The role of taste and appetite regulation in the understanding of overweight and obesity. Proceedings of the 16th Aschauer Soiree, 26th April 2008.

Overweight and obesity have developed into major illnesses in most Western societies and significantly contribute to the financial burden of modern public health systems. Almost daily, new therapeutic proposals are published in the lay press, and also the scientific literature has increased dramatically in recent years. E.g., when searching MEDLINE (1966 - May 2008 (1)), the key word "obesity" meanwhile appears in more than 108,000 articles. Primary focus however, is put upon aspects of treatment, neglecting the role of taste and appetite regulation. Combining keywords like "obesity + treatment" results in over 50.000 citations, "obesity + diet" in over 23.000, "obesity + energy + expenditure" in over 13.000 citations (even "obesity + gastric + bypass" still evoke 2.600 citations), whereas "obesity + appetite + regulation" result in some 3.000, "obesity + NPY" - neuropeptid Y being one of the major chemical stimulators of appetite - evoke some 500 and "obesity + Arc + nucleus" - the arcuate nucleus being the anatomical centre of appetite regulation - no more than 370 scientific publications. The apparent scarcity of literature about taste and appetite regulation and the amazing lack of interest in neuronal information processing in overweight and obesity, has prompted the authors to brainstorm new aspects of the world-wide derailment of weight control.

Variability of discrete cranial traits in the skulls of Lithuanian children.

The data on the frequencies of discrete cranial traits in the skulls of 480 children and 2,681 adults are compared. The occurrence of 59.5% of the traits in children differs significantly from that in adults. The extent of age dependency is diverse in various kinds of traits: 100.0% of hypostoses, 90.0% of hyperostoses, 50.0% of sutural and fontanel ossicles as well as additional and irregular sutures and only 30.0% of various openings are age related. Separate trait categories show a different pattern of age variation: hypostotic characters are common in children, and their frequencies decrease in adults; hyperostotic traits change in an opposite direction; various openings, sutural and fontanel ossicles as well as additional and irregular sutures demonstrate mixed age dynamics. Possible reasons and mechanisms of age dependency of discrete cranial traits, as well as suitability of non-adult sculls for interpopulation phenetical comparisons are discused.