Journal of Clinical Medicine Review Hepatokines as a Molecular Transducer of Exercise Dae Yun Seo 1 , Se Hwan Park 2 , Jubert Marquez 1, Hyo-Bum Kwak 3 , Tae Nyun Kim 1 , Jun Hyun Bae 4 , Jin-Ho Koh 5 and Jin Han 1,* 1 National Research Laboratory for Mitochondrial Signaling, Department of Physiology, BK21 Plus Project Team, College of Medicine, Smart Marine Therapeutics Center, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease Center, Inje University, Busan 47392, Korea;
[email protected] (D.Y.S.);
[email protected] (J.M.);
[email protected] (T.N.K.) 2 School of Kinesiology, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan 38541, Korea;
[email protected] 3 Department of Kinesiology, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Korea;
[email protected] 4 Institute of Sport Science, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea;
[email protected] 5 Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu 42415, Korea;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +82-051-890-6727 Abstract: Exercise has health benefits and prevents a range of chronic diseases caused by physiologi- cal and biological changes in the whole body. Generally, the metabolic regulation of skeletal muscle through exercise is known to have a protective effect on the pathogenesis of metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Besides this, the importance of the liver as an endocrine organ is a hot research topic. Hepatocytes also secrete many hepatokines in response to nutritional conditions and/or physical activity. In particular, certain hepatokines play a major role in the regulation of whole-body metabolic homeosta- sis.