Obesity

Traditionally orientated obesity researchers and molecular biologists have begun to promote a sharing of ideas, information and experimental challenges. The result has been a healthy cross-fertilization between new experimental approaches and pre-existing biological models, thus producing new findings. Reporting on these advances, "Obesity: Towards a Molecular Approach" explores models of obesity amenable to testing at the molecular level, including hereditary features of human obesity as well as dietary, hypothalamic and genetic manipulation of experimental obesity. The book also offers a modern perspective on neurotransmitter mechanisms involved in the regulation of nutrient intake and fat storage. In addition, it assesses energy expenditure, bringing to bear on this subject some of the newer genetic and molecular biological information about uncoupling protein from brown adipose tissue and the role of the thyroid hormone in the control of the S14 component of DNA synthesis in lipogenesis.