Dietary Fats: Beneficial or Detrimental for Lifestyle-Related Diseases?

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, lifestyle-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes, chronic heart, liver, and kidney diseases, among others, constitute increasingly prevalent life-threatening diseases. However, the causal relationship and cross-talk between each disease remain poorly understood. The pathophysiologies of the diseases are complex, multi-faceted, and multi-angled. Oxidative stress due to the prolonged generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) induces mitochondrial dysfunction, endoplasmic reticulum stress, lysosomal disintegrity, impaired autophagy, etc., in human organs. The characteristics of lifestyle-related diseases include progressive loss of function due to cell degeneration/death in various tissues and organs. ROS-induced lipid and protein oxidation synergically play crucial roles in the development of cell degeneration and death. For example, high-fat diets containing saturated fatty acids like palmitate are known to be associated with an increase in the cellular ROS level because excessive β-oxidation induces stress in mitochondria and peroxisomes. In addition, deep-fried foods cooked in ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid-rich vegetable oils, such as rapeseed (canola), soybean, sunflower, and corn oils, already contain or intrinsically generate highly reactive aldehydes such as “4-hydroxy-2-nonenal” through peroxidation. Cooking oils have a close relationship with each other in both health and diseases. The excessive consumption of deep-fried foods is regarded as one of the most important epidemiological factors driving lifestyle-related diseases. By considering the beneficial and detrimental aspects of fatty acids involved in food oils, this Special Issue will accelerate the rational development of preventive, disease-modifying, and symptomatic treatments for lifestyle-related diseases.

Dr. Tetsumori Yamashima
Guest Editor

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