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.
Copyright © 2016, Food and Drug Administration, Taiwan. Published by Elsevier Taiwan
LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).