The papers ofthis Special Issue of Molecular and Cellular Nutraceuticals are also known as 'health foods' but they also Biochemistry are invited, peer-reviewed submissions from include any product derived from animal or plant sources speakers who attended the 2nd World Conference of the which ultimately can provide a medical benefit. F our symposia International Society for MolecuIar Nutrition & Therapy. This on various aspects concerning nutraceutical products and the Conference was held fromAugust 2--4th, 1997 in Winnipeg, marketing ofthese compounds was addressed. It is hoped that Canada. The goal of the Conference was to advance our these interactions represent the start of a new, highly interesting knowledge concerning the molecular events which link scientific venture uniting the nutraceutical industry with the nutrition to various disease processes in the body. Attending main stream academic medical research community. The the meeting were scientists from 18 countries ineluding nutraceutical industry is expected to be a multibillion dollar Canada, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, a year business world-wide by the turn of the century. The Franee, the Czeeh Republie, Germany, the Netherlands, identification of the active ingredients in any number of Bahrain, Hong Kong, India, Israel, China, Kuwait,Argentina, health foods reputed to be medieally beneficial would be just Sweden, Australia and Mexieo. There were 56 Distinguished one of the goals of such a scientific interaction.

Inhalt
I: Cancer.- Timing of dietary fat exposure and mammary tumorigenesis: Role of estrogen receptor and protein kinase C activity.- Dissociation of vitamin D3 and anti-estrogen mediated growth regulation in MCF-7 breast cancer cells.- Sodium butyrate induces retinoblastoma protein dephosphorylation, p16 expression and growth arrest of colon cancer cells.- II: Cell growth and development.- Regulation of adipocyte gene expression by polyunsaturated fatty acids.- The molecular basis for the role of zinc in developmental biology.- Maturation of fatty acid and carbohydrate metabolism in the newborn heart.- Genes regulating copper metabolism.- Zinc and immunity.- III: Diabetes.- Vanadium and diabetes.- Effect of enterai nutritional products differing in carbohydrate and fat on indices of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in patients with NIDDM.- Cardiac sarcolemmal Na+-Ca2+ exchange and Na+-K+ ATPase activities and gene expression in alloxan-induced diabetes in rats.- Role of oxygen derived radicals for vascular dysfunction in the diabetic heart: Prevention by ?-tocopherol?.- Cardiovascular disease in the JCR:LA-cp rat.- IV: Vascular dysfunction.- Nutritional and endocrine modulation of intracellular calcium: Implications in obesity, insulin resistance and hypertension.- Hypertension, calcium channel and pyridoxine (vitamin B6).- LDL oxidation by arterial wall macrophages depends on the oxidative status in the lipoprotein and in the cells: Role of prooxidants vs. antioxidants.- Modulation of adriamycin-induced changes in serum free fatty acids, albumin and cardiac oxidative stress.- V: Heart disease.- An A/G-rich motif in the rat fibroblast growth factor-2 gene confers enhancer activity on a heterologous promoter in neonatal rat cardiac myocytes.- Influence of different cultureconditions on sarcoplasmic reticular calcium transport in isolated neonatal rat cardiomyocytes.- Taurine indirectly increases [Ca]i by inducing Ca2+ influx through the Na+-Ca2+ exchanger.- Effects of long-term treatment with eicosapentaenoic acid on the heart subjected to ischemia/reperfusion and hypoxia/reoxygenation in rats.- Differential influence of fasting and BM13.907 treatment on growth and phenotype of pressure overloaded rat heart.- On the mechanism of the phospholipase C-mediated attenuation of cardiolipin biosynthesis in H9c2 cardiac myoblast cells.- Development of pressure overload induced cardiac hypertrophy is unaffected by long-term treatment with losartan.- Index to Volume 188.