Our efforts to halt the growing obesity problem appear to have had little effect.

Osteoarthritis is the most common rheumatic disease encountered in small animal practice. No longer is osteoarthritis regarded as a simple consequence of aging and cartilage degeneration, but rather, the pathologic changes of osteoarthritis may result from active biochemical and biomechanical processes partly due to disturbances of the homeostatic mechanisms of anabolic and catabolic pathways. As to the cause of osteoarthritis, there is no one etiology and its cause may be multifactorial. While there are many initiating causes, osteoarthritis is an irreversible process that often results in an end-stage clinical syndrome of the joint.