Yen-Chen Tung ^a, Pei-Hsuan Hsieh ^b, Min-Hsiung Pan ^a,c,d,*,
Chi-Tang Ho ^b,*

^a Institute of Food Sciences and Technology, National Taiwan University,
Taipei 106, Taiwan
^b Department of Food Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
^c Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital,
China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan
^d Department of Health and Nutrition Biotechnology, Asia University,
Taichung 41354, Taiwan

 

Dietary phytochemicals from food and herbs have been studied for their health benefits for a long time. The incidence of obesity has seen an incredible increase worldwide. Although dieting, along with increased physical activity, seems an easy method in theory to manage obesity, it is hard to apply in real life. Obesity treatment drugs and surgery are not successful or targeted for everyone and can have significant side effects. This low rate of success is the major reason that the overweight as well as the pharmaceutical industry seek alternative methods, including phytochemicals. Therefore, more and more research has focused on the role of phytochemicals to alleviate lipid accumulation or enhance energy expenditure in adipocytes. This review discusses selected phytochemicals from food and herbs and their effects on adipogenesis, lipogenesis, lipolysis, oxidation of fatty acids, and browning in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes.

 

Keywords: 3T3-L1 cells, adipogenesis, lipogenesis, lipolysis, phytochemicals