Obesity and Metabolic Disease

Dear Colleagues,

In the last several decades, the world has seen a sustained increase in obesity. Obesity increases the risk of metabolic disease, especially diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and fatty liver disease, and seems to be linked to several debilitating disorders such as neurodegenerative disease and cancer.

The enlargement of white adipose tissue associated with systemic metabolic alterations is a feature of obesity. On the other side, brown adipose tissue (BAT) activity decreases in obese subjects. BAT can be activated by the sympathetic nervous system in response to cold exposure and increases energy expenditure and appears to protect against metabolic alterations. This adaptive mechanism might be investigated to improve the knowledge of its role in obesity and metabolic disease. Research to stimulate human BAT activity might also be important in the development of effective therapies for obesity and its associated disorders.

Obesity also produces a multi-organ inflammatory state. Inflammation plays a crucial role in the many complications of obesity and has been suggested as an important connection between obesity and its complications. Studies on this multi-organ involvement might present a topic of this Special Issue to elucidate these complex metabolic systems. Multiple inflammatory inputs are involved in the link between obesity and disease, such as increases in cytokines or decreases in adiponectins. All of these topics could be treated in this Special Issue. Adipocytokines play a pivotal role in the metabolic homeostasis of healthy subjects, and their deficiencies are involved in the pathogenesis of obesity-related diseases. Elucidating the role of adipocytokines and their signaling pathways in the context of metabolic disorders could help to understand the obesity-related metabolic and inflammatory responses. Studies on metabolic regulators involved in the endocrine network in metabolic homeostasis could be useful to prevent metabolic disease or develop therapies against obesity and metabolic disease.

There is also an interplay between diet, intestinal microbiota, and host metabolism, and gut microbes could influence metabolic disorders. High-fat diets and fiber-rich diets can also influence the gut microbiota composition and, in turn, influence metabolic diseases. Gaining new knowledge in this field might result in therapeutic strategies involving the gut microbiota and lead to improvements in the state of obesity and metabolic disease.

Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to take a multidisciplinary approach to obesity. Starting from diet-related effects or lifestyles on the interplay between obesity and metabolic disorder, several mechanisms might be treated in this Special Issue to explain the dynamic association between obesity and metabolic disease. For example, inflammatory pathways, effects of weight loss, and the interplay of the intestinal microbiota in the host can influence metabolic health and disease.

We would like to give you the opportunity to publish your work related to the physiological, biochemical, and pathophysiological mechanisms of metabolic disease to improve our knowledge and to advance the treatment approaches for these diseases and obesity. Furthermore, filling the evidence gaps and resolving the existing controversies in these topics might be important to prevent and treat obesity and metabolic disease and to promote healthy lifestyles. The emerging results and observations might be useful to create new approaches toward obesity, related inflammation, and diseases, and to break the links between obesity and metabolic disease. In this way, we would like to bring together researchers and clinicians involved in the care of obesity and obesity-related metabolic disease. We hope to receive many studies on these topics; reviews are also accepted.

Dr. Ines Villano
Guest Editor

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• metabolism
• diet
• body weight
• lifestyle
• inflammation
• gut microbiota
• adipose tissue
• nutrition
• metabolic disease