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Researchers have discovered a link between obesity and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease. Using the fruit fly, the research shows that a high-sugar diet—a hallmark of obesity—causes insulin resistance in the brain, which in turn reduces the ability to remove neuronal debris, thus increasing the risk of neurodegeneration. Although obesity is known to be a risk factor for neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, exactly how one leads to the other remains a mystery. The study focused on this by taking advantage of the similarity between humans and fruit flies. Having previously shown that a high-sugar diet leads...

Research finds that shivering during repeated exposure to cold improves glucose tolerance, decreases fasting blood sugar and blood fat levels, and markedly reduces blood pressure in overweight and obese adults. The preliminary study highlights the potential for repeated cold exposure that activates shivering as an alternative strategy to treat and prevent type 2 diabetes (T2D). "When we are cold, we can activate our brown fat because it burns energy and releases heat to protect us. In addition, muscle can contract mechanically, or shivers, thereby generating heat. As there is considerably more muscle than brown fat in a human, shivering can...

New research identifies the importance of the protein adropin in preventing stiffness in the arteries of people with obesity and type 2 diabetes. Arterial stiffness is a condition associated with aging and insulin resistance, a chronic condition associated with obesity, and is a major contributor in the development of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke. Adropin, a protein produced by the liver and other tissues, is involved in maintaining energy balance in the body and the metabolism of fat and sugar. Previous studies have suggested that adropin also plays a role in regulating cardiovascular health. People with chronic conditions...

A major risk factor for diabetes, insulin resistance occurs when the cells of the body do not respond to insulin and cannot make use of the glucose (sugar) in the blood stream. The condition is known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis. George King, MD, identified a pathway in which the cells lining the blood vessels—called endothelial cells—drive the body's metabolism. In a reversal of scientific dogma, the findings suggest that vascular dysfunction may itself be the cause of undesirable metabolic changes that can lead to diabetes, not an effect as previously thought. In addition to being...

Researchers have invented a new analytical method that sheds light on an enduring mystery regarding type 2 diabetes: Why some obese patients develop the disease and others don't. For some patients, their body does not properly respond to insulin—it resists the effects of insulin, the hormone produced by the pancreas that opens the door for sugar to enter cells. In the later disease stages, when the pancreas is exhausted, patients don't produce enough insulin to maintain normal glucose levels. In either case, sugar builds up in the bloodstream and impairs many major organs, sometimes to disabling or life-threatening degrees. A...

Early signs of type 2 diabetes can be identified more than 20 years before diagnosis, according to new research presented at this year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting in Berlin, Germany (1-5 October). The Japanese study tracked over 27,000 non-diabetic adults (average age 49 years) between 2005 and 2016 and found that increased fasting glucose, higher body mass index (BMI) and impaired insulin sensitivity were detectable up to 10 years before the diagnosis of diabetes as well as prediabetes. [snip] "As the vast majority of people with type 2 diabetes go through the stage of...

Intestinal bacteria may contribute to obesity and metabolic syndrome, a new study in mice suggests. "It has been assumed that the obesity epidemic in the developed world is driven by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and the abundance of low-cost, high-calorie foods. However, our results suggest that excess caloric consumption is not only a result of undisciplined eating but that intestinal bacteria contribute to changes in appetite and metabolism," senior study author Andrew Gewirtz, an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, said in a university news release. He and his colleagues found that increased...

...ROS are also implicated in many theories of aging and cellular damage, which is why cells have several systems to try to soak these things up. That’s exactly why people take antioxidants, vitamin C and vitamin E especially. So. . .what if you take those while you’re exercising? A new paper in PNAS askes that exact question. About forty healthy young male volunteers took part in the study, which involved four weeks of identical exercise programs. Half of the volunteers were already in athletic training, and half weren’t. Both groups were then split again, and half of each cohort took...

Sweet reversal: Harmful effects of fructose traced to one protein in a study of mice Knocking out a liver protein in mice can reverse the damaging effects of a super-sweet diet. Diets loaded with high-fructose corn syrup wreak havoc on metabolic processes, but how fructose does its damage has been a mystery. The new study, appearing in the March 4 Cell Metabolism, identifies a possible culprit, a protein in the liver called PGC-1 beta. The new research is “putting together things that we know and making a link,” comments Carlos Hernandez of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The...

New research from University of Alabama at Birmingham identifies two genes that may play a role in insulin resistance, opening a new avenue for researchers searching for treatments for type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The UAB team found that two genes, NR4A3 and NR4A1, seem to boost insulin sensitivity in muscle tissue. Insulin lowers blood glucose, or sugar, by moving it from the bloodstream into skeletal muscle, where it is metabolized for energy or stored for later use. Type 2 diabetes results from either a shortage of insulin or from de-sensitized muscle that does not respond well to insulin,...

  Exercising, even moderately, can significantly reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome, a condition that increases heart disease and diabetes risk, among older adults, according to a study.The six-month study involved over 100 people between the ages of 55 and 75. Half were "prescribed" exercises ranging from weightlifting to walking, which were performed for one hour, three times a week. The other participants were given a booklet that encouraged increased activity to promote good health.Some 43 percent of participants had metabolic syndrome when the study began. At the end of six months, the following results were observed among the...