Regulation of obesity-induced inflammation by flavonoids / 中草药

ABSTRACT

With the improvement of living standards, the population of obese people increased dramatically. Obesity can induce macrophage infiltration into adipose tissue, which can cause a series of physiological changes, resulting in chronic inflammation which would further develop into a variety of chronic diseases such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. Flavonoids are a class of natural compounds widely found in plants. Flavonoids can prevent metabolic inflammation and corresponding chronic diseases through inhibiting macrophage infiltration, regulating signal transduction and anti-oxidation, etc. In this review, recent findings about the pathogenesis of obesity-induced inflammation and the effects of flavonoids on treatment of such chronic inflammation are summarized and discussed. Flavonoids have great application potentials in regulation of metabolic inflammation, thus screen more potential active flavonoids and elucidating their mechanism would have both theoretical and clinical significance.