The global prevalence of metabolic disorders, such as obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease, is dramatically increasing. Both genetic and environmental factors are well-known contributors to the development of these diseases and therefore, the study of epigenetics can provide additional mechanistic insight. Dietary interventions, including caloric restriction, intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding, have shown promising improvements in patients’ overall metabolic profiles (i.e., reduced body weight, improved glucose homeostasis), and an increasing number of studies have associated these beneficial effects with epigenetic alterations. In this article, we review epigenetic changes involved in both metabolic diseases and dietary interventions in primary metabolic tissues (i.e., adipose, liver, and pancreas) in hopes of elucidating potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for disease prevention and treatment.

肥胖、糖尿病和脂肪肝等代谢性疾病的全球患病率正在急剧增加。遗传和环境因素都是这些疾病发生的众所周知的因素，因此，表观遗传学的研究可以提供额外的机制见解。饮食干预措施，包括热量限制、间歇性禁食或限时进食，已显示出对患者整体代谢状况的良好改善（即减轻体重、改善葡萄糖稳态），并且越来越多的研究将这些有益效果与表观遗传联系起来变更。在本文中，我们回顾了初级代谢组织（即脂肪、肝脏和胰腺）中代谢疾病和饮食干预所涉及的表观遗传变化，希望阐明疾病预防和治疗的潜在生物标志物和治疗靶点。