Obesity Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Obesity, including details on health, diet, prevention, exercise.

Obesity: genetic, molecular, and environmental aspects.

Barness LA, Opitz JM, Gilbert-Barness E

Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health, University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa, Florida, USA.

Obesity has emerged as one of the most serious public health concerns in the 21st century. Obese children tend to become obese adults. The dramatic rise in pediatric obesity closely parallels the rapid increase in the prevalence of adult obesity. As overweight children become adults they face the multitude of health problems associated with obesity at younger ages. The morbidity and mortality associated with obesity continue to increase. Obesity is one of the leading causes of preventable death. Complications of obesity include cardiovascular risks, hypertension, dyslipidemia, endothelial dysfunction, type 2 diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance, acanthosis nigricans, hepatic steatosis, premature puberty, hypogonadism and polycystic ovary syndrome, obstructive sleep disorder, orthopedic complications, cholelithiasis and pseudotumor cerebri. Genetic and molecular and environmental factors play an important role in the assessment and management of obesity.

Published 6 December 2007 in Am J Med Genet A, 143(24): 3016-34.
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