The road between early growth and obesity: new twists and turns

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a numerical value derived from a person's weight and height, used to categorize individuals into weight ranges. It is calculated using the formula: weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Obesity is a health condition characterized by excessive accumulation of adipose tissue that poses health risks, often diagnosed with a BMI ≥ 30. This excess fat storage occurs when surplus dietary calories are converted into triglycerides and stored in...

Short-term regulation of food intake primarily involves neural signals from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, blood nutrient levels, and GI tract hormones. Communication between the gut and brain via vagal nerve fibers plays a significant role in evaluating the contents of the gut. Clinical studies have shown that protein ingestion produces a more prolonged response in these nerve fibers compared to an equivalent amount of glucose. Additionally, the activation of stretch receptors caused by GI...

Cellular needs and conditions vary from cell to cell and change within individual cells over time. For example, the required enzymes and energetic demands of stomach cells are different from those of fat storage cells, skin cells, blood cells, and nerve cells. Furthermore, a digestive cell works much harder to process and break down nutrients during the time that closely follows a meal compared with many hours after a meal. As these cellular demands and conditions vary, so do the amounts and...

Drug metabolism, a critical process in the liver, involves two primary phases: Phase I reactions and Phase II conjugation. Obesity introduces significant alterations in this metabolic process, primarily due to fatty infiltration of the liver, leading to conditions such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This condition can modify the activities of both Phase I and II enzymes, impacting how drugs are metabolized in obese patients.Phase I metabolism sees variable effects across...

The mammalian target of rapamycin or mTOR protein was discovered in 1994 due to its direct interaction with rapamycin. The protein gets its name from a yeast homolog called TOR. The mTOR protein complex in mammalian cells plays a major role in balancing anabolic processes such as the synthesis of proteins, lipids, and nucleotides and catabolic processes, such as autophagy in response to environmental cues, such as availability of nutrients and growth factors.
The mTOR pathway or the...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by insulin resistance, in which target tissues such as the liver, muscle, and adipose tissue respond poorly to insulin. It is also associated with inadequate compensatory insulin secretion, where pancreatic β-cells fail to produce sufficient insulin. Together, these abnormalities lead to persistent hyperglycemia.EtiologyT2DM develops through a complex interaction of genetic predisposition and environmental or...