Institute of Clinical Physiology, National Research Council (CNR), Pisa, Italy.
Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Chirurgia, Sezione di Endocrinologia, Università Federico II di Napoli, Naples, Italy.
Int J Obes (Lond). 2021 Sep;45(9):1886-1898. doi: 10.1038/s41366-021-00865-8. Epub 2021 Jun 4.
The number of cancers attributed to obesity is increasing over time. The mechanisms classically implicated in cancer pathogenesis and progression in patients with obesity involve adiposity-related alteration of insulin, sex hormones, and adipokine pathways. However, they do not fully capture the complexity of the association between obesity-related nutritional imbalance and cancer. Gut hormones are secreted by enteroendocrine cells along the gastrointestinal tract in response to nutritional cues, and act as nutrient sensors, regulating eating behavior and energy homeostasis and playing a role in immune-modulation. The dysregulation of gastrointestinal hormone physiology has been implicated in obesity pathogenesis. For their peculiar function, at the cross-road between nutrients intake, energy homeostasis and inflammation, gut hormones might represent an important but still underestimated mechanism underling the obesity-related high incidence of cancer. In addition, cancer research has revealed the widespread expression of gut hormone receptors in neoplastic tissues, underscoring their implication in cell proliferation, migration, and invasion processes that characterize tumor growth and aggressiveness. In this review, we hypothesize that obesity-related alterations in gut hormones might be implicated in cancer pathogenesis, and provide evidence of the pathways potentially involved.
随着时间的推移，归因于肥胖的癌症数量正在增加。在肥胖患者中，经典地涉及癌症发病机制和进展的机制涉及与肥胖相关的胰岛素、性激素和脂肪因子途径的改变。然而，它们并没有完全捕捉到肥胖相关营养失衡与癌症之间关联的复杂性。肠道激素是胃肠道中的肠内分泌细胞对营养线索的反应而分泌的，它们作为营养传感器，调节进食行为和能量平衡，并在免疫调节中发挥作用。胃肠道激素生理学的失调与肥胖的发病机制有关。由于其特殊的功能，位于营养摄入、能量平衡和炎症的交叉路口，肠道激素可能代表了一个重要但仍被低估的机制，解释了肥胖相关的癌症高发率。此外，癌症研究揭示了肠道激素受体在肿瘤组织中的广泛表达，强调了它们在细胞增殖、迁移和浸润过程中的作用，这些过程是肿瘤生长和侵袭的特征。在这篇综述中，我们假设与肥胖相关的肠道激素改变可能与癌症发病机制有关，并提供了潜在涉及的途径的证据。
