While I am responsible for everything this book says, I didn’t come to all its conclusions by myself. I have scores of collaborators, and people to acknowledge and thank. And they deserve to take a bow.
My journey into the world of obesity began sixteen years ago at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, where Tom Merchant, Melissa Hudson, Pam Hinds, Robbin and Mike Christensen, Shengjie Wu, Xiaoping Xiong, Bob Danish, Randi Schreiber, Susan Post, Susan Rose, and George Burghen were instrumental in the initial work in children with obesity due to brain tumors. At the University of Tennessee, I am indebted to Pedro Velasquez-Meyer, Kathy Spencer, Beth Connelly, Ann Cashion, Cynthia Buffington, and Judy Soberman for our initial adult observations.
The majority of the work and the formulations espoused in this book stem from my last eleven years at the University of California, San Francisco. I have stellar colleagues in the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) program, including Andrea Garber, Kristine Madsen, Patrika Tsai, Cam-Tu Tran, Luis Rodriguez, Joan Valente, Lisa Groesz, Hannah Thompson, Michael Gonzaga, Maria Martin, Diane Luce, Meghan Gould, Frank Brodie, Rachel Lipman, Kelly Jordan, and Sally Elliott. These are the people who have done the heavy lifting, and also the ones who keep me honest. My colleagues studying stress and addiction in the Center for Obesity Assessment, Study and Treatment (COAST) are Elissa Epel, Barbara Laraia, Nancy Adler, Rick Hecht, Peter Bacchetti, Nancy Hills, Janet Tomiyama, Laurel Mellin, Naomi Stotland, and Mel Heyman. Our fructose work is a team effort between UCSF (Kathy Mulligan, Sue Noworolski, Viva Tai, and Mike Wen) and Touro University (Jean-Marc Schwarz and Alejandro Gugliucci). At University of California at Berkeley, I am indebted to members of the Center for Weight and Health (CWH), including Pat Crawford, Lorene Ritchie, Gail Woodward-Lopez, Sharon Fleming, Joanne Ikeda, George Brooks, Aarthi Raman, and Sushma Sharma. At the UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health (CERCH) are Brenda Eskenazi, Kim Harley, Asa Bradman, and Nina Holland. Our surgical work includes Diana Farmer, Shinjiro Hirose, Marco Patti, Bill Aldrich, John Kral, and at the University of Rochester, Thad Boss (deceased) and Jeff Peters. I have stellar obesity colleagues in the basic sciences at UCSF as well, in particular, Holly Ingraham, Christian Vaisse, Lynda Frassetto, Allison Xu, Eric Verdin, Bob Farese, Suneil Koliwad, Kaveh Ashrafi, and Larry Tecott, who have taught me so much. Special mention also goes to Stan Glantz and Neal Benowitz at the Center for Tobacco Research. Our advocacy work includes chef Cindy Gershen, Julie Kaufmann of the American Heart Association, Andrea Bloom of ConnectWell, and Tim Luedtke of Navigator Benefit Solutions, LLC. Our policy work includes Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, Sanjay Basu at the Stanford Prevention Institute, Jennifer Pomeranz at Yale, and internationally, Ricardo Uauy, Carlos Monteiro, Juan Rivera, Simon Barquera, and Philip James.
I would also like to acknowledge several other pediatric investigators around the world for their help and camaraderie as we all try to stem the tide of the obesity epidemic. David Ludwig (Ending the Food Fight), Fran Kaufman (Diabesity), Miriam Vos (The No-Diet Obesity Solution for Kids), and Peter Gluckman (Fat, Fate, and Disease) have already jumped into the fray with books for the public. Special acknowledgments also go to Jack Yanovski, Sonia Caprio, Dennis Styne, Silva Arslanian, Mike Freemark, Jeff Schwimmer, Dick Jackson, Ram Weiss, Martin Wabitsch, Hermann Müller, Christian Roth, Felix Kreier, Franco Chiarelli, Takehiko Ohzeki, and Ze’ev Hochberg. A call-out to Kevin Boyd of Chicago, a pediatric dentist and the world’s first paleodontist. Other notables include Bruce McEwen and Rudy Leibel. And also Gary Taubes for keeping me grounded.
I also want to acknowledge two non-medical people I’ve never met, and who figured this stuff out by themselves without any help: David Gillespie, a lawyer from Brisbane, Australia, and Nicholas Krilanovich, a retired electrical engineer in Seattle. They deserve enormous credit for sharing their messages, and going it alone.
In particular, I want to thank an unbelievably talented and enthusiastic cadre of students, post-docs, and mentees for all their hard work, grant generation, and paper production; for their good fellowship; for putting up with me; and for making me look good. Kudos to pre-docs Renee Matos, Jessica Myers, Emily King, Jason Langheier, Annie Valente, Marcia Wertz, and Paula Yoffe. My obesity post-docs have included Chaluntorn Preeyasombat, Elvira Isganaitis, Clement Cheung, Drew Bremer, Stephanie Nguyen, Carolyn Jasik, Ivy Aslan, Lisa Goldman Rosas, Anjali Jain, and Emily Perito. Junior faculty include Jyu-Lin Chen, Anisha Patel, and Janet Wojcicki, and also some not-so-junior visiting professors: Anastasia Hadjiyannakis (Canada), Young Eun Choi (Korea), Jung Sub Lim (Korea), and Xiaonan Li (China).
This book is really the brainchild of my agent, Janis Donnaud. She found me, and convinced me that my voice was unique, that this book was necessary, and that the world needed it. Agents are usually interested in the product and the money. Not Janis. She is a thinker, a visionary. This book is the product of a three-year roller-coaster ride. Janis rode it bare-knuckled along with me and saw it to the end. Thanks as well to my editor, Amy Dietz, for her passion, humor, and unique point of view. And to my publisher, Caroline Sutton, for seeing what others couldn’t. I’d also like to thank Marcia and Mark Elias and Doris Levin for critiquing the first draft of this book, Bob Hunt for historical recollections, Matt Chamberlain for his computer prowess, and Glenn Randle for his graphic genius.
But most important, I must thank my various families. First, my biological family—my wife, Julie; my daughters, Miriam and Meredith; my parents, Judy and Dick; and my sister, Carole. Aside from teaching me everything I know about genetics, they have all stood by me and loved me throughout, especially during the writing of this book on top of my day job. It seems trite to say I couldn’t have done it without them, but indeed they were and always are my inspiration. And I must thank my adopted family, my colleagues at UCSF Pediatric Endocrinology; the most productive academic division with the fewest people in the country. Mel Grumbach, Felix Conte, Selna Kaplan (deceased), Steve Gitelman, Steve Rosenthal, and Saleh Adi are indeed my family—a dysfunctional one, to be sure, but family nonetheless. And lastly, I give my most special thanks to the three smartest, most logical, most scientific, fairest, most caring, and most loving people in science it is my fortune to call my friends. Without any one of them, I’d have given up long ago. First, my UCSF division head, Walter Miller, a brilliant scientist and physician with a mind like a steel trap, who has led by example, has always been supportive, and has always been there to help parse the criticisms and the politics. Second, Howard Federoff, the executive dean of Georgetown University Medical Center, perhaps the most complete human being ever to walk the earth. Howard is the ultimate role model, someone to emulate on every level. Talking science with Howard is tantamount to a religious awakening. Howard has never stopped believing in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. To be considered his friend is among the most satisfying aspects of my life. Lastly, my scientific soul sister, co-director of the Childhood Obesity Institute at Children’s National Medical Center, Michele Mietus-Snyder. I’m sure if you asked her, she would tell you I taught her more than she taught me, but don’t believe it. If it weren’t for her scientific acumen, her critical thinking, and her genuine altruistic goodness, I seriously doubt this book would ever have taken shape.
I love you all.