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The role of immune cells in obesogenic memory

Cellular & Molecular Immunology volume 17, pages 884–886 (2020)Cite this article

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Obesity is a serious chronic disease and worldwide public health problem. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 650 million adults in the world were obese and three times more individuals were overweight in 2016. Obesity is associated with type II diabetes, hepatic steatosis, cardiovascular diseases, systemic chronic inflammation, and at least 13 types of cancer. Unfortunately, few effective remedies are available for obesity. The major problem is that most patients suffer from weight regain 2–3 years after obesity treatments, such as obesity drugs, lifestyle interventions (including exercise, diet restrictions, and diet modification), and bariatric surgery. Along with weight regain, most of the initial beneficial changes in metabolomic and transcriptomic profiles dissipate, including insulin sensitivity, the level of adipokines and blood cholesterol. This phenomenon has been defined as “obesogenic memory”.1,2 Obesogenic memory causes repeated weight loss and gain along with obesity therapy, which is called “weight cycling”, leading to a worse healthy status than would result from simple obesity.3,4

Interestingly, weight regain occurred in individuals who strictly followed lifestyle intervention strategies. There was a follow-up metabolic analysis of 14 champions from The Biggest Loser, a famous TV show about a weight loss competition.5 These individuals had lost ~60 kg of body mass during the competition. However, after 6 years, most of them regained body weight even if they maintained food restriction and excise. It is still unclear where obesogenic memory is stored, as there are thousands of reports indicating that body weight changes may be influenced by various tissues/organs, including the central nervous system (CNS), immune system, muscles, adipose tissue, intestine, liver, and bone. Defining the crucial tissue for obesogenic memory will help us to identify more effective strategies for overcoming obesity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (grant 2018YFA0801100) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 31772550).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Minli Sun, Shang Zheng

  2. These authors jointly supervised this work: Xiang Gao, Zhaoyu Lin

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Model Animals for Disease Study, Model Animal Research Center, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing University, 210061, Nanjing, China

    Minli Sun, Shang Zheng, Xiang Gao & Zhaoyu Lin

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  1. Minli Sun
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Correspondence to Xiang Gao or Zhaoyu Lin.

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Sun, M., Zheng, S., Gao, X. et al. The role of immune cells in obesogenic memory. Cell Mol Immunol 17, 884–886 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41423-020-0448-1

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