Science Public Lecture: We are All Getting Fatter – Causes, Challenges and Solutions

 

Obesity is a widespread metabolic disorder with increasing prevalence around the world. In Hong Kong, the incidence of obese adults in our population has surged from 21% in 2003 to 33% in 2022. Given the strong correlation between obesity and numerous diseases like stroke, heart attacks, diabetes, and even cancer, the increasing number of obese people could significantly strain our healthcare and economic system. From a biological perspective, obesity is caused by the imbalance between food intake and energy expenditure. Subsequently, the nutrient and energy metabolism in different tissues of the body are dysregulated, leading to abnormal intracellular signaling and functional impairments. Different pharmacological interventions or  lifestyle modifications have been developed to rescue the imbalanced metabolism in obese people in the past decades, but these methods are also accompanied by undesirable side effects. Hence, developing effective methods to control the body weight of obese people is still a hot research area nowadays. This lecture will discuss various causes of obesity, its detrimental impact on human health, and the latest research on preventive or therapeutic methods to combat obesity.