Heme Oxygenase Upregulation in Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome.

Obesity is a chronic inflammatory state that is marked by oxidative stress with consequent cardiovascular complications of hypertension, dyslipidemia and vascular dysfunction. Obesity induced metabolic syndrome remains an epidemic of global proportions. Recent Advances: Gene targeting of the endothelium with a retrovirus using an endothelium specific promoter VECAD-HO-1 offers a potential long term solution to adiposity by targeting the endothelium. This has resulted in improvements of both vascular function as well as adiposity attenuation.Heme Oxygenase plays an ever increasing role in the understanding of human biology in the fields of obesity and the metabolic syndrome. This system involves the antioxidant effects of biliverdin/bilirubin and the antiapoptotic effects of carbon monoxide. Upregulation of HO-1 has had marked beneficial effects on both vascular function and adiposity in animal and human studies.