Epigenetics and Obesity

Abstract

Obesity is an important health problem that has reached the level of pandemic today, has important effects on high prevalence diseases such as cardiovascular, diabetes, and cancer, and even leads to deaths. Obesity occurs from multifactorial effects, primarily genetic and environmental factors. Studies have identified a large number of genes that cause obesity, but the rapid increase in obesity in a short time cannot be explained only by genetic factors alone. Epigenetic changes that occur through environmental factors such as nutrition and physical activity also have an important role in the current increase in the incidence of obesity. Gene-environment interaction causes different phenotypic variations to occur in organisms. These different phenotypes, which occur without any changes in the DNA sequence, are explained by epigenetics. Therefore, the view that interindividual differences in susceptibility to obesity are due to epigenetic factors has recently gained considerable importance. Many studies have shown that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs are closely related to obesity. The aim of this review is to present the relationship between epigenetics and obesity and the effects of epigenetic mechanisms on obesity.