Abstract
Obesity is a public health issue that affects more than 600 million adults worldwide. The disease is characterized by fat accumulation, mainly in the abdominal area. The human body is mainly composed of two types of adipose tissue: white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT); however, the browning process generates a different type of brown fat-like adipocyte in WAT, which similar to BAT has thermogenic capacity by activating UCP-1. The hypothalamic arcuate nucleus plays an important role in WAT browning via POMC neurons, which are influenced by synergistic insulin and leptin signaling. On the other hand, stimulation of AgRP neurons suppresses WAT browning. The hypothalamic inflammatory process that occurs in obesity impairs insulin and leptin signaling in this tissue and, consequently, can decrease WAT browning. In addition, practicing physical exercise may be a great strategy for triggering the browning process since it reduces hypothalamic inflammation and increases POMC neurons gene expression. Moreover, physical exercise stimulates irisin gene expression, which has an important impact on thermogenesis, which in turn culminates in increased gene expression of proteins such as UCP-1 and Cidea, which are related to WAT browning. Furthermore, thermogenetic activation of WAT leads to increased energy expenditure, favoring obesity treatment. Therefore, this mini-review aimed to highlight the most recent studies that link the control of hypothalamic activity with the browning metabolism of adipose tissue in response to physical exercise.
Highlights
Nowadays, obesity can be considered a pandemic disease that affects more than 600 million adults worldwide (World Health Organization, 2016)
The White Adipose Tissue (WAT) browning process generates a different type of brown fat-like adipocyte in WAT, which has been called “recruitable brown fat cells,” “beige cells,” “adaptive brown fat cells,” or “brite cells”(Enerbäck, 2009; Ishibashi and Seale, 2010; Petrovic et al, 2010), and even though these cells do not have the same origin as Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) adipocytes, they have thermogenic capacity by activating uncoupling protein 1 (UCP-1) (Bargut et al, 2016; Flouris et al, 2017)
A meta-analysis with eight randomized controlled trials evaluated the effects of chronic exercise training on circulating levels of irisin in adults and the authors concluded that chronic physical exercise might reduce irisin circulating levels; they emphasize a lack of appropriated controls in several parameters that could alter irisin content, such as diet, volume, intensity, and type of exercise (Qiu et al, 2015)
Summary
Obesity can be considered a pandemic disease that affects more than 600 million adults worldwide (World Health Organization, 2016). Practicing physical exercise may trigger the browning process since it reduces hypothalamic inflammation and increases POMC neuron gene expression (Chiarreotto-Ropelle et al, 2013; Laing et al, 2016).
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