Circadian regulation of hedonic appetite in mice by clocks in dopaminergic neurons of the VTA.

Unlimited access to calorie-dense, palatable food is a hallmark of Western societies and substantially contributes to the worldwide rise of metabolic disorders. In addition to promoting overconsumption, palatable diets dampen daily intake patterns, further augmenting metabolic disruption. We developed a paradigm to reveal differential timing in the regulation of food intake behavior in mice. While homeostatic intake peaks in the active phase, conditioned place preference and choice experiments show an increased sensitivity to overeating on palatable food during the rest phase. This hedonic appetite rhythm is driven by endogenous circadian clocks in dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Mice with disrupted clock function in the VTA lose their hedonic overconsumption rhythms without affecting homeostatic intake. These findings assign a functional role of VTA clocks in modulating palatable feeding behaviors and identify a potential therapeutic route to counteract hyperphagy in an obesogenic environment.

Systematic account of animal poisonings in Germany, 2012-2015.

A systematic retrospective study on animal poisonings in Germany (wildlife excluded) between January 2012 and December 2015 was conducted. Data were collected on animal exposure calls to German poison centres, poisoning cases presenting to the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover Small Animal and Equine Clinics, cases involving off-label use of veterinary medicinal products reported to the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety and toxicological submissions to the Institute of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmacy, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. Descriptive statistics were used to characterise animal type, exposure reason, type and substance, year/month of exposure, case severity and outcome. An evaluation of the data and data sources was also carried out. Variation in poisoning patterns was seen. However, dogs and cats were the most frequently reported species and medicinal products, pesticides and plants were consistently implicated as top causes of poisoning. Advantages and disadvantages were associated with each data source; bias was found to be an important consideration when evaluating poisoning data. This study provided useful information on animal poisonings in Germany and highlights the need for standardised approaches for the collection, evaluation and integration of poisoning data from multiple sources.

[Cases of poisoning in Germany. Disease entity, documentation, and aspects of the event]. / Vergiftungen in Deutschland. Krankheitsbegriff, Dokumentation und Einblicke in das Geschehen.

Cases of poisoning account for a distinct share of accidents in Germany, which is particularly high for accidents involving children. Cases of poisoning resulting from suicidal intent or abuse are not counted as accidents. Compared to other cases of disease and accidents, the numerical documentation of cases of poisoning is inadequate. Presently, there is no institution in Germany that could make available representative and meaningful data on the current state of poisoning. Owing to intensive scientific cooperation between the poison information centers (funded by the federal states) and the Poison and Product Documentation Center at the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR DocCenter) as well as to international cooperation, harmonized and standardized tools have been developed for the appropriate documentation and reporting of procedures to account for poisoning accidents. The first evaluation for 2005-2012 based on published and processed figures for the Federal Republic of Germany yielded the following results: Of approximately 230,000 telephone inquiries received in 2012, about 207,000 involved exposure of humans to different noxae. An annual increase of 3-5 % was recorded. For 2011, analyses of subsets processed by means of standardized methods yielded the following results: Medicines were involved in about 39 % of the cases recorded (of these, medicinal products for humans in 99 %); chemical/physicochemical agents in about 26 % (of these, cleaning and maintenance products in 46 %); products of daily use in about 14 % (of these, cosmetics in 40 %); and plants in about 10 %. More than 90 % of cases were acute poisoning and less than 5 %, chronic poisoning. Regarding the degree of severity of poisoning, an asymptomatic course was reported for 44 % of the cases; minor manifestations were experienced in 30 %, moderate ones in 6 %, and severe manifestations in 2 % of the cases recorded. Fatal cases were rare (< 0.1 %). The majority of cases (67 %) were caused by poisoning accidents, followed by suicidal action (20 %), with abuse and industrial poisoning (4 %) in third position; 1 % of the cases of poisoning were attributed to adverse drug reactions (ADR) and mistaking a medicinal product for another one. Infants aged 1-2 years have the highest risk of poisoning. A panel of the BfR Committee for the Assessment of Poisonings has already developed proposals for a national monitoring scheme of poisoning incidents. The aim is to prepare annual reports similar to the report of the National Poison Data System (NPDS) maintained by the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) in the USA.

Expert judgement of poisonings and human biomonitoring--the BfR three-level and matrix model.

German physicians are obligated (Para 16e Chemicals Law) to submit essential data on poisonings to the Centre for Documentation and Assessment of Poisonings at the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Bundesinstituts für Risikobewertung, BfR). In addition, German poison centres are subjected to compulsory reporting of their findings of general importance gained in the context of their activities. The BfR assessment of poisonings has important significance for human case data collection, risk identification, and German toxicological monitoring. Using more than 60,000 reports on cases of poisoning, the BfR developed a structured expert judgement trial for poisonings. This judgement is based on a three-level model, accompanied by two different matrix procedures for an enhanced and more exact assessment of the exposures and the causality between health impairment and exposure. Particularly for low-dose exposures, human biomonitoring data is extremely valuable for the assessment process. Especially in chronic low-dose level exposures, the scientific assessment of related health impairments is often not possible without existing human biomonitoring data. For the future improvement of public health related to poisonings, ingestions by children, workplace chemical exposures, and incidents, we have to establish a nation-wide programme for monitoring human exposures which keeps pace with the progressive production of new chemicals. This must be done in close co-operation with physicians, poison centres, government safety organisations, and environmental health specialists and must be based on proven expert judgement tools and available human biomonitoring data.