About the Authors

Mai A. Elobeid

Affiliations Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Miguel A. Padilla

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Theresa McVie

Affiliation BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States of America

Olivia Thomas

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

David W. Brock

Affiliation Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Bret Musser

Affiliation Merck & Co., Inc, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Kaifeng Lu

Affiliation Merck & Co., Inc, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Christopher S. Coffey

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Renee A. Desmond

Affiliation Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Marie-Pierre St-Onge

Affiliation New York Obesity Research Center, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital & College of Physicians & Surgeons, New York, New York, United States of America

Kishore M. Gadde

Affiliations Departments of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Centre, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, The Research Triangle Research Institute, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States of America

Steven B. Heymsfield

Affiliation Merck & Co., Inc, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

David B. Allison

Dallison@uab.edu

Affiliations Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Clinical Nutrition Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Competing Interests

Allison, Gadde, Coffey, and St-Onge have received grants, honoraria, consulting fees, or donations from multiple food, pharmaceutical, dietary supplement, and other companies, government agencies, and litigators with interests in obesity randomized controlled trials. Drs. Musser, Liu, and Heymsfield are employees of Merck & Co. None of the remaining authors reported financial disclosures.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MAP RAD KMG SBH DBA. Performed the experiments: MAE OT MPSO KMG SBH DBA. Analyzed the data: MAE MAP TM OT DB BM KL CC SBH DBA. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: OT. Wrote the paper: MAE MAP TM DB BM KL CC SBH DBA. Had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis: MAE MAP DBA. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: RAD MS.