Abstract
Obesity is an inflammatory disease that is approaching pandemic levels, affecting nearly 30% of the world’s total population. Obesity increases the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer, consequentially impacting the quality of life and imposing a serious socioeconomic burden. Hence, reducing obesity and related life-threatening conditions has become a paramount health challenge. The chronic systemic inflammation characteristic of obesity promotes adipose tissue remodeling and metabolic changes. Macrophages, the major culprits in obesity-induced inflammation, contribute to sustaining a dysregulated immune function, which creates a vicious adipocyte–macrophage crosstalk, leading to insulin resistance and metabolic disorders. Therefore, targeting regulatory inflammatory pathways has attracted great attention to overcome obesity and its related conditions. However, the lack of clinical efficacy and the undesirable side-effects of available therapeutic options for obesity provide compelling reasons for the need to identify additional approaches for the prevention and treatment of obesity-induced inflammation. Plant-based active metabolites or nutraceuticals and diets with an increased content of these compounds are emerging as subjects of intense scientific investigation, due to their ability to ameliorate inflammatory conditions and offer safe and cost-effective opportunities to improve health. Flavones are a class of flavonoids with anti-obesogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties. Preclinical studies have laid foundations by establishing the potential role of flavones in suppressing adipogenesis, inducing browning, modulating immune responses in the adipose tissues, and hindering obesity-induced inflammation. Nonetheless, the understanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible for the anti-obesogenic activity of flavones remains scarce and requires further investigations. This review recapitulates the molecular aspects of obesity-induced inflammation and the crosstalk between adipocytes and macrophages, while focusing on the current evidence on the health benefits of flavones against obesity and chronic inflammation, which has been positively correlated with an enhanced cancer incidence. We conclude the review by highlighting the areas of research warranting a deeper investigation, with an emphasis on flavones and their potential impact on the crosstalk between adipocytes, the immune system, the gut microbiome, and their role in the regulation of obesity.
Highlights
The incidence of obesity has ascended steadily in the last ~35 years and is reaching epidemic levels worldwide, inflicting life-threatening conditions and great socioeconomic burden
Similar levels of adipocytes undergoing cell death were found in macrophage-depleted and control mice fed with High fat diets (HFD), suggesting that ataxia-telangiectasia mutated kinase (ATM) are not required for adipocyte cell death, rather the process is a response to elevated lipid dysregulation [104]
Chronic inflammation has a crucial role in the initiation and maintenance of obesity, promoting metabolic dysregulation, microbiome dysbiosis, and increasing cancer incidence
Summary
The incidence of obesity has ascended steadily in the last ~35 years and is reaching epidemic levels worldwide, inflicting life-threatening conditions and great socioeconomic burden. Obesity and obesity-linked diseases are associated with systemic chronic inflammation that leads to altered adipocyte functions [2]. Flavonoids, with more than 7000 identified, so far, have a myriad of health-promoting effects, owing to their potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, and immuno-modularity properties [7,8]. Due to these benefits, flavonoids are attracting great interest in the treatment and prevention of chronic inflammatory diseases. We highlight the potential beneficial effects of flavones on the relation between gut microbiota, immune and adipocyte homeostasis, and their impact on controlling and treating obesity
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