The gastrointestinal "hunger" hormone ghrelin is the only known circulating peripheral molecule with the ability to decrease body fat utilization and to increase body weight gain. Accordingly, due to ghrelin's effects to promote food intake while decreasing energy expenditure ghrelin may offer potential as a drug for treatment of eating/wasting disorders and cachexia. Therapeutic potential of g...

HNF1 is a transcriptional activator of many hepatic genes including albumin, alpha1-antitrypsin, and alpha- and beta-fibrinogen. It is related to the homeobox gene family and is predominantly expressed in liver and kidney. Mice lacking HNF1 fail to thrive and die around weaning after a progressive wasting syndrome with a marked liver enlargement. The transcription rate of genes like albumin and...

In this short review we will concentrate on just one of the features of the metabolic response to injury (classified as accidental trauma, injury or sepsis) which are collectively known as the 'flow' phase. These include an increase in energy expenditure (hypermetabolism), changes in substrate utilisation (insulin resistance) and the focus of this chapter muscle wasting or catabolism. It is rec...

BACKGROUND Acute malnutrition is a major public health issue in low-income countries. It includes both wasting and edematous malnutrition, but the terms wasting and acute malnutrition are often used interchangeably. Little is known about the burden of edematous malnutrition, and few large-scale surveys measure it. OBJECTIVE Most acute malnutrition might be captured by the measurement of wasti...