Contents of this issue.

Duan (China) et al. [1] report on heritabilities of subphenotypes (BMI, waist-hip ratio, fasting plasma glucose, oral glucose tolerance test, total cholesterol, triglycerides, highand low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, diastolic and systolic blood pressure) of the metabolic syndrome based on 654 twins ascertained via diverse routes. Both univariate and bivariate structural equation models were fitted for the assessment of the genetic and environmental contributions. Intrapair correlations after adjustment for age and sex were consistently higher in monozygotic than in dizygotic twins. The AE model was selected as the best model for all phenotypes except for triglycerides for which the CE model revealed the best fit. In all the AE models, moderate to high heritability were estimated. The highest and lowest heritabilities were obtained for weight (0.78) and triglycerides (0.5), respectively. Bivariate Cholesky decomposition revealed high genetic correlations between systolic and diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and modest genetic correlations between BMI and both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The AVENA study was designed to evaluate dietary patterns, body composition, lifestyle habits, health indicators and genetic markers in a representative sample of adolescents (13–18.5 years) recruited in 5 Spanish cities between 2000 and 2002. Martinez-Gomez (Spain) and coworkers [2] now report on an analysis comprising 1,310 adolescents, which aimed to assess the effect of four categorically assessed lifestyle variables (physical activity, TV viewing, sleep duration and meal frequency) on diverse anthropometric measures. The number of lifestyle risk factors was positively associated with sum of 6 skinfolds, % body fat, waist circumference and waisttoheight ratio. The odds ratios of overweight/obesity for groups with 1, 2 and 3–4 lifestyle risk factors compared with those with 0 were 2.86, 3.61 and 5.81, respectively. The results proved to be robust upon adjustment for potential confounders. Due to the cross-sectional study design causal inferences cannot be made. The role of commercial weight management organizations which follow guidance criteria for best practice has increasingly been recognized in the UK. Slimming World has an extensive community-based infrastructure of around 6,700 support groups which convene each week. Stubbs (UK) et al. [3] report on rate and extent of weight loss of 34,271 patients referred to this commercial organization for 12 weekly sessions; the study was funded by Slimming World; four of the five authors are employees of this organization. Upon referral via health care professionals patients received a 12-week voucher pack financed by Primary Care Trusts and National Health Service Trust and subsidized by Slimming World. The aim of the study was to audit and rate extent of weight loss. Average BMI reduction was equivalent to 1.5 kg/m; the average number of attended sessions was 8.9. Attendance explained 29.6% and initial weight loss during the first week 18.4% of the variance in weight loss. The authors estimate the total costs of the referral scheme at GBP 47.40; they argue that in comparison to drug treatment the cost-effectiveness of their commercial program is superior. The working group of Viguerie [4] assessed the effect of a massage of the gluteofemoral adipose tissue on gene expression profile and β-adrenergic-mediated lipid mobilization. Adipocytes of this adipose tissue are less metabolically active than visceral adipocytes. 12 healthy females with a mean BMI of 27 kg/m and a mean waist-to-hip ratio of 0.8 agreed to fat biopsies after an overnight fast before and after the last mechanical massage session. The massage technique was performed by an expert physiotherapist; each subject received a total of twelve 30-min sessions (two times per week) of mechanical massage. The company that markets the commercially available massage device supported funding of the study. 2,259 unique differentially expressed transcripts were identified with changes in expression ranging from 1.2 to 6.9 and from 0.9 to 0.4 for upand down-regulated genes, respectively (all genes can be looked up online in a supplementary table). Five pathways figured prominently: ‘glycerolipid me-