How Things Happen

In the year 2008 I was honoured and delighted to be invited to write an editorial in OBESITY FACTS on the occasion of International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders – European Chapter (IFSO-EC) members joining the Editorial Board of OBESITY FACTS , and therefore the journal becoming an affiliated journal of the IFSO-EC. The 2008 editorial was entitled ‘The Circle Is Closing – OBESITY FACTS Launched as Official Journal of IFSO-EC’. The editorial pointed out some milestones which finally enabled the European bariatric surgical community to accomplish acceptance into the large, non-surgical, medical ‘obesitology family’ after a more than half a century long struggle. By that time, my feeling was that the most important goals in the field of interdisciplinary cooperation were already achieved, so we may enjoy the fruits of it. However, 5 years later, I am once again and even more proud, pleased and honoured to be given the opportunity to jointly write, together with Professor Yumuk, a second editorial in OBESITY FACTS . Probably the best title for today’s editorial may have been something like ‘The Circle Is Expanding Exponentially’. My dear friend Volkan and I will try to explain you why. Medico-Surgical cooperation, under the umbrella of Europe’s two largest scientific societies, the European Society for the Study of Obesity (EASO) and the IFSO-EC, especially in the field of obesity research and management has accelerated with a speed that was almost impossible to imagine. Let’s have a quick look at the history. The IFSO-EC was founded in the year 2004 at the 13th European Congress on Obesity that was held in Prague. Our friends from EASO were kindly hosting at their official meeting a small group of bariatric surgeons who had the vision of forming the IFSO-EC. One year later, a group of experts constituted by the two European societies (EASO and IFSO-EC) wrote the ‘Interdisciplinary European Guidelines for Surgery Of Severe Obesity’, which were published in several peer-reviewed journals between the years 2007 and 2008. An intensive exchange of views and ideas was started between the two societies. A few tens of key opinion leaders from both societies took part in the respective societies’ meetings, gave talks, shared experience on the oucomes reached by medical and surgical treatment modalities of obesity. Later on, in 2011 in Munich, Germany, and in 2013 in Liverpool, UK, EASO and IFSO-EC joint Medico-Surgical Workshops were organised with great success. The workshops estabReceived: September 24, 2013 Accepted: October 2, 2013 Published online: October 11, 2013