Obesity, Diabetes and Cancer: A Mechanistic Perspective

Linking the metabolic syndrome and obesity with vitamin D status: risks and opportunities for improving cardiometabolic health and well-being

The global death toll from noncommunicable diseases is exceptionally high, reported to cause 71% of global deaths worldwide. Metabolic syndrome risk factors, especially excessive adiposity and obesity, are at the heart of the problem resulting in increased co-morbidities such as cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, increased health costs, poorer quality of life, and shortened survival. Vitamin D₃ can positively reverse many of these adverse effects and outcomes through blocking signaling mechanisms that predispose to cardiometabolic and metastatic disease. As an affordable natural agent, vitamin D₃ can be used to counteract obesity-induced inflammation, block early adipogenesis, enhance glucose uptake, counteract hyperleptinemia, ameliorate insulin resistance, and reduce hypertension. This is supported by data from in vitro, in vivo and epidemiological studies and clinical trials. We propose that everyone in general and obese patients in particular consider raising 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels through UVB exposure and/or supplemental vitamin D₃ intake to reduce cardiometabolic and metastatic disease and increase longevity.

The Beneficial Effects of Quercetin, Curcumin, and Resveratrol in Obesity

Over the past two decades, obesity has been one of the major public health concerns in most countries. In the search for new molecules that could be used for the treatment of obesity, good perspectives have been opened up for polyphenols, a class of natural bioactive phytochemicals. Experimental and limited clinical trial evidence supports that some polyphenols such as quercetin, curcumin, and resveratrol have potential benefit functions on obesity treatment. This brief review focuses on the main functions of the above-named polyphenols on adipose tissue. These polyphenols may play beneficial effects on adipose tissue under obese condition by alleviating intracellular oxidative stress, reducing chronic low-grade inflammation, inhibiting adipogenesis and lipogenesis, and suppressing the differentiation of preadipocytes to mature adipocytes.