Page 4 - MemoriaOBN-Eng

ORGANIZATION

Introduction

t

hefundamental goal of the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red-Fisiopa-

tología de la Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERobn) is to find answers and solutions
that allow controlling obesity and associated pathologies and improving

people’s quality of life through nutrition study.

The Centre collaborates with basic and clinical research groups, and the chal-

lenge to its activity is to find the causes and mechanisms that condition the
development of obesity and other eating behaviour disorders. The purpose is to

detect and deal with the main therapeutic targets that allow controlling and con-
taining diseases derived from being overweight, a condition that is considered

today as the epidemic of the 21st century.

Another goal of the Centre is to prevent widespread diseases through suitable

diet and lifestyle changes.

Interaction with healthcare professionals, the food and pharmaceutical industry
and patients is key in carrying out this clearly translational research for scientific

progress to reach the parties involved as well as to gather their proposals and
know their needs.

In recent years, obesity has stopped being an exclusively aesthetic problem and

has crossed the health barrier, as it is now an authentic worldwide epidemic re-

quiring enormous human, technical and financial resources to control it. Despite
the institution of a preventive and therapeutic strategy by the administrative

medical-scientific authorities, far from curbing the problem, obesity is danger-

ously on the rise. Its proliferation in society has reached a point where special-
ists are now calling it “globesity”, a kind of overweight globalization, regardless

of being a developed or underdeveloped country. Obesity in Spain affects be-
tween 23 and 28% of the adult population.

Recent epidemiological studies show that a high percentage of people have some
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type of pathology associated with excess weight, reaching figures exceeding 500 01
2
million people around the world. This figure is even more alarming when dealing RT
with childhood obesity data. These nutritional disorders lead to a series of ail- O
EP
ments associated with excess weight, some of which are chronic, such as type 2 R
AL
diabetes, heart diseases, arterial hypertension and even some types of cancer.
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Obesity has also considerably affected children as shown in studies conducted in devel- A
oped countries such as the United States and some European countries. The number /
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of obese children has multiplied primarily due to changes in eating habits, especially in OB
relation to fat consumption, and a considerable drop in physical activity.
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Anti-obesity treatments continue to offer unsatisfactory results due occasionally CI

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to mistaken strategies and the poor use of therapeutic resources that are avail-

able and on hand.