Dietary fatty acids and vitamin B3: an effective treatment strategy for the metabolic syndrome?

Abstract

The metabolic syndrome (MS) may be defined as the constellation of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors that comprises obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. Recent evidences suggest that, primarily due to its high monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) content, olive oil and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) could be useful as a dietary approach for MS management, with relevance in the postprandial state. Vitamin B3, as a major substrate for nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT), also constitutes a nutritional intervention strategy for the treatment of MS. NAMPT has been shown to exert activities of central importance to cellular energetics and innate immunity. Within the cell, NAMPT is the rate-limiting step in a salvage pathway of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) biosynthesis. NAMPT has been shown to correlate with triglycerides in the fasting plasma, and a potential regulatory role for fatty acids on NAMPT expression has been proposed. Whether different dietary fatty acids, including olive oil as a source of MUFA, play a role in NAMPT excursions and in the NAMPT-dependent regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism and inflammation states remains to be solved. In general, the mechanisms that alter NAD+ metabolism probably include multiple processes, but the understandings of these mechanisms are currently very unclear and a considerable effort in this area is required before we know how changes in NAD+ metabolism influence physiology of glucose and lipid metabolism and how NAD+ metabolism might be manipulated for healing benefit by specific dietary fatty acids as a therapeutic treatment for MS.