Center for Academic Publications Japan, Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology, 6(60), p. 367-379, 2014
DOI: 10.3177/jnsv.60.367
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Obesity: Overall Characteristics One of the issues that importantly affect the daily living of each individual is body weight increment and specifically fat accumulation (1). Despite the fact that human beings require the presence of adipose tissue in the organism, when this tissue enlarges excessively several harmful consequences occur (2, 3). Obesity has become a spotlight worldwide, emerging among the main global health threats that nowadays affect our society's well being (1). Indeed, it is well known that an excessive body fat deposition, the feature that defines this disease, is a triggering factor for several associated clinical manifestations such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), metabolic syndrome features, cardiovascular events, inflammation, and arthritis (3). The increase in the consumption of meals with high sugar/high saturated fat content, in combination with a sedentary lifestyle, is dictating the vertiginous global increase of obesity incidence that has been observed from the '80s (4). Over the past twenty years, the prevalence of this condition has been tripled in areas like USA, England, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and even a more drastic rise has been observed in developing countries (5). This disease is defined as a rise in the fuel reservoir in the organism by means of increased fat content, accompanied by larger total body weight due to a positive imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure (6). This mass increment has been related specifically with the increase of white adipose tissue (WAT) deposits. Indeed, WAT is, in addition to energy storage, an endocrine organ able to secrete a large number of molecules involved in a wide variety of physiopathologi-Review