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Animal obesity and nutrition

Guest Editors 

Maria Grazia Cappai, PhD, University of Sassari, Italy
Darko Stefanovski, PhD, MS, University of Pennsylvania, USA

BMC Veterinary Research called for submissions to our Collection on Animal obesity and nutrition.

This Collection aimed to explore the complexities of animal obesity by examining the roles of metabolism, diet, genetics, and human-animal relationships. Animal obesity impacts their well-being, necessitating an understanding of the interplay between diet, exercise, metabolic disorders, and environmental factors. Advancing knowledge in this field is crucial for promoting animal welfare, improving food production efficiency, and addressing environmental sustainability.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Maria Grazia Cappai, PhD, University of Sassari, Italy

Professor Cappai graduated from the University of Sassari in 2000 with her degree in Veterinary Medicine and got the PhD in 2004 from the same University. Since 2005, she has worked at the University of Sassari as an Assistant Professor of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, and in 2019 she became an Associate Professor. In 2021, she got the habilitation as full Professor of Animal Nutrition and Feeding. She holds academic teaching courses both for undergraduate and post-graduate students and has mentored both doctoral and PhD candidates since 2007 to date. Professor Cappai is currently a Board Member of the Doctoral School in Veterinary Science of the University of Sassari. She has twice been awarded the Helmut Meyer Award, once in 2011 by the European Society of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition, ESVCN; and twice in 2014 by the Italian Association of Agricultural Scientific Societies, AISSA. She has also been the Secretary of the ESVCN from 2016 to 2019 and again from 2019-2022. She completed a three-year residency at the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition from 2018 to 2021. Since 2018, she has been responsible for the Nutrition Desk Unit of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the University of Sassari. In 2023, she was proposed as a full member of the Sigma Xi Honor Society for scientific merit. Her research activities span from domestic animal nutrition and feeding along with metabolism related disorders, to wildlife feeding and nutritional health. She is an author of more than 70 papers and numerous congress contributions at national and international congresses.

Darko Stefanovski, PhD, MS, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Dr Stefanovski’s research focus is in the field of the biomedical sciences, at the intersection of integrative physiology, statistics, and computational biology. For over a decade, he has been involved in research studying obesity and its association with insulin resistance, a state of impaired glucose tolerance, and subsequent pathologies, such as Type 2 Diabetes. His current research indicates that the metabolic syndrome of insulin resistance, as a combination of medical disorders, is not only associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes but also with some types of cancer. His diverse background has enabled him to approach the complexity of this metabolic syndrome via a multitude of methodologies, including mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, molecular dynamics, molecular biology, and animal model experiments. His current research involves the study of the effects of rare variants of hepatic glucokinase and its repressor protein GKRP on glucose metabolism and the development of a novel mathematical model of free fatty acids (FFA) kinetics capable of quantifying whole-body insulin sensitivity of FFA metabolism. Additionally, he is studying the biophysical principles of ion selectivity.

About the Collection

BMC Veterinary Research called for submissions to our Collection on Animal obesity and nutrition.

The prevalence of obesity in these animals extends beyond physical implications, impacting their overall well-being. Understanding the complex interplay between diet, exercise, metabolic disorders, and environmental factors is essential for addressing the growing prevalence of obesity in animals, including food animals and companion animals. This Collection aimed to unravel the intricate interplay of metabolism, diet, genetics, and human-animal relationships. Obesity and nutrition play crucial roles in the health and well-being of animals, impacting their overall quality of life and susceptibility to various diseases.

Advancing our collective understanding in the field of animal obesity and nutrition is vital for promoting animal welfare, improving production efficiency in food research, and mitigating the environmental impact of animal agriculture. Recent advances have elucidated the role of genetic predisposition, dietary composition, and metabolic disorders in animal obesity, shedding light on potential intervention strategies and management practices. Additionally, research has highlighted the interconnectedness between animal obesity and environmental sustainability, particularly in the context of large ruminants and greenhouse gas emissions. We invited submissions that explored topics including, but were not limited to, metabolic pathways, nutritional impacts, behavioral influences, genetics and breeding, environmental implications, and perspectives from animal food researchers.

Image credit: © Jasper W / stock.adobe.com

  1. The forest musk deer (FMD, Moschus berezovskii), an endangered small ruminant, is listed as a class I protected wild animals in China. However, compared to their wild counterparts, captive FMD are more prone to g...

    Authors: Zaixiang Ying, Qinlin Yang, Shan Xie, Mingcheng Cai, Wenqiao Fan, Hanyu Gao, Xiaolan Feng and Yongjiang Wu
    Citation: BMC Veterinary Research 2025 21:262
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Animal obesity and nutrition" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.