Obesity is an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat that leads to different health problems, such as
cancer, where the adipocytes promote the proliferation, migration, and invasion of
cancer cells, especially in the breast, where the epithelial cells are immersed in a fatty environment, and the interactions between these two types of cells involve, not only
adipokines but also local pro-inflammatory mechanisms and hypoxic processes generating anti-apoptotic signals, which are a common result in
leptin signaling. The expression of the
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (
VEGF) and
cyclin D1, results in the decrease in phosphorylation of AMPK, increasing the activity of the
aromatase enzyme; alternatively, the
adiponectin activates AMPK to reduce
inflammation. Nevertheless, alterations of the JAK/STAT pathways contribute to mammary
carcinogenesis, while the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway controls most of the
cancer's characteristics such as the cell cycle, survival, differentiation, proliferation, motility, metabolism, and genetic stability. Therefore, the purpose of the present review is, through the accumulated scientific evidence, to find the concordance between the signaling pathways involved among
obesity and
breast cancer, which can be modulated by using
flavonoids.