Mitochondria in Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Concluding Review and Research Perspectives

Abstract Obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are metabolic disorders that have emerged as two of the most serious health issues in the world. Both are related to chronic inequality between food intake and energy expenditure, giving rise to energy imbalance over long-term periods of time. This imbalance has major consequences on the metabolic fluxes in the different tissues or organs and at the whole organism level. Within the cell, mitochondria are at the front line to initiate adaptation to these changes and, therefore, are the primary targets affected. Mitochondria are key organelles in which fuel substrates are oxidized to produce ATP from cascades of redox reactions. An important notion to understand the etiology of metabolic diseases, however, is that in all tissues and organs, energy and redox processes are closely interlinked within the mitochondria and govern major cell metabolic adaptations. This chapter is not a summary of the previous ones but has two objectives: to emphasize notions that, in the opinion of the three of us, appear to be most important, and to propose some directions for future research.