Obesity-Related Epigenetic Changes After Bariatric Surgery

Conclusions: Bariatric surgery appears to be capable of partially reversing the obesity-related epigenome. The identification of potential epigenetic biomarkers predictive for the success of bariatric surgery may open new doors to personalized therapy for severe obesity. Introduction Obesity is currently a huge healthcare problem, worldwide, and is a risk factor for several diseases such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), cardiovascular disease and cancer (1). As the prevalence of obesity reaches pandemic proportions, this metabolic disease is estimated to become the biggest cause of mortality in the near future (2). In fact, it is extremely alarming, given that 2.3% of men and 5.0% of women have a body mass index (BMI) ≥35 kg/m2. The worldwide prevalence of morbid obesity was reported to be 0.64% in men and 1.6% in women (3). Obesity is a multifaced chronic disease, the cause of which is a disbalance between energy consumed and the energy burned off. This disbalance is promoted by several factors such as unhealthy diet, sedentarism, and genotype (4). As consequence, surplus energy is stored in the adipocytes, and leading to an adipose tissue dysfunction characteristic of obesity, as well as other metabolic disorders, such as alterations in insulin sensitivity, blood pressure and the plasma lipid profile, which are risk factors that together define metabolic syndrome (5). Abdominal obesity is a powerfully risk factor of cardiovascular disease and T2D, independently of B...
Source: Frontiers in Endocrinology - Category: Endocrinology Source Type: research