Homo obesus: A metabotrophin-deficient species. Pharmacology and nutrition insight

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, which play essential role in the maintenance of glucose, lipid, energy and vascular homeostasis, and also improve metabolism-related processes such as inflammation and wound healing. Here we propose that pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and xenohormetics targeting transcriptional, secretory and/or signaling pathways of metabotrophins, particularly adiponectin, nerve growth factor, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, interleukin-10, and sirtuins, might be new tools for therapy of Homo obesus. Brief comment is also given to (i) exogenous metabotrophic agents represented by various classes of drugs, and (ii) adiponutrigenomics of lifspan. © 2007 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.