Obesity: Its effect on diabetes
Recent News
Scientists have long wondered whether obesity causes diabetes or whether diabetes causes obesity. According to the former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. David Satcher, obesity will soon surpass tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. Writing in the New York Times, Dr. Satcher asserts that as a nation, we should be concerned with the pathology associated with carrying excess weight.
37% of Americans are "obese" and another 35% are overweight, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The results of a new study, published in the April issue of Cell Metabolism, describe how inflammation and obesity work cooperatively to increase diabetes risk.
Researchers found that fat tissue serves as both a “storage facility” for excess fat, and it forms triglycerides and energy releases, in the form of fatty acid, that enter the blood stream. One particular chemokine (CXL5), is increased dramatically in the bloodstreams of those who are obese.
CXL5 is the key to insulin resistance in laboratory mice. When scientists treated mice with antibodies that neutralize the chemokine, insulin resistance was reversed.
The Researchers also discovered that the chemokine circulates outside of muscle tissue in the cells that line blood vessel walls, the lung and the intestine. There seems to be a correlation with other inflammatory illnesses, such as atherosclerosis, and the chemokine CXL5.
Puzzled researchers have found in the past that although a large percentage of obese individuals are insulin resistant, others are not, causing further study to be needed.
Inflammation appears to be the reason for the discrepancy. Rather than obesity being the primary cause of Type 2 Diabetes, the results of this study seem to point to the chemokine CXL5 as the factor that determines whether or not an individual will develop diabetes.
