The metabolic syndrome and the Maillard reaction. An introduction

With the rapid increase of life expectancy in western societies, appeared also a new phenomenon, obesity, which took during the recent decades pandemic dimensions. One of the consequences was the appearance of type II diabetes in much younger persons than before. The result of intensive research in this field over the last decades led, among other achievements to the identification of biological and molecular symptoms which together were reclassified as the "metabolic syndrome". Questionable as far as its originality is concerned, it did however good service to practitioners by formulating criteria for diagnostic and therapeutical purposes. Among the underlying biochemical mechanisms the Maillard reaction, the non enzymatic glycosylation of proteins and nucleotide bases followed by the formation of advanced glycation and products (AGE-s) plays an important role. Several recent experimental results confirm this statement, some of them are published in this issue. The reviews and original contributions form together an up to date report on this important pathology and support again the importance of posttranslational and environmental factors influencing gene expression and cellular functions.