The results indicate the need for the continuation of efforts to establish effective primary preventive programmes for OSDs at national and EU levels.

As an important determinant of osteoporotic fracture risk, peak bone density tends to be higher in men than in women. The aim of this study was to see whether young men and women differed in the time and skeletal region of peak bone density. We also investigated the infl uence of diet and physical activity on bone mass. The study group included 51 male and 75 female students aged 19 to 25 years. Bone mineral density was measured for the spine, total femur, and the distal third of the radius using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Dietary data were obtained using a specially designed semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Bone mineral density (BMD; g cm -2) was higher in boys than in girls at all measured sites, while bone mineral apparent density (BMAD; g cm -3 ) was higher in girls. Age negatively correlated with bone mineral density in all measured sites except in the boys' spine. Sodium, protein, and fi bres were nutrients that signifi cantly correlated with bone mineral density. The study suggests that boys achieve peak bone density later than girls, and that this delay is the most prominent in the spine. In our study group, this difference could not be explained by different nutrition or the level of physical activity.

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An enormous increase in the application of wireless communication in recent decades has intensified research into consequent increase in human exposure to electromagnetic (EM) radiofrequency (RF) radiation fields and potential health effects, especially in school children and teenagers, and this paper gives a snap overview of current findings and recommendations of international expert bodies, with the emphasis on exposure from Wi-Fi technology indoor devices. Our analysis includes over 100 in vitro, animal, epidemiological, and exposure assessment studies (of which 37 in vivo and 30 covering Wi-Fi technologies). Only a small portion of published research papers refers to the “real” health impact of Wi-Fi technologies on children, because they are simply not available. Results from animal studies are rarely fully transferable to humans. As highly controlled laboratory exposure experiments do not reflect real physical interaction between RF radiation fields with biological tissue, dosimetry methods, protocols, and instrumentation need constant improvement. Several studies repeatedly confirmed thermal effect of RF field interaction with human tissue, but non-thermal effects remain dubious and unconfirmed.

One of the main determinants of who will develop osteoporosis is the amount of bone accumulated at peak bone density. There is poor agreement, however, on when peak bone density occurs. Ethnic differences were observed in age at peak bone density and their correlates. Since the diagnosis of osteoporosis and osteopaenia is based on the comparison between patients' bone mineral density (BMD) and optimal peak bone density in healthy young people (T-score), it is of great importance that each country should provide its own reference peak bone density data. This review article presents our published results on peak bone density in Croatia and compares them with fi ndings in other populations. Our research included 18 to 25-year-old students from Zagreb University and their parents. The results showed that peak bone mass in young Croatian women was achieved before the age of twenty, but BMD continued to increase after the mid-twenties in the long-bone cortical skeleton. BMD was comparable to the values reported by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and other studies that included the same age groups, except for the cortical part of the radius, where it was signifi cantly lower. Men achieved peak bone density in the spine later than women, which cannot be explained by different diet or physical activity. As expected, heredity was more important for peak bone density than the environmental factors known to be important for bone health. However, the infl uence of heredity was not as strong as observed in most other populations. It was also weaker in the cortical than in the trabecular parts of the skeleton. Future research should include young adolescent population to defi ne the exact age of achieving peak bone density in different skeletal sites.

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Surgery of the gallbladder has evolved tremendously over the last century. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the gold standard for gallbladder removal and the most common laparoscopic procedure worldwide. In recent times, innovative techniques of natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) and transumbilical single-port (TUSP) or single-incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS), have been applied in gallbladder removal as a step towards even more less-invasive procedures. We report a 49-year-old woman with calculosis which were submitted to a single-port transumbilical laparoscopic cholecystectomy, first time done on the Surgical Clinic of Tuzla, and first time in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The neurotransmitters dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) exhibit trophic actions on developing neural circuits in addition to their roles as signaling molecules in the nervous system. Improper signaling of these trophic factors during development may underlie the etiology of anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), addiction, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Many neuropsychiatric disorders display sexual dimorphism in their manifestations. Disorders such as schizophrenia, ADHD, and ASD are disproportionately diagnosed in males, whereas anorexia nervosa, addiction, and depression tend to manifest more in females. However, the mechanisms by which this occurs are still unknown. We have previously described the effects of DA and 5-HT on the development on the serotonergic feeding circuit in Drosophila larvae and demonstrated that perturbations in DA and 5-HT levels during central nervous system development affected both the axonal architecture of the serotonergic projections extending from the brain to the foregut and feeding behavior, the functional output of the circuit. Using transgenic lines to reduce synthesis of neuronal DA and 5-HT, we observed differences in feeding behaviors between male and female larvae. In the presence of reduced DA levels, females displayed decreased feeding. Conversely, reduced levels of 5-HT decreased feeding in males to a greater extent than females. The results of these experiments illuminate the sexually dimorphic actions of neurotrophic factors in the development of the central nervous system.