Affiliations: [a] Laboratório de Pesquisas Clínicas e Experimentais em Biologia Vascular, Centro Biomédico, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
| [b] Ambulatório de Obesidade, Policlínica Piquet Carneiro, Departamento de Medicina Interna, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Centro Biomédico, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Maria das Graças Coelho de Souza, Laboratório de Pesquisas Clínicas e Experimentais em Biologia Vascular, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rua São Francisco Xavier, 524-Pavilhão Reitor Haroldo Lisboa da Cunha, térreo, 20550-013 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Tel.: +55 21 2334 0703; Fax: +55 21 2334 0692; E-mail: mgcsouza@gmail.com.
Abstract: Obesity is a crescent epidemic in the world, affecting more than half a billion of adults worldwide. Obesity is associated to main cardiovascular risk factors, such as insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure and dyslipidemia. The excessive adiposity causes a dysregulation of adipokines secretion by adipose tissue, upregulating the expression of pro-inflammatory adipokines and downregulating the anti-inflammatory ones. This scenario contributes for the appearance of atherosclerosis. Since endothelium dysfunction is considered the earliest known marker of the atherosclerotic process, several methods to assess precociously the manifestations of endothelial dysfunction in microvessels, such as venous occlusion plethysmography, laser Doppler flowmetry and nailfold videocapillaroscopy, have been developed. Clinical and experimental studies have shown an impairment of microvascular function, capillary rarefaction and increase in inflammatory status in obesity and the introduction of lifestyle modifications, mainly physical activity and diet, constitute effective interventions to restore microvascular function in obesity.
