Obesity presents a major health hazard of the 21st century. It promotes co-morbid diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. Excessive energy intake, physical inactivity, and genetic susceptibility are main causal factors for obesity, while gene mutations, endocrine disorders, medication, or psychiatric illnesses may be underlying causes in some cases. The development and maintenance of obesity may involve central pathophysiological mechanisms such as impaired brain circuit regulation and neuroendocrine hormone dysfunction. Dieting and physical exercise offer the mainstays of obesity treatment, and anti-obesity drugs may be taken in conjunction to reduce appetite or fat absorption. Bariatric surgeries may be performed in overtly obese patients to lessen stomach volume and nutrient absorption, and induce faster satiety. This review provides a summary of literature on the pathophysiological studies of obesity and discusses relevant therapeutic strategies for managing obesity.

Background: Aberrantly activated Notch signaling has been shown to play a key role in carcinogenesis and progression of various human malignancies. In this study, we investigated the expression of Notch1 and Notch2 in colorectal cancer to determine whether they could serve as prognostic predictors. Patients and methods: The protein expression of Notch1 and Notch2 was examined by immunohistochemistry in 1003 clinical colorectal cancer specimens. Notch1 and Notch2 protein levels were investigated by immunohistochemistry. Statistical analysis was carried out to assess their prognostic value. Results: Significantly negative correlation between Notch1 and Notch2 was found in colorectal cancer (P < 0.001). Notch1 and Notch2 were proved to be inversely correlated with tumor differentiation, depth of invasion, lymph node metastases, distant metastasis, TNM (tumor–node–metastasis) stage and survival of patients, suggesting opposite function of the two receptors. Notch1 and Notch2 were proved to be adverse independent prognostic predictors (P < 0.001). Moreover, a synergistic effect of positive Notch1 and negative Notch2 coexpression on predicting poor overall survival was proved. Conclusions: Notch1 and Notch2 may be independent adverse prognostic predictors for patients with colorectal cancer. These results would contribute to identify more efficient prognostic predictors and therapeutic targets.

Matrix metalloproteinase‐9 is a member of the Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) family, which is overexpressed in some solid tumor and thought to enhance the tumor invasion and metastasis ability. Our study is to investigate the association of MMP‐9 expression with disease‐free survival and overall survival of patients with gastric cancer. Clinical gastric cancer specimens and adjacent normal tissues from 286 patients who had not received neoadjuvant chemotherapy were investigated by immunohistochemistry assay. Staining evaluation results were analyzed statistically in relation to various clinicopathological characters, disease‐free survival and overall survival. High level of MMP‐9 expression was detected in gastric cancer, significantly more than in adjacent normal epithelial cells. In gastric cancer, MMP‐9 was significantly positively correlated with depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. However, no correlations between MMP‐9 expression and patients' age, sex, tumor location or differentiation status were detected. The disease‐free survival and overall survival were significantly shorter for patients with MMP‐9 positive than those with MMP‐9 negative tumors. Multivariate analysis identified MMP‐9 was an independent prognostic factor for both disease‐free survival and overall survival. Our findings provided convincing evidence for MMP‐9 as an important role in human gastric cancer recurrence and prognosis. It might also serve as a novel target for both prognostic prediction and therapeutics.