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ENDO 07 Generates Strong Media Attention
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Endocrine Insider Research presented at The Endocrine Society’s annual meeting—ENDO 07, June 2-5, Toronto, Canada—drew considerable international media attention. More than 40 journalists from North America, Europe, and Asia were on site to report on the meeting, and more than 30 other journalists from around the globe were able to participate through an interactive webcast of media events. Research of particular interest to the media came from Society member Dr. Anne Loucks of Ohio University on how calorie intake may affect bone health of young women. Loucks’ research showed that formation of new bone depends on energy availability, which is the difference between calories eaten and calories burned during physical activity. This held true not just for adolescents but also for adults in their late 20s and early 30s. A New York Times report on this research is available here: Dr. Alan Hirsch of Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation presented new research that implicates distraction as the main cause of overeating while watching TV. Hirsch measured potato chip consumption in 45 subjects during five-minute periods over three weeks. Subjects ate as much as they wanted while they viewed a monologue by David Letterman, while they watched a Jay Leno monologue, and while they did not watch TV. Subjects munched an average of 44 percent more chips while watching Letterman and 42 percent more of the snack food while viewing Leno than when they watched no television. Hirsch suggested that the more entertaining a television program, the more distracted a person becomes and the more food he or she consumes. Under this assumption, chip consumption during the study would suggest that participants found Letterman more entertaining than Leno. The study was well received by the popular press and covered extensively in Canada and the United States. A news report of this study in the Toronto Star is here: Dr. Gail Laughlin of the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine unveiled research on how men who have lower levels of testosterone may be at greater risk of dying. In the study, Laughlin and her co-investigators looked at death from any cause in nearly 800 men ages 50 to 91 years who participated in the Rancho Bernardo Study in the 1980s. The men with low T levels had a 33 percent greater risk of death than the men with higher T levels. This difference was not explained by smoking, alcohol intake, or level of physical activity, or by pre-existing diseases such as diabetes or heart disease. The Washington Post reported on this study: During the meeting, the Society held six news conferences on various topics and a media roundtable on the current state of knowledge on endocrine disruptors. A video and audio archive of these press events is available here: http://www.webcastcanada.ca/endo/ Additional media coverage appeared in Reuters, ABC News, U.S. News & World Report, Web MD, and UPI, among many others. The Society also received local coverage in Toronto including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, and CBC World News.
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