Abstract
Obesity, which is a worldwide epidemic, confers increased risk for multiple serious conditions including type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular diseases. Adipose tissue is considered one of the largest endocrine organs in the body as well as an active tissue for cellular reactions and metabolic homeostasis rather than an inert tissue only for energy storage. The functional pleiotropism of adipose tissue relies on its ability to synthesize and release a large number of hormones, cytokines, extracellular matrix proteins, and growth and vasoactive factors, which are collectively called adipokines known to influence a variety of physiological and pathophysiological processes. In the obese state, excessive visceral fat accumulation causes adipose tissue dysfunctionality that strongly contributes to the onset of obesity-related comorbidities. The mechanisms underlying adipose tissue dysfunction include adipocyte hypertrophy and hyperplasia, increased inflammation, impaired extracellular matrix remodeling, and fibrosis together with an altered secretion of adipokines. This review describes the relevance of specific adipokines in the obesity-associated cardiovascular disease.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined obesity as an abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health and describes it as one of today’s most blatantly visible—yet most neglected—public health problems, which has reached epidemic proportions [1,2]
Vascular inflammation is further biological senescence [36,37,38], with the adiponectin to leptin ratio being a promising index to estimate promoted by the expression of endothelial cell adhesion molecules, which are induced by adipokines the obesity-associated cardiometabolic risk [39,40]
Angiotensinogen is the main precursor of the renin–angiotensin system, which is a pivotal mechanism for the regulation of blood pressure and homeostasis of water and sodium through actions of angiotensin II
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined obesity as an abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health and describes it as one of today’s most blatantly visible—yet most neglected—public health problems, which has reached epidemic proportions [1,2]. Accumulating evidence suggests that, the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events might be higher in people with metabolically healthy obesity compared with metabolically healthy people of a normal weight, the risk is substantially lower than in individuals with metabolically unhealthy obesity [12]. This fact strengthens the idea that obesity is a complex disease, which requires a new multi-dimensional approach to integrate and understand all of the underlying mechanisms that cause obesity [7]. Composition and distribution of fat mass are closely related to its physiology [15]
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