Therapeutic effects of the gold nanoparticle on obesity-triggered neuroinflammation: a review

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity is considered a chronic non-communicable disease characterised by excess body fat. In recent years the prevalence of obesity has grown a lot. Individuals with obesity store the excess of nutrients consumed in the form of fat in adipose tissue, and generate an imbalance of this tissue, where there is the secretion of adipocytokines, which contributes to a peripheral and central inflammatory picture, reaching the central nervous system (CNS), generating neuroinflammation. There is still no effective and safe therapy for the treatment of obesity, many of the drugs marketed has serious side effects. Therefore, there is a search for therapies aimed mainly at reducing inflammation.

Objective: In this work the possibility of using a new therapeutic option for obesity will be explored, using nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has gained prominence in recent years for being a promising technology for treatment and as a molecule-in-the-light in inflammatory diseases. Gold nanoparticles (GNP) stand out among nanomaterials because they demonstrate anti-inflammatory characteristics by various pathways, and have been widely used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, including in the CNS, demonstrating excellent results.

Result: Thus, the use of GNP for the treatment of obesity is promising due to the inflammatory state of obesity, thus acting as anti-inflammatory at the peripheral and central levels.

Keywords:

• Obesity
• brain
• inflammation
• nanotecnology
• gold nanoparticles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

J.A. conceived designed the study, writing and to the collection of the data. A.B.C., M.R.S., M.P.O., L.E.S. writing and contributed to the collection of the data. L.M.D.V, T.F.M, G.T. and J.C.P formatting. G.K.F., R.A.M.A., G.T.R. analysed, wrote and revised the paper.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.