Obesity and its associated comorbidities (e.g. type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease) represent a serious challenge for healthcare systems worldwide. Obesity is a chronic disease, characterized by excessive adipose tissue mass, resulting from an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure, with growing relevance in an increasingly sedentary society. Obesity is multifactorial, where alterations in the physiology of gastrointestinal hormones, playing a key role in the interplay between the gastrointestinal system and the brain, and in the gut microbiota, contribute to the development of this disorder.
Lifestyle interventions (such as diet and exercise) represent the first line of therapy for treating obesity; however, this approach often fails to maintain health benefits in the long term due to low adherence. Bariatric surgery has proven to achieve remarkable weight loss. However, it is a highly invasive intervention, only recommended for severely obese patients who failed to lose weight after trying other forms of therapy. Different pharmacological agents have been used over the years, with many of them discontinued due to undesired secondary effects, such as addiction or cardiovascular problems.
In the context of non-invasive anti-obesity strategies diverse key intestinal microbial taxa, microbiota-derived metabolites and food-derived bioactive molecules have been identified as amplifiers of gut hormones and vagal afferent innervations. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) derivatives are among the most effective weight-loss medications. In this regard, Tirzepatide, the first of a new family of compounds engineered by the combination of two or more bioactive peptides, has been recently approved for the treatment of type II diabetes, representing a major breakthrough in the loss of body weight (>20% on average).
This special issue aims to provide new insights into novel translational strategies to treat obesity and related disorders. These therapies may include bioactive compounds (polyphenols, anti-inflammatory, satiating peptides), endogenous or microbiome metabolites, incretin analogs, dual agonists, and gene therapy. In particular, we welcome Original Research articles and Reviews on the following specific themes:
-Research highlighting the relevance of gastrointestinal peptides and neural pathways
on the regulation of food intake and energy homeostasis;
-Understand how diet shapes the structure of the gastrointestinal microbiome and how these microbes and the metabolites they produce impact the host’s physiology;
-Dietary interventions based on the intake of particular nutrients or food-derived bioactive compounds, and how nanotechnology can contribute towards applying such compounds in personalized nutrition;
-Novel diet approaches which do not focus on the amount of calories consumed but rather on when these calories are ingested (intermittent fasting, time-restricted feeding, chrononutrition);
-Novel coagonist compounds, such as tirzepatide and other related molecules;
-Brown adipose tissue activators and thermogenesis inducers, a novel class of medications with promising effects on body weight maintenance and improving the metabolic alterations associated with obesity;
-Gene therapy-based strategies including, but not limited to, antisense technology, viral delivered vectors and CRISPR gene editing to target critical genes for the development of the metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity.
Obesity and its associated comorbidities (e.g. type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease) represent a serious challenge for healthcare systems worldwide. Obesity is a chronic disease, characterized by excessive adipose tissue mass, resulting from an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure, with growing relevance in an increasingly sedentary society. Obesity is multifactorial, where alterations in the physiology of gastrointestinal hormones, playing a key role in the interplay between the gastrointestinal system and the brain, and in the gut microbiota, contribute to the development of this disorder.
Lifestyle interventions (such as diet and exercise) represent the first line of therapy for treating obesity; however, this approach often fails to maintain health benefits in the long term due to low adherence. Bariatric surgery has proven to achieve remarkable weight loss. However, it is a highly invasive intervention, only recommended for severely obese patients who failed to lose weight after trying other forms of therapy. Different pharmacological agents have been used over the years, with many of them discontinued due to undesired secondary effects, such as addiction or cardiovascular problems.
In the context of non-invasive anti-obesity strategies diverse key intestinal microbial taxa, microbiota-derived metabolites and food-derived bioactive molecules have been identified as amplifiers of gut hormones and vagal afferent innervations. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) derivatives are among the most effective weight-loss medications. In this regard, Tirzepatide, the first of a new family of compounds engineered by the combination of two or more bioactive peptides, has been recently approved for the treatment of type II diabetes, representing a major breakthrough in the loss of body weight (>20% on average).
This special issue aims to provide new insights into novel translational strategies to treat obesity and related disorders. These therapies may include bioactive compounds (polyphenols, anti-inflammatory, satiating peptides), endogenous or microbiome metabolites, incretin analogs, dual agonists, and gene therapy. In particular, we welcome Original Research articles and Reviews on the following specific themes:
-Research highlighting the relevance of gastrointestinal peptides and neural pathways
on the regulation of food intake and energy homeostasis;
-Understand how diet shapes the structure of the gastrointestinal microbiome and how these microbes and the metabolites they produce impact the host’s physiology;
-Dietary interventions based on the intake of particular nutrients or food-derived bioactive compounds, and how nanotechnology can contribute towards applying such compounds in personalized nutrition;
-Novel diet approaches which do not focus on the amount of calories consumed but rather on when these calories are ingested (intermittent fasting, time-restricted feeding, chrononutrition);
-Novel coagonist compounds, such as tirzepatide and other related molecules;
-Brown adipose tissue activators and thermogenesis inducers, a novel class of medications with promising effects on body weight maintenance and improving the metabolic alterations associated with obesity;
-Gene therapy-based strategies including, but not limited to, antisense technology, viral delivered vectors and CRISPR gene editing to target critical genes for the development of the metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity.
