In 2024, Belén Torres and a team from Spain reviewed six clinical trials from 2012–2022 involving overweight or obese adults. They studied how probiotics, like Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus strains, affect body weight, BMI, and fat mass without dieting, using data from PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane databases.

In 2025, Andrea Bazzani and Ugo Faraguna from Italian universities wrote an editorial reviewing how eating and sleeping are linked. They looked at past studies showing poor sleep changes what we crave, like more sweets and high-calorie foods, due to hormone shifts like less leptin (fullness signal) and more ghrelin (hunger signal). This can lead to overeating and weight gain.

In 2023, Daniel P. Windred and a team studied sleep patterns in thousands of adults across multiple cohorts, finding that sleeping in on weekends, called social jetlag, disrupts your body’s internal clock. Each hour of jetlag raises heart disease risk by 11% and worsens mood, obesity, and unhealthy habits like smoking or poor diet. A 2019 study by C.M. Depner showed that catching up on sleep after five short nights still caused 10-15% worse insulin sensitivity and higher calorie intake, leading to weight gain risks.

In 2025, Anam Farzand and a team from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin reviewed how food ads push junk food high in fat, sugar, and salt, influencing people to eat more unhealthy stuff. They looked at studies showing kids see 4,000 food ads a year, making them crave sweets and snacks, while low-income groups face 80% of ads for bad foods, leading to weight gain and health problems.

In 2022, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) reviewed studies on Bisphenol-A (BPA) and Bisphenol-S (BPS) in thermal receipt paper, used for grocery, pharmacy, and restaurant receipts. They cited research showing BPA levels in receipts are 250-1,000 times higher than in canned food, with 54-79 micrograms/cm² in half of 18 tested Minnesota businesses. These chemicals absorb through skin, especially in cashiers handling receipts often.

In 2025, M. Khanani and a team reviewed studies on how excessive screen time affects kids and teens. They found that spending too long on devices like phones, tablets, or TVs—especially since the COVID-19 pandemic—hurts physical, mental, and developmental health.

In 2025, A. Al Tamim and a team from King Saud University studied Wistar rats on a high-fat diet to mimic obesity. They gave groups standard chow or high-fat diet, with or without daily Sidr or Talh honey at 500-1,000 mg/kg for 12 weeks, checking weight, blood sugar, hormones, and brain inflammation in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus.

In 2025, Lucas Santos and a team from Brazil studied Wistar rats fed a high-fat diet from weaning to mimic obesity. They split them into four groups: standard diet, standard diet with extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), high-fat diet, and high-fat diet with EVOO. They checked body weight, blood sugar, satiety, and brain inflammation markers in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus.

In 2025, Maya K. Vadiveloo and a team from the American Heart Association reviewed studies on ultraprocessed foods like chips, sodas, and ready meals. They looked at how these foods, often high in fats, sugars, and salt, affect health in the US where 55% of calories come from them, rising to 62% in youth.

In 2025, HJ Jeon and team from South Korea studied 661,122 people using the Korean National Health Insurance Service data. They compared 4,664 patients who had their gallbladder removed to 13,992 matched individuals who didn’t, over 5.35 years, to check for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), a fatty liver condition tied to obesity or diabetes.

In 2025, Bruna Bombassaro and team from the University of Campinas reviewed how dietary factors like caffeine, capsaicin, cinnamon, curcumin, resveratrol, and fatty acids (EPA, DHA, oleic acid) activate brown and beige adipose tissues (BAT) to burn calories via thermogenesis.

In 2013, Manfred Lamprecht and team from Graz, Austria, studied 34 obese women in a 12-week trial. They split them into four groups: one got a fruit/vegetable juice powder concentrate, another got the powder plus exercise, a third just exercised, and the last got a placebo. They measured inflammation, oxidative stress, and blood flow markers.

A 2025 report in EMJ Dermatology highlights growing evidence that severe psoriasis is strongly linked to metabolic syndrome—a cluster of conditions like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, obesity, and unhealthy blood fats.