REVIEWS   

Minerva Endocrinologica 2016 December;41(4):499-508

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Obesity: single house for many evils

Ashwini KUMAR ¹, Bibhukalyan P. NAYAK ², Awanish KUMAR ¹ ✉

¹ Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Raipur, India; ² Department of Biotechnology & Medical Engineering, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, India

World Health Organization (WHO) considers obesity as one of the fastest growing metabolic disorders other than diabetes. It is a complex interplay of lifestyle and associated genes. Obesity has been considered as a disease with multiple targets and very often compared in this sense with its sibling disease type 2 diabetes. The disease is pathology of the adipocytes and develops as a result of hypertrophy and hyperplasia of these cells, former being the major concern but its effects could be seen on various organs in the form of cardio-vascular disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, sexual dysfunction, respiratory problems and many more. An increase in the lipid content of the adipocytes changes the physiology of these cells towards more inflammatory phenotype. The array of molecules or adipokines secreted by these cells varies in concentration and type among healthy and obese subjects. On one hand where adiponectin concentration decreases, the resistin concentration increases resulting in insulin resistance among many other adipokine related effects. Specifically, an obese person develops hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance, vascular blockage, sleep apnoea, cancer etc. This review is an attempt to focus, in detail, about obesity related complications.