Life style-related disease

Diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, hypertension and atherosclerotic diseases have recently defined as typical life style-related diseases. A common background of these life style-related diseases is overnutrition and its consequence, obesity. Recent advances in the biology of adipose tissue have revealed that adipose is not simply an energy storage organ but it also secretes a variety of molecules which affect the metabolism of the whole body. Through a systematic search of active genes in adipose tissue, we found that adipose tissue, especially visceral fat expressed numerous genes for secretory proteins. Among them, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1(PAI-1) was over expressed in the visceral fat in an animal model of obesity. Plasma level of PAI-1 was closely correlated with visceral adiposity in human. Thus, PAI-1 secreted from visceral fat may play an important role in vascular disease in visceral obesity. Adiponectin, a novel adipose-specific gene product, is abundantly presented in human plasma. This molecule has been shown to have protective roles against atherosclerotic vascular changes and its plasma level is negatively correlated with visceral adiposity. In conclusion, dysregulated secretion of these adipose-specific secretory proteins(adipocytokines) may have important roles in the development of life style-related diseases, especially atherosclerotic diseases.