Obese Animals as Models for Numerous Diseases: Advantages and Applications

Abstract

With the advances in obesity research, a variety of animal models have been developed to investigate obesity pathogenesis, development, therapies and complications. Such obese animals would not only allow us to explore obesity but would also represent models to study diseases and conditions that develop with obesity or where obesity represents a risk factor. Indeed, obese subjects, as well as animal models of obesity, develop pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, inflammation and metabolic disorders. Therefore, obese animals would represent models for numerous diseases. Although those diseases can be induced in animals by chemicals or drugs without obesity development, having them developed as consequences of obesity has numerous advantages. These advantages include mimicking natural pathogenesis processes, using diversity in obesity models (diet, animal species) to study the related variabilities and exploring disease intensity and reversibility depending on obesity development and treatments. Importantly, therapeutic implications and pharmacological tests represent key advantages too. On the other hand, obesity prevalence is continuously increasing, and, therefore, the likelihood of having a patient suffering simultaneously from obesity and a particular disease is increasing. Thus, studying diverse diseases in obese animals (either induced naturally or developed) would allow researchers to build a library of data related to the patterns or specificities of obese patients within the context of pathologies. This may lead to a new branch of medicine specifically dedicated to the diseases and care of obese patients, similar to geriatric medicine, which focuses on the elderly population.

Keywords: animal; disease; model; obese; obesity; pathogenesis.