Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process in which excessive nutrients, toxic protein aggregates, damaged organelles, and invading microorganisms in the cytoplasm can be isolated by the double-membrane structure of autophagosomes and delivered to lysosomes for degradation.Over the past two decades, research on autophagy has made significant progress.Autophagy not only plays a crucial role in maintaining intracellular homeostasis but also contributes to the development of various metabolic diseases.Metabolic imbalance of nutrients in obesity-related metabolic diseases can interfere with the autophagy process through a variety of mechanisms, resulting in further aggravation of the pathological damage of related organs.However, under certain conditions, inhibition of autophagy can have beneficial effects, thereby alleviating some of the harmful consequences of obesity.In this review, we will focus on the latest advances in the study of autophagy in obesity-related metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and atherosclerosis.We will systematically discuss the definition and types of autophagy, the regulation of autophagy by nutrients, the imbalance of autophagy in obesity-related metabolic diseases and its molecular mechanism, and finally, we will summarize some drugs targeting the autophagy pathway. Definition and types of autophagyAutophagy, a word derived from the Greek words 'auto' and '-phagy', is a highly conserved physiological process in which eukaryotic cells degrade abnormal proteins and damaged organelles through the lysosomal system.In 1967, it was formally proposed by Professor christian de duve, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, while studying the effect of glucagon on rat liver lysosomes (1).After nearly 60 years of in-depth research, autophagy has been confirmed to be involved in the occurrence and development of a variety of diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, and neurological diseases (2-5).Autophagy can be divided into three main types based on the mechanism of substrate transport to lysosomes: Macroautophagy, microautophagy, and chaperone-mediated autophagy (cMA).Macroautophagy is a highly conserved mechanism of lysosomal degradation.Unlike microautophagy or cMA, macroautophagy requires the formation of double-layer membrane vesicles, which can isolate intracellular components such as proteins, macromolecular complexes, and organelles, and even invading pathogens (6).
Lu et al. (2026) studied this question.