Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 13, Issue 21, 2007

Angiogenesis is a tightly regulated process that leads to the formation of new blood vessels in limited physiological conditions, and can also occur under pathological situations as retinopathies, arthritis, endometriosis and cancer. Enhanced angiogenesis is present in tumors that need new blood capillaries to grow, remove metabolic waste and transport the cells to locations distal to the primary tumor, facilitating metastasis form Read More

The formation of capillary-like structures during angiogenesis requires a series of well-orchestrated cellular events allowing endothelial cells and pericytes to migrate into the perivascular space. The proper activation of the migratory machinery in these cells is fine controlled by the presence of angiogenic challenges and by the interactions with extracellular matrix. The two members of the focal adhesion protein tyrosine kinas Read More

Affirming that excess fat can be an unfavourable medical condition is definitively not an observation of great originality. In fact, in 400 BC, Hippocrates astutely observed that “sudden death was more common in those who are naturally fat than in the lean” [1]. By the contrast, the concept of targeting the adipose tissue and internal organs with increased fat content during pharmaceutical or lifestyle intervention is Read More

The metabolic syndrome is a long-term process, explained by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors, that starts early in life and is involved in the pathophysiology of a large percentage of cases with type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis. A number of clinical studies have demonstrated the importance of fat distribution and especially the contribution of visceral fat accumulation to the development of meta Read More

The metabolic syndrome represents a constellation of co-morbidities that include central adiposity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and hypertension, which results from an elevated prevalence of obesity. An increased abdominal adiposity is observed in upperbody obesity with preferential accumulation of fat in the visceral depot, which renders these individuals more prone to metabolic and cardiovascular probl Read More

In most countries the prevalence of obesity now exceeds 15%, the figure used by the World Health Organization to define the critical threshold for intervention in nutritional epidemics. Here we describe Homo obesus (man the obese) as a recent phenotypic expression of Homo sapiens. Specifically, we classified Homo obesus as a species deficient of metabotrophic factors (metabotrophins), including endogenous proteins Read More

Increased visceral adiposity, is an emerging cardiovascular risk factor. There is now a compelling need to quantify visceral adipose tissue not only for diagnostic purposes, but also for therapeutic interventions with weight reduction drugs or pharmaceuticals targeted to adipose tissue, as well as anti-obesity medications, thiazolidinediones, fibrates, angiotensin receptor blockers, highly active antiretroviral therapy and hormone re Read More

Almost every systemic vessel is surrounded by a layer of perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT), which had been mainly considered as a mechanical support for vasculature. However, recent advances have revealed that PVAT is an active player in controlling vessel function. PVAT releases relaxation factor(s) with unknown chemical identity (named perivascular adipocyte-derived relaxation factor, PVRF) that attenuates vaso Read More

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is often associated with features of the metabolic syndrome, carrying an increased risk to develop non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), the inflammatory form of liver steatosis. Epidemiological data confirm that obesity, diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia are frequently found in NAFLD and worsen its prognosis because of increased risk of fibrotic evolution, eventually leading Read More

The metabolic syndrome is an emerging global epidemic characterized by clustering of metabolic abnormalities leading to increased cardiovascular risk: glucose intolerance or type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and “central” obesity. Scientists are decoding and piecing together the molecular texture underlying the metabolic syndrome: insulin resistance and dyslipidemia stand out as central pathophysiological events Read More

HIV-associated lipodystrophy or lipoatrophy, unreported before the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), was first described in 1998, and has a prevalence ranging from 18% to 83%. As in genetic lipodystrophy syndromes, fat redistribution may precede the development of metabolic complications (dyslipidemia, insulin resistance) in HIV-infected patients receiving HAART. The pathogenesis of HAART-associ Read More