Obesity is a multifactorial, chronic metabolic disorder characterized by the excessive accumulation or ectopic expansion of adipose tissue, which often leads to comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus, particularly the type-II diabetes (T2D), nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The substantial increase in obesity and T2D worldwide is currently a global health emergency, rendering an urgent necessity to discover new therapeutic entities form natural sources.
The aim and scope of this collection are to focus on research projects studying medicinal principles from natural sources as potential therapeutic agents against obesity and its common comorbidity T2D.
Obesity and T2D have intricate mutual connections and share very similar pathogenesis mechanisms. Obesity can cause metabolic disbalance via insulin resistance featuring the declined insulin sensitivity, dysfunctional autophagy, and microbiome-gut-brain axis. Obesity can also cause dysregulation of immunometabolism through low-grade systemic inflammation by overproduction of inflammatory adipose cytokines, which is detrimental to the functional pancreatic ?-cells rendering the reduction of insulin secretion, therefore disrupting the insulin signaling pathways. In addition, obesity can contribute to the enhanced dysfunctional adipocyte lipolysis causing lipotoxicity, and consequently induce mitochondria dysfunction featuring overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Overall, obesity is a strong contributor to diabetes featuring high levels of blood glucose namely hyperglycemia.
Common mechanisms to treat T2D include increasing insulin output, resensitizing insulin-resistant cells, regulating adipocytes, reducing glucose reabsorbed into the blood, and decreasing carbohydrate absorption.
Herbal medicines have shown the potential to treat some of the aforementioned mechanisms. However, there is a need for further research to identify novel therapeutic interventions and to provide a detailed understanding of traditional treatments for obesity and T2D. Medicinal plants are a promising outlook to be effective alternatives to modern pharmacological remedies.
Submissions to this topic may include the themes of the following areas:
- Nutrients and metabolites: Obesity is affected by many metabolic pathways leading to a complex outlook on what interactions disturb insulin signaling pathways. For example, fatty acids have varying effects on insulin sensitivity due to their different biochemical makeups. The physiological changes due to obesity likewise can affect the regulation of fatty acid metabolism. The relationship between metabolic pathways involving fatty acids and the symptoms of obesity mutually impact one another.
- Autophagy: Autophagy is a critical physiological process that maintains cellular quality and organ function by degrading hazardous cells in order to balance energy and eliminate unnecessary components. Obesity may lead to autophagy enhancement or suppression due to the high nutrient sensitivity of this homeostatic process. Suppression in autophagy has been seen to cause disruption in regulating adipose tissue and lipid metabolism. Other abnormalities such as mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress can be induced by obesity, which in turn leads to a negative impact on autophagy.
- Microbiome-gut-brain-axis: The gut microbiome influences metabolic processes that regulate the whole body such as energy balance, endocrine signaling, and central nervous system regulation. Obesity can prompt changes to the gut microbiome which will result in alterations to important metabolic processes and signaling pathways.
Frontiers in Pharmacology aims to identify impactful discoveries on basic research and clinical levels to share with the public alongside researchers and clinicians. Researchers are encouraged to provide submissions for all subjects pertaining to identifying, examining, and reviewing traditional medicinal principles from natural sources as potential therapeutic agents against obesity and its comorbidities such as type-II diabetes. Non pharmacological interventions, such as strictly dietary interventions, are outside of the scope (e.g. dietary restrictions, change to specific diets).
All the manuscripts submitted to the collection will need to fully comply with the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version
here). Please self-assess your MS using the
ConPhyMP tool, and follow the standards established in the
ConPhyMP statement Front. Pharmacol. 13:953205. Please note the traditional context including the primary background and modern uses with supporting references must be included in the manuscript introduction.
If your MS involved plant or fungal extracts, check your MS using
this tool.