Eight new entries made it into BMJ Open’s top 10 most read articles in February. New in at number one is a secondary analysis of longitudinal data by Hurst & Fukuda, which examined the association between lifestyle factors, including eating speed, and obesity in Japanese patients with diabetes. The authors demonstrated that slower eating speed was associated with reduced obesity, lower BMI and smaller waist circumference. Read more about this study in our recent blog.
Two new entries in the second and third positions examine aspects of dietary carbohydrate. At number two is a study by Zinn et al. in which they designed two low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) meal plans for two hypothetical cases representing average Australian male and female adults. Both of the meal plans successfully exceeded the Australian/New Zealand nutrient reference value thresholds for all nutrients apart from two instances; the researchers conclude that a well-planned LCHF diet can provide sufficient intakes of all of the micronutrients, apart from iron for females.
At number three is a systematic review and meta-analysis by Sartorius et al., exploring whether high-carbohydrate intake leads to increased risk of obesity. Extracting and analysing data from observational studies, the researchers suggest that a higher proportion of carbohydrates in unrestricted diets do not increase obesity levels. However, they caution that this study has not been able to assess refined versus unrefined carbohydrate dietary intake.
Galloway et al. are new in at number ten; They assessed the effect of a real-world dietary intervention on urinary bisphenol A (BPA) levels in teenagers. BPA, a chemical used to make plastics often used in food and beverage packaging, was detected in urine of 86% of participants at baseline. The self-administered dietary intervention, designed to reduce BPA consumption by avoidance of foods packaged in known sources of BPA, had no effect on urine BPA levels.
Most read figures are based on pdf downloads and full text views. Abstract views are excluded.