The group of research on obesity of the University of Navarra. PHOTO: Manuel Castells

The publishing house Thomson Reuters has studied the work of 172,795 groups of research from all over the world in the area of obesity, among which it has pointed out the team of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Navarra, led by Professor Alfredo Martínez, as the first European group and second group in the world with the highest issue of publications.

The publishing house analyzed 197 papers from group Navarra, from 1999 to 2009, that met its requirements impact index. These articles were published in journals such as The Lancet, Trends in Immunology and American Journal of Nutrition, with impact factors of 25.8, 15.5 and 6.74, respectively. Overall, 35 of these publications were cited more than 35 times.

In its selection of the 20 sets with the best results in areas as diverse as obesity, chronic lung diseases, osteoporosis, diabetes or climate change, the information platform has also examined the issue of citations and the issue of citations by article.

Thomson Reuters, in charge of the ISI Web of Knowledge, collects and indexes the publications with the highest impact index in the world (highest issue of citations of each article by other researchers). This data is considered the benchmark for assessing the prestige of scientific publications.

Obesity: genetic origin?

The work of the group of research directed by Professor Martínez covers the problem of obesity from different perspectives. One of them refers to the role of certain foods, the energetic composition of menus and their implication in weight gain -within the project Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra (SUN)-. In addition, they have studied their relationship with some oxidative processes in cells. "In this case", clarifies the Full Professor of Nutrition of the University of Navarra, "the findings indicate that obesity is not only caused by an excess of calories, but also by energy efficiency processes in which mitochondria mediate".

The scientific team has also delved into the genetic origin of the disease: "We have focused on the role of some molecules in oxidative stress; on the influence of adrenoceptors, transcription factors, inflammatory mediators and new proteins in the stability of fats and as genetic predictors of the problem".

Regarding the most immediate advances, Alfredo Martínez says that Nutrigenomics -study of diseases associated with nutrition and its influence on the expression of certain genes-, Nutrigenetics, personalized nutrition and new technologies such as epigenomics and proteomics "will allow us to better understand the metabolic machinery and how to fight obesity". Precisely with this goal the University of Navarra plans to create a research center on Nutrition and its consequences on public health. In November, the academic center will also host the IV congress of the International Society for Nutrigenetics / Nutrigenomics ISNN.