Page 52 - FoodFocusThailand No.234 September 2025

SPECIAL FOCUS

Nutritional and Fat Accumulation Factors in in
Obese Patients
Nutrition plays a key role in weight control. Excessive
energy intake and the consumption of inflammation-inducing
foods are associated with more severe obesity-related
complications. Overeating food, beverages, or alcohol
beyond the body’s daily energy needs stimulates lipogenesis
(fat creation) and leads to fat accumulation. The body can
produce fat from excess sugar, carbohydrates, fats, and
even alcohol. However, other contributing factors can be
categorized into:
1. Factors that increase food intake, such as social
and cultural norms (e.g., festivals or celebrations), emotional
states, stress, emotional eating, snacking or binge-eating
behaviors, inadequate sleep, medications that increase
appetite, and leptin resistance.
2. Factors that influence energy metabolism
include age, gender, height, muscle mass and fat mass,
the proportion of brown adipose tissue, gut microbiota, (e.g., calcium, zinc, iron, vitamin D). These diets also
genetics and epigenetics related to fat metabolism and fat ignore metabolic differences among individuals, such as
accumulation, and hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, blood biochemical markers, blood sugar and lipid levels,
thyroid hormones, and growth hormone. inflammatory markers, postprandial fat and glucose
3. Factors that affect physical activity include metabolism, and gut microbiota composition.
exercise habits, the socio-cultural context of activity, basic
physical strength, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal Personalized Nutrition for Obesity and Weight
health, sedentary behavior, and barriers to exercise Management
participation. Personalized nutrition involves designing nutrient plans
As seen, many modifiable and non-modifiable factors tailored to the individual, using integrated data from:
influence the development of obesity. Currently, dietary 1. Genetics and genomics, including gene expression
guidelines for weight control often focus on caloric restriction and variants affecting nutrient metabolism, fat accumulation,
or low-calorie diets. This approach creates an energy deficit and appetite regulation genes (e.g., FTO, PPARG, ADRB2,
to stimulate fat utilization for energy, thereby supporting FABP2, leptin receptor).
weight loss. However, focusing solely on energy restriction 2. Biochemistry and multi-omics data, such as
often ignores individual environmental and biological postprandial glucose and lipid responses, insulin response,
factors. Clinically, low-calorie diets tend to be only partially lipidomics and proteomics, metabolomics.
successful. Additionally, they may overlook individual 3. Anthropometric data, including total and visceral
micronutrient needs, potentially resulting in deficiencies fat mass, brown adipose tissue levels, muscle mass and
strength, cardiopulmonary fitness, VO max (oxygen use at
2
rest and during exercise).
4. Behavior and dietary patterns, such as food
preferences and cravings, emotional eating behavior, meal
patterns, triggers and tendencies toward healthy or ultra-
processed food consumption.
5. Metagenomics, including gut microbiome genetic
data, microbial diversity and ratios, beneficial metabolites
such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), indole-3-propionic
acid, polyphenol-derived metabolites, as well as harmful
compounds such as trimethylamine (TMA), p-Cresol,
hydrogen sulfide, and secondary bile acids.

Application of Personalized Nutrition
Personalized nutrition planning for weight control may
include caloric restriction, supported by data from genomics,
biochemistry, body composition, and metagenomics.
Various healthy dietary patterns can be applied, such as
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