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Review
. 2020 Dec 21:8:600181.
doi: 10.3389/fcell.2020.600181. eCollection 2020.

Obesity and Bone Health: A Complex Link

Jing Hou  1 , Chen He  1 , Wenzhen He  1 , Mi Yang  1   2   3 , Xianghang Luo  1   2   3 , Changjun Li  1   2   3
Affiliations
Review

Obesity and Bone Health: A Complex Link

Jing Hou et al. Front Cell Dev Biol. .

Abstract

So far, the connections between obesity and skeleton have been extensively explored, but the results are inconsistent. Obesity is thought to affect bone health through a variety of mechanisms, including body weight, fat volume, bone formation/resorption, proinflammatory cytokines together with bone marrow microenvironment. In this review, we will mainly describe the effects of adipokines secreted by white adipose tissue on bone cells, as well as the interaction between brown adipose tissue, bone marrow adipose tissue, and bone metabolism. Meanwhile, this review also reviews the evidence for the effects of adipose tissue and its distribution on bone mass and bone-related diseases, along with the correlation between different populations with obesity and bone health. And we describe changes in bone metabolism in patients with anorexia nervosa or type 2 diabetes. In summary, all of these findings show that the response of skeleton to obesity is complex and depends on diversified factors, such as mechanical loading, obesity type, the location of adipose tissue, gender, age, bone sites, and secreted cytokines, and that these factors may exert a primary function in bone health.

Keywords: adipose tissue; bone health; bone remodeling; bone-related diseases; obesity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Changes of various factors caused by obesity on the regulation of bone disease. Obesity can increase mechanical load, visceral fat and bone marrow fat. In addition, obesity is associated with increased adipokines, increased TNF – or, IL-1, IL- 6, decreased vitamin D, and accompanied by hypertension, dyslipidemia, and dysglycemia. They regulate bone disease by affecting bone formation, bone resorption, and cartilage.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Effects of factors secreted by adipose tissue on bone metabolism. Adipose tissue can secrete leptin, adiponectin, visfatin, TNF-a, IL-6, and IL-1 These factors act on chondrocytes, osteoblasts, osteoclasts, respectively, to regulate bone formation and resorption, as well as cartilage degradation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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