Marine foods often attract the attention of researchers because of the health benefits they offer. Health benefits of foods are mainly attributed to their lipids, especially fatty acids such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and proteins mainly due to higher content of important amino acids such as lysine and histidine. Although the entire molecular mechanism has not been clearly elucidated, data accumulated from experimental animal and human studies supports the beneficial role of dietary marine compounds in obesity therapy.
Obesity is now recognized as a secondmost important preventable cause of death, exceeded only by cigarette smoking. Obesity is a potent risk factor for type-2 diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia, co-morbidities that markedly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Obesity is a multifunctional condition affected by the combined effects of genes, environment, and their interactions. Other important parameters considered to explain increase in obesity are food availability, increased dietary fat content, greater energy density of foods, and decreased physical activity. Thus, a large number of studies have investigated the role of food components for the prevention of obesity [1][2][3][4][5].
Recent increased interest on marine foods can mainly be attributed to the health benefits they offer to humans. Epidemiologic evidence strongly supports the important role of marine components for human health. Although lipid can be stored far more efficiently than other nutrients, data accumulated from experimental animal and human studies clearly support a beneficial role of dietary marine lipids in weight management. However, relatively little has been done to study the effects of other marine compounds on obesity therapy. In addition, the details in the anti-obesity mechanism for marine lipids have not been fully elucidated. In this chapter, an effort is made to focus on the anti-obesity effect of marine lipids and histidine from marine origins.