Endocannabinoids and energy metabolism

Abstract

Although adjustments to nutritional lifestyle and increased physical activity remain the milestones of weight loss therapy, it is evident from the exponential increase of the number of obese subjects in Western countries that these two approaches alone are no longer able to limit this progression. This alarming phenomenon occurs in spite of a great effort exerted in the last 10 yr to shed light on the pathogenetic mechanisms inducing obesity, although many inconclusive hopes have been generated in the field of pharmacotherapeutics to tackle obesity. Among the several targets exploited in recent years, the endocannabinoid system nowadays constitutes the most promising and the most intriguing proposed so far. On one hand, our aim is to provide an overview on the role of the endocannabinoid system in the physiology of energy metabolism, on the other hand a further aim is to summarize how the system also controls food intake and energy balance by acting at both cerebral and peripheral level.