Abstract
Obesity is chararacterised by an excessive accumulation of body fat. Obesity is associated with many potentially harmful diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, dyslipidaemia, arterial hypertension, ischemic heart disease, several carcinomas, sleep apnea syndrome etc.
We use measurement of body mass index (BMI) to screen individuals with possible health problems. Body mass index is a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters.
Patients with BMI equal to or greater than 30 are considered obese. Visceral fat accumulation is very deleterious for patients and thus thightly associated with metabolic diseases.
Visceral obesity is characterised as a waist cimcumference taken around the abdomen roughly at the level of the umbilicus. In our population for man, a waist circumference of 94 and more centimeters, and for women, a waist circumference of 80 and more centimeters, indicates risk of metabolic diseases.
There are several factors important for development of obesity such as environmental contributions, overeating, inappropiate composition of the diet with too much sugar and unhealthy fat and genetic factors as well. Fatty acids obtained in the diet, endogenously produced or transformed in metabolism, and their composition play a role in obesity and its complications.
Our work discusses mechanisms of action of particular fatty acids in obesity and metabolic diseases. Saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids differ in their impacts on obesity because their metabolic products e.g. proinflammatory and antiinflammatory cytokines have different effects in pathogenesis of obesity and its complications.