Molecular mechanism on functional food bioactives for anti-obesity

•Recent bioactives in functional foods against obesity.•Functional food bioactives regulate food intake, adipocyte lifecycle and lipid metabolism.•Functional food bioactives against obesity through modulation of genetic and epigenetic mechanism.

The prevalence of obesity has increased rapidly, resulting in a huge impact on human health worldwide. Obesity is also associated with an increased risk of various metabolic diseases. Despite understanding the pathological mechanisms in development of obesity, pharmacotherapy remains of limited effectiveness for the management of this disease. Over the past few decades, research in the bioactive compounds of functional foods has provided a new strategy for anti-obesity. These dietary bioactives act to regulate food intake, adipocyte lifecycle and function, and the lipid metabolism through genetic and epigenetic mechanisms to prevent and improve obesity. Although the efficacy of these bioactives in humans requires further investigation, they hold great promise for improving population obesity and metabolic health.