CINCINNATI — Cardiac researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found a new cellular pathway that could help in developing therapeutic treatments for obesity-related disorders, like diabetes and heart disease.
This research is being pr…
DALLAS — Nov. 11, 2010 — New findings by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center suggest that serotonin — a brain chemical known to help regulate emotion, mood and sleep — might also have anti-diabetic properties.
The findings, app…
Human blood is famously fraught with fats; now researchers have a specific idea of just how numerous and diverse these lipids actually are. A national research team, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine…
Using high-resolution microscopy, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have shown how insulin prompts fat cells to take in glucose in a rat model. The findings were reported in the Sept. 8 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism.
By stu…
American children whose genetic roots strongly reach back to Africa are less sensitive to insulin-a factor important in the development of type 2 diabetes-than those whose ancestors hailed heavily from Europe, according to study results released today. Rather than relying on broad categories of race, such as black or white, researchers in diabetes and obesity from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the University of Alabama at Birmingham analyzed a group of children for 20 key genetic markers found far more often in those of African descent than those of European descent. They found that the more African-origin markers in children’s genetic makeup, the less their bodies responded to insulin-and the more insulin in their blood.
People with short upper legs are more likely to have glucose intolerance or diabetes, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association’s 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. The study seems to support the hypothesis that factors influencing growth in the womb and during childhood may contribute to the development of impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes, says Keiko Asao, M.D., M.P.H., and a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Impaired glucose tolerance is also called insulin resistance. It’s a metabolic disorder in which the body cannot efficiently turn blood sugar (glucose) into energy.
People who eat breakfast are significantly less likely to be obese and diabetic than those who usually don’t, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association’s 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. In their study, researchers found that obesity and insulin resistance syndrome rates were 35 percent to 50 percent lower among people who ate breakfast every day compared to those who frequently skipped it. “Our results suggest that breakfast may really be the most important meal of the day,” says Mark A. Pereira, Ph.D., a research associate at Children’s Hospital in Boston and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “It appears that breakfast may play an important role in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”
People with short upper legs are more likely to have glucose intolerance or diabetes, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association’s 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. The study seems to support the hypothesis that factors influencing growth in the womb and during childhood may contribute to the development of impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes, says Keiko Asao, M.D., M.P.H., and a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Impaired glucose tolerance is also called insulin resistance. It’s a metabolic disorder in which the body cannot efficiently turn blood sugar (glucose) into energy.
A child who is overweight and unfit may already be on the road to developing insulin resistance, an early sign of diabetes, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association’s 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. Insulin sensitivity is a measure of how well the body responds to insulin, a hormone that transports carbohydrates from the blood into cells where they are turned into energy. High insulin sensitivity means the body is responding well to insulin. Low insulin sensitivity ? also called insulin resistance ? is often a precursor to diabetes.
Elderly men and women with normal body weight still may be at risk for developing type 2 diabetes if they have large amounts of muscle fat or visceral abdominal fat, according to a University of Pittsburgh study published in the February issue of the journal Diabetes Care. “Our study found that, even though an elderly person may not be overweight, he or she might still be at risk for developing diabetes,” said Bret H. Goodpaster, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh division of endocrinology and metabolism and principal investigator of the study. “An important factor is where in the body their excess fat is stored.”
A new study in female mice links estrogen, lower blood pressure, and insulin resistance, despite a high fructose diet. The experiments demonstrate that the effects of a fructose diet on metabolism and blood pressure are dependent on sex gender. Female rats are protected against fructose-induced hypertension, unlike their male counterparts, and the mechanisms responsible for this protection appear to be related to female sex hormones. Furthermore, there appears to be a sex difference in the vascular actions of insulin, which may also be involved in the mechanisms responsible for the sex differences observed in this experiment. The results of these experiments represent a novel finding into the interrelationship among hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, and hypertension. The potential existence of sex differences in this intriguing association might help elucidate the mechanisms involved and are worthy of further investigation.