by UC Davis Health System News
UC Davis researchers find adipose cells that cause diseases in patients with metabolic syndrome.
UC Davis Health System researchers have discovered biological indicators that explain why some obese people develop chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases, and others don’t. Researchers adopted a fresh focus to specifically see the body fat of individuals with metabolic syndrome, which is a disease characterized by high levels of blood pressure, high levels of glucose on an empty stomach, excessive abdominal fat and abnormal levels of cholesterol.
They found out that adipose cells release biological markers associated to a resistance to insulin and chronic inflammation, conditions that generally cause diabetes or heart diseases.
“Our study shows that obesity is not always the same and that certain fat can actually be toxic”, said Ishwarlal Jialal, endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism professor and main author of an article entitled “Deregulation of Adipose Tissue in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome”, published today on Internet in the Clinic Endocrinology and Metabolism Magazine.
“We have proven that the fat in individuals with metabolic syndrome is more than what can be explained regarding obesity. It indicates us that the metabolic syndrome is a high risk condition for obese individuals”. Although previous studies using circulating blood discovered some of these biological indicators in individuals with metabolic syndrome, the current study is the first in identifying fat as a contributor for these markers.
“This clearly shows that the metabolic syndrome is of high risk for obesity and needs to be treated seriously”, said Jialal, who runs the Laboratory of UC Davis for Metabolic Research and Arteriosclerosis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 35 per cent of adult Americans have metabolic syndrome, and its preponderance is increasing even in children and young adults globally.
The metabolic syndrome doubles the risk of a person’s likelihood of developing heart diseases -which can lead to heart attacks and strokes — and represents five times higher risk to develop diabetes. “It is a pest of these times”, said Jialal, who is also chief editor of the Metabolic Syndrome and Related Diseases magazine.
In the present study biopsies have been conducted to extract the subcutaneous adipose tissue, which makes up about 80 per cent of the body fat, from 65 patients’ buttocks: 39 recently diagnosed with metabolic syndrome and 26 obese. Researchers also carried out standard measurements such as blood pressure and level of glucose in an empty stomach, waist circumference and body mass index (BMI). Glucose measurements were used to estimate insulin resistance, and the waist measures such as the BMI, were used in the statistical analysis to compare the subjects of the study with their peers in the control group.
Then Jialal and his assistants measured 11 biological markers for diabetes and heart disease, and confronted the number of macrophage in the adipose tissue. These macrophages create a crown-shaped structure around the adipose cells that have surpassed their blood provision and have died. The presence of macrophages -cells of the immunologic system that swallow and destroy the cell residue –indicates the type of inflammatory response involved in the heart diseases.
Last year, Jialal published a study with the same 65 patients, indicating that they had dysfunctional endothelial parent cells (CPEs) and less endothelial parent cells than the subjects in the control group.
Eventually these cells make up the coating of the blood vessels and are used to measure heart health. Like in the current study, this abnormality can’t be explained simply by obesity.
The metabolic syndrome can be reversed with diet and physical activity to lose weight, although according to Jialal, other types of treatment might also be necessary. “I have been doing this for 34 years. It is difficult to achieve that people maintain therapeutic changes in their lifestyles”, said Jialal.
“Once people have diabetes or heart diseases, it is too late and much more expensive due to the complications that arise. Metabolic syndrome is the precedent. It is there where we should intervene”, said Jialal.
For more information, visit healthsystem.ucdavis.edu.
