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Tipping the Balance on Obesity

Editor-in-Chief

This year The Endocrine Society has adopted Obesity and Energy Balance as the theme for its Annual Meeting in New Orleans in June 2004. At the same time, The Society journals are showcasing this area, in terms of both primary communications and Minireviews and News & Views articles. Thus, the current issue of Endocrinology features eight such Minireviews, and in introducing them there are a number of important points to make. First, we greatly appreciate the efforts of the Editors, Mary Dallman and Daniel Drucker, for organizing this excellent series. In addition, we thank the authors for putting together an exciting summary of the current state of our understanding of this important health issue and for selecting Endocrinology as the venue for presentation.

The theme of the previous Endocrine Society Meeting was Cardiovascular Endocrinology and, in a general sense, this year’s focus is an extension and amplification of several specific areas covered last year. The metabolic syndrome, or syndrome X, is a combination of phenotypes that include obesity, hypertension, impaired glucose tolerance, and hyperlipidemia, factors that have direct impact on cardiovascular disease.

Obesity has become a global problem of alarming proportion. In the United States, approximately two thirds of the adult population is either overweight or obese, with an associated 300,000 deaths per year and healthcare costs approaching $100 billion. In the last few years it has become clear that obesity primarily results from a genetic predisposition to become overweight coupled with the readily available energy-rich foods and a tendency to reduce physical activity.

In the current series of Minireviews, two general aspects of this complex interplay among genetics, behavior, and environmental influences are examined. In the first set of Minireviews, a discussion of the central role of hormones on hypothalamic neural circuits regulating orexigenic and anorexigenic behaviors is presented. This includes the function of leptin, glucocorticoids, and the novel opioid receptor agonist (orphanin FQ) that functions in the control of feeding behavior. The second series of Minireviews focuses on the important role of signaling and development of the gastrointestinal tract endocrine system. The complex interplay of gastrointestinal hormones providing communication between nutrient-sensing gut enteroendocrine cells, the endocrine pancreas, and the peripheral nervous system provides additional critical control elements that are integrated with adipokine signals and the central nervous system in the balance of energy metabolism and feeding behavior.

I hope the readers of Endocrinology will particularly enjoy these Minireviews as well as the three regular manuscripts and their accompanying News & Views editorials in this issue, all of which focus on this critically important and scientifically exciting area of cutting-edge endocrine research.

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