Editorial special issue: Frontiers in cancer, obesity and metabolism

Abstract

This Special Issue contains 7 contributions elaborated in the context of the workshop "Frontiers in Cancer, Obesity and metabolism" organized by the Journal of Physiology and Biochemistry (Pamplona, Spain, 2022). It contains basic, translational and epidemiological research that sheds light in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying how the excess of adipose tissue in obesity promotes tumor growth and progression, and highlights the role of nutrition in preventing tumor development and improving treatment outcomes in cancer patients with obesity and related comorbidities. Two review articles and one systematic review are included in this special issue, which describe the effects of nutrient deprivation that potentially enhance cancer immunotherapy, reveal the importance of the glucose transporter GLUT12 in obesity and cancer, and analyze recently described molecular mechanisms that connect obesity and the development of different types of cancer. Additionally, four original articles demonstrate a metabolic inflammatory pathway in patients with obesity in which dysfunctional adipose tissue alters the tumor microenvironment favoring tumor progression, offers mechanistic support for exploring low-fat ketogenic diets as adjuvant therapy in obesity-related breast cancer prevention or therapy by linking nutritional ketosis to epigenetic regulation of cancer‑related genes, indicate the use of genes related to amino acid metabolism as prognostic biomarkers in breast cancer, and associate a moderate adherence to a dietary-based diabetes-risk score to a lower risk of breast cancer among premenopausal women and women with low body mass index. Globally, the articles included in this special issue contribute to better understand the molecular mechanisms beyond nutritional aspects linked to obesity and cancer development.

Keywords: Cancer; Cancer immunotherapy; Energetic metabolism; Inflammation; Metabolism; Nutrient deprivation; Nutrition; Nutritional ketosis; Obesity; Prognostic biomarker; Risk score; Type 2 diabetes.