Metabolic inflammation in hepatic and vascular disorders
Over the past few decades it has become increasingly clear that inflammation – a normal and essential defense mechanism that protects the body from infection and injury – can also be triggered by nutrients and dietary surplus, an inflammatory state that is referred to as metabolic inflammation. This chronic low-grade inflammatory state is considered to be of great importance in the development of obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, much remains unknown about the origin and mechanisms of metabolic overload and inflammation. The aim of this research project was to further our understanding of metabolic inflammation and investigate the effects of interventions targeted to different aspects of metabolic inflammation. We investigated several routes of intervention in metabolic inflammation using both pharmaceutical and nutraceutical approaches, and assessed their value in the attenuation of metabolic disease development focusing on NAFLD and CVD as main disease endpoints. Our data show that interventions suppressing the inflammatory response to metabolic overload form a powerful tool to attenuate disease progression and may therefore be valuable in the prevention and/or retardation of metabolic disease development.