumption
• This study seemed to go under most people’s radars: Energy expenditure and physical activity level are not higher in developing countries compared to industrialized
• And semi-related: Increase in number of eating occasions, more than increases in food portion sizes or energy density per meal responsible for increased energy intake at the population level?
• A couple related posts on “antioxidants”
• Uric acid, not flavonoids increases antioxidant capacity from (apple) juice
• “Antioxidants” in chocolate (and fruit): don’t buy the hype (a good example of corporate influence in research)
• Larry Parnell’s group published a: Gene-environment interaction database related to nutritional phenotypes
• They also published a paper about: PLIN4 allele-specific influence on microRNA binding has subtle effects on obesity phenotypes
• This will be important for nutritional research: Human serum metabolome (better) quantified
• Athletes: obey your thirst
• Evidence-based nutrition: is proof of efficacy for nutrients too high?
• This got the most traffic; fats are still a hotly contested subject: A consensus paper on dietary fats and cardiovascular disease
• There was also the: Latest Cochrane review on dietary fats and cardiovascular disease
• And: The Great Fat Debate
• Travis Saunders of Obesity Panacea and I ripped into a nonsensical article by the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health: Why the “chocolate milk diet” won’t work
• I critiqued a poor article at Scientific American: Shaky science journalism at SciAm on salt
• Related: Latest salt Cochrane review including non-blood pressure surrogates
• Some literature reviews:
• Hedonic hunger is increased with obesity and normalized with gastric bypass surgery
• Dietary sulforaphane reduces oxidative stress in diabetes
• Dairy/calcium may reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in metabolic syndrome
• For all of 2011’s posts, click here.

Favorite Bloggers of 2011:

Here are some new additions to my favorite bloggers list related to nutrition/health (in no particular order):

• Travis and Peter at Obesity Panacea have an awesome blog on obesity topics.
• Yoni at Weighty Matters unfortunately (but not really) has to blog daily because there is so much nonsense to tackle.
• Larry Parnell’s Variable Genome is a resource for some nutrigenomics-related research.
• Keith Grimaldi’s Eurogene has some excellent information on the intersection of genetic testing and nutrition and I hope he shares more this year.
• Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, essential for keeping up with political issues.
• SweatScience by Alex Hutchinson, who seems to be well-read in all areas of exercise research (and occasionally blogs on nutrition).
• Biofortified, a group blog started by Karl Haro von Mogel and Anastasia Bodnar which has really grown in the last year.
• Tidbits on Health by David Despain- easy to read science journalism.
• CarbSanity- Evelyn has some impressive knowledge and guts to take on faulty logic of some internet communities
• James at Weightology is worth paying for for fitness/nutrition research dissection.

Favorite Twitter-ers of 2011:

I maintain a list of my favorite nutrition/health related scientists, researchers, and professionals here. But i’ll list some here:

New this year:

@KLomangino, @PharmacistScott, @gmopundit, @mem_somerville, @jillyparns, @PaulBoisvert, @DrDavidKatz, @MarkHaub_KSU, @MegPopHealth, @pennydeck, @jordovas56, @food_ethics

And from last year’s list:

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

Like I said last year, 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! They all give important insight into science and health and have impacted me greatly in my learning. Here is to another great year!

-Colby