Talk:Obesogen

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Hi! As a part of the BI513, Environmental Disruptors of Development course at Boston College, I have been assigned with the task of writing and expanding on a Wikipedia article that is relavent to the course's contents. For my project I have worked on the obesogen page based on research of scientific studies and journal articles. Please feel free to comment or notify me if I have unintentionally misinterpreted any facts or findings. Thanks! user:hortonsb Hortonsb (talk) 20:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Outside Comments

How about comments in the article from the medical association or someone besides the author/discoverer of 'obesogens'. Also, the article sounds like you ripped it right off an abstract or scientific article. Mylittlezach (talk) 01:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I arrived at this page this morning while reviewing nuclear receptors. Although I think this is an interesting use of Wikipedia, I share Mylittlezach's concerns that this seems to fall outside of the mainstream understanding of how metabolism works. I wonder if the course that you took leapt to conclusions about some basic science that simply isn't understood yet. For example, I think we're very far from understanding how PPARs work. While I feel challenged to investigate some of these statements, I would strongly urge the primary author to examine the literature independent of his course; perhaps verify with some of the more widely read textbooks. doctorwolfie (talk) 11:38, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

The way in which article 53 is cited is misleading - the article is about the dangers of fructose, and sucrose (table sugar or "real" sugar) is 50% fructose/ 50% glucose, while HFCS-55 (the most commonly used form of HFCS) is 55% fructose/ 45% glucose. It is only "high" fructose compared to pure corn syrup, which is 100% glucose. Fructose is indeed a problem, but blaming HFCS in particular is not supported by the cited article (table sugar is just as bad). "High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is found in a good majority of products on grocery store shelves. It is used as a food and drink sweetener, and also happens to be an obesogen. Acting on insulin and leptin in the body, HFCS potentially increases appetite and fat production.[53]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.59.105.109 (talk) 04:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Classmate's Comments

The section on Sex steroid dysregulation is particularly interesting. It is clear you have researched very well in preparation for this article. However, I would like to see the Sex steroid dysregulation section expanded upon bit. The use in human medication to prevent miscarriage is really fascinating and I think we would all like to know a bit more. Bennetmu1492 (talk) 15:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)bennetmu1492

Great Job! It is clear you have done a lot of research, and you really seem to know a lot about the material! I have two main comments and then a couple of little things.

My first main comment is about the general readability of the article. Your opening paragraph is very scientifically accurate and it is clear that you definitely know what you are talking about, but I feel like someone who is not a biology major would have a difficult time understanding what you are trying to convey. With the later material this is somewhat unavoidable but, especially in the opening paragraph, I feel like you should try and describe things more in layman's terms. For instance the first paragraph the topic sentence seems a little wordy to me. Perhaps you could go for a simpler, shorter phrase something like: obsogens are chemicals in the environment which disrupt development and can lead to obesity. Some of the guidelines for this can be found at (see WP:NOTTEXTBOOK).

My second main comment is the organization of the article. Once again, it is very clear that you have done the research, and I feel that it is very comprehensive. However, I feel like it is organized in a way that is confusing to the reader (even someone who is familiar with Bio). The most noticeable place is in the mechanisms of action section. Perhaps after "mechanisms of action" you could give an introductory paragraph about the general mechanisms of action where in the body they are (or what type of mechanisms they are) and what stage of development they act in. An overview of the main ideas in a broader sense would help the reader understand the bigger picture and be a nice lead into the wonderful specifics you have afterwards. Also, on that same note, in the continuing research section you said that the mechanisms are "classified into the category of chemical mimics of lipophilic hormones or hormone metabolism inhibitors" but under mechanisms of action, you breifly mentioned lipophilic hormones and you didn't even mention hormone metabolism inhibitors. So I was kind of confused by that. The pharmaceutical obesogen section was really well organized, but I just feel like some of the other sections aren’t as much.

And now for some small things:

• " retinoic acid receptor (RXR), the second major target of obesogens" clause is a little unclear. Perhaps it should be a new sentence, such as: this receptor is also a second major target of obesogens.

• You used "as referenced above/before" quite a bit in the article, which seemed a bit unnecessary, and at times felt a bit awkward. For example right after Sex steroid dysregulation. It seemed a bit weird to have that be the first clause. In fact that whole first sentence seems a bit cumbersome, I feel like you should try and break it up a bit more.

• Perhaps you could indent the text under the Neuroendocrine effects, Peptidergic hormones, etc, just to make it a bit clearer that it is under Central integration of energy balance.

• Also Central integration of energy balance seems a bit wordy for a title. Is there any way to simplify it?

• Some spelling mistakes to correct:

sensitizing effects that can improve (not implove) glycemic control and serum triglyceride levels

NPY and instead of NPYand

• Finally some words I thought you could link that would be helpful:

Adipose tissue

intracellular

heterodimerize

peptidergic hormone

aromatase

hypothalamus

Organotins

Silverglass (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Great article! I find the topic fascinating! You have plenty of sources that provide legitimacy to your article. The information is pretty well balanced as far as giving each section of the article adequate length and sources. A change that I think would most benefit the Wikipedia community is to provide an overview for each section under its title. Specifically, under mechanisms of action, I think a brief paragraph summarizing the sections in easy to understand terms would be helpful. I had a friend that is not studying biology read that section to get a non-science perspective, and she was a little overwhelmed. So it might be helpful for Wiki users that aren’t familiar with all the terms (since some are not linked to other Wikipedia pages) to read a summary paragraph beforehand and then they may not even need to read all the biological details below it. Also, in other Wikipedia pages, even linked words sometimes have a brief explanation/definition within commas or parentheses. I think it would be helpful for users if the same is done on your page. Some words you can do that with might be: Hypocortisolemia, HPA axis, organotins, peptidergic, etc.

I like what you did as far as organizing the pharmaceutical obesogens by their mechanism of action that correlates to exact titles used in the “Mechanism of action” section. However, you may not need to have them separated by title under pharmaceutical obesogens since in the environmental obesogens they are not separated in that manner. Or on the other hand, you could potentially just organize the environmental obesogens in the same way you did the pharmaceutical ones. Either way it would be helpful to users if there was consistency in how the sections are organized.

Lastly, I found some minor errors within your article, but I do recommend reading through the article again just in case there are small grammar errors that I missed (I’m sure everyone, including myself, needs to reread his or her articles to be sure there are no grammar mistakes!)

• 2nd paragraph of metabolic sensors: missing a period after “act to reduce overall serum concentrations of lipids.”
• 2nd to last paragraph of metabolic sensors: a couple minor grammar edits (“cuases” should be “cause;” “abnormal regulation leads [to a] decreased level” is missing the “to a”)
• Sex steroid dysregulation: “suggesting the role the parallel roles” to "suggesting the parallel roles"
• 3rd paragraph of environmental obesogens: “studies that have directly measures” should be “measured”
• 4th paragraph of environmental obesogens: period missing after “TBT at 0.09 and 0.67 ng/mL (~0.5-2 nM)”

Other than those edits, the content of your article is great. You have a lot of information and most people will not need to look elsewhere after reading your article!

Kbell90 (talk) 22:25, 14 November 2011 (UTC)Kbell90

Great page!

I really enjoyed reading this. I felt that under the Metabolic Sensors section provided great detail regarding the mechanism of action. You provided ample description and explanation of the pertinent receptors and regulators involved. This section was very thorough. However, I felt that the Sex Steroid Dysregulation section did not provide the same amount of detail. You explained a more overall description in this section. You noted how the exposure to obesogens leads to a deficiency in the ratio of sex steroid levels, however, you did not describe how or the mechanism behind this. Here are some articles from Pub Med that may help provide this additional information: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3245362/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2718750/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3355885/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3560240/

This was the main area where I saw weakness. There are a few spelling errors but one of my peers was already able to point that out. The rest of the article is great and very informative! Your writing is very clear and easy to follow. I found this page to be very thorough. Kieradkeller27 (talk) 15:29, 3 February 2015 (UTC)Kieradkeller27 (BIOL5130 Spring 2015)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kieradkeller27 (talk • contribs) 22:20, 2 February 2015 (UTC) 

Beware

This article is a well-written religious tract. It reeks of logrolling by professor Blumberg and his admirers. High fructose corn syrup "is an obesogen..." and sucrose isn't? Isn't honey, which has a higher fructose/glucose ratio than HFC55 also an "obesogen"? Why isn't it listed? Shouldn't apple and pear also appear? Here's another "potential obesogen in everyday life": food. I'm only surprised that the word "Monsanto" isn't included somewhere.

What is an "Outside Comment"? One not vetted by His Holiness? At least this sort of thing does little real damage, unlike pernicious climate-change denial from the other end of the ideological spectrum. Rt3368 (talk) 00:57, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON

Wow - this is page is utter bunk and precisely why I just don't trust Wikipedia. I mean seriously, who vetted this crap? HFCS is an obesogen - do they even know what HFCS contains? I just can't even begin - this page should come with a warning NOW. No wonder people like Food Babe and Mercola are making so much money if the only resource most people actually check is also trotting the same baloney out. Rt3368 is dead right Smidoid (talk) 00:41, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

This Article Needs Balance

It's entirely possible that obesogens are real and that all the usual woo-woo boogeymen just happen to fall into that category ("Chemicals!" "BPA!" "HFCS!"). But this article reads like the theory -- and all of its claims regarding particular chemicals -- is accepted scientific fact. It really needs some editing to reflect that the theories are just theories, and to at least suggest (which the article remarkably does not do) that this is not yet accepted across the scientific community. TheOtherBob 17:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree and this is unfortunately not exactly surprising considering that the article was written by students on a course explicitl covering negative effects of chemicals. It probably needs a careful MEDRS review to remove primary sources and the addition of other sources e.g. [1] [2] to make it clear that this is a hypothesis, rather than undisputed fact. For now, a tag is definitely justified. SmartSE (talk) 14:38, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The obvious place is to start is finding a source that disputes the concept, and adding that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

User talk:WhatamIdoing IMO the obvious place is to find a WP:RS that supports the concept like the Uppsala Consensus Statement on Environmental Contaminants and the Global Obesity Epidemic Environ Health Perspect; DOI:10.1289/ehp.1511115, MAY 2016 | VOLUME 124 | ISSUE 5.

--Wuerzele (talk) 03:29, 23 May 2016 (UTC)