Obesity

Obesity (defined as an excessive accumulation of body fat that impairs health) is associated with a number of chronic conditions including major causes of death such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia and certain cancers. The global incidence of obesity is continuing to rise at an alarming rate. In 2008 it was estimated that 1.5 billion adults were overweight. Of these, over 200 million men and nearly 300 million women were obese, representing more than one in ten of the world’s adult population (WHO Fact sheet No 311).

Body weight is a balance between food intake (energy intake) and energy expenditure (energy output). Obesity occurs when energy input is greater than energy output over a sustained period of time. This is typically the case in common human obesity where easy access to cheap, highly palatable and calorie-dense foods has led to an increase in energy intake which is often accompanied by a sedentary lifestyle. It is now clear that obesity cannot be adequately controlled by diet and exercise alone and that new drugs are required to treat this chronic condition, along with diet, exercise and lifestyle modifications.

Pharmacological approaches for reducing body weight include the development of compounds which reduce food intake or absorption of fat from the gastrointestinal tract, increase energy utilisation or act by a combination of these mechanisms.

RenaSci have developed and validated a range of in vivo models to assess the therapeutic potential of novel antiobesity drugs.