Obesity and Cancer Risk: Molecular Mechanisms and Perspectives
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Oncology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 233
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The global incidence and prevalence of obesity have dramatically risen over the last few decades. Epidemiological data suggest that obesity is associated with an increased risk of several, but not all, types of cancer, with marked gender-specific differences. The underlying mechanisms are still a matter of debate, with current experimental evidence suggesting the involvement of insulin resistance and low-grade inflammation in visceral fat tissue with the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and adipokines, as well as an important role of sex hormones and gut microbiota. Most intriguingly, these factors contribute in a highly variable manner to the initiation of different tumor entities and eventually act directly or indirectly on the tumor environment to drive tumor progression. This also clearly implies that therapeutic strategies will have to be based on these mechanisms and must be precisely targeted. Understanding these mechanisms can be the basis for developing new, more effective therapeutic and preventive strategies and can improve the identification of obese people who are at very high risk of cancer.
This issue of IJMS is thus devoted to deciphering the molecular basis of tumor initiation and growth in obesity and providing a rational basis for precision management.
Prof. Dr. Hendrik Lehnert
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- epidemiology of obesity and cancer
- experimental models of cancer in obesity
- genetic and epigenetics of obesity and metabolic dysfunction associated cancer
- tumor microenvironment
- basis of metastatic spread of cancer in obesity
- therapeutic modeling and targeting
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