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Conti et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2019;5:64 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2019.015 Metastasis and Treatment

Review Open Access

Dietary fatty acids and adipose tissue inflammation
at the crossroad between obesity and colorectal

cancer

Lucia Conti , Manuela Del Cornò , Beatrice Scazzocchio, Rosaria Varì, Massimo D’Archivio, Barbara
#
#
Varano, Roberta Masella, Sandra Gessani
Center for Gender-specific Medicine, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 00161 Rome, Italy.
# Contributed equally to the article.
Correspondence to: Dr. Sandra Gessani, Center for Gender-specific Medicine, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena
299, Rome 00161, Italy. E-mail:sandra.gessani@iss.it

How to cite this article: Conti L, Del Cornò M, Scazzocchio B, Varì R, D’Archivio M, Varano B, Masella R, Gessani S. Dietary
fatty acids and adipose tissue inflammation at the crossroad between obesity and colorectal cancer. J Cancer Metastasis Treat
2019;5:64. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2019.015

Received: 11 Jun 2019 First Decision: 16 Jul 2019 Revised: 30 Jul 2019 Accepted: 21 Aug 2019 Published: 28 Aug 2019

Science Editor: Ciro Isidoro Copy Editor: Cai-Hong Wang Production Editor: Tian Zhang

Abstract
Excess adiposity, a worldwide-growing pathological condition, is now recognized as a main risk factor for most
chronic diseases including colorectal cancer (CRC). Obese subjects show an increased cancer incidence with
obesity representing an important indicator of survival, prognosis, recurrence and response to therapy. A low-
grade chronic inflammation of metabolically active tissues including the adipose tissue (AT), defined as meta-
inflammation, is a main feature of obesity. Fatty acids (FA), the main AT components, are important modulators
of inflammation, and the type of FA stored in AT critically affects tissue functions. Their profile within AT mirrors
FA dietary intake but also depends on a metabolic control. Obesity, changes in the habitual diet, weight loss or
pathological conditions like CRC influence FA profile of AT pointing to these molecules as important actors in AT
dysfunction and meta-inflammation, that characterize metabolic diseases and may favor cancer development.
Worth of note, diet is receiving growing attention as a main determinant in cancer prevention due to its capacity
to modulate immune response and inflammation. Alterations in the balance between different families of FA may
contribute to generate a pro-inflammatory profile with deleterious effects on metabolic and immune homeostasis
at both local and systemic levels. This review focuses on FA as regulators of human AT inflammation discussing
the role of obesity-, diet-, and weight loss-associated changes in FA profile in this process. The relevance of FA
composition of AT in linking diet, obesity and CRC will be also reviewed.

© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made.

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