title: Obesity, Inflammation, and Cancer.
abstract: Obesity, a worldwide epidemic, confers increased risk for multiple serious conditions, including cancer, and is increasingly recognized as a growing cause of preventable cancer risk. Chronic inflammation, a well-known mediator of cancer, is a central characteristic of obesity, leading to many of its complications, and obesity-induced inflammation confers additional cancer risk beyond obesity itself. Multiple mechanisms facilitate this strong association between cancer and obesity. Adipose tissue is an important endocrine organ, secreting several hormones, including leptin and adiponectin, and chemokines that can regulate tumor behavior, inflammation, and the tumor microenvironment. Excessive adipose expansion during obesity causes adipose dysfunction and inflammation to increase systemic levels of proinflammatory factors. Cells from adipose tissue, such as cancer-associated adipocytes and adipose-derived stem cells, enter the cancer microenvironment to enhance protumoral effects. Dysregulated metabolism that stems from obesity, including insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia, can further impact tumor growth and development. This review describes how adipose tissue becomes inflamed in obesity, summarizes ways these mechanisms impact cancer development, and discusses their role in four adipose-associated cancers that demonstrate elevated incidence or mortality in obesity.
authors.affiliation: Diabetes Research Center and Center for Bioenergetics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, Texas 77030; email: Tdeng@houstonmethodist.org.|Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College at Cornell University, New York, New York 10021.
authors.forename: Tuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Diabetes Research Center and Center for Bioenergetics, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, Texas 77030; email: Tdeng@houstonmethodist.org.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Lyon
authors.affiliation: Medical Scientist Training Program and Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210.|The Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bergin
authors.affiliation: The Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Caligiuri
authors.affiliation: The Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210; email: Willa.Hsueh@osumc.edu.
authors.forename: Willa A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Hsueh
mesh_terms: D017667:Adipocytes / Q000473:pathology; D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000473:pathology*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications*
keywords: adipokine; adipose tissue; body mass index; cancer risk; cytokine; metabolic dysregulation; weight loss