29 August DRC Director's Report - August 2024 August 29, 2024 By The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center 0 Accumulation of fat in the liver known as NAFLD (short for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease) is the most common chronic liver disease in people with obesity or type 2 diabetes, affecting up to 70%. Diabetes can increase the risk of NAFLD because the liver plays an important role in regulating blood sugar. When fat builds up in the liver, it can make it harder to control fasting glucose levels, but the cause of NAFLD is unknown. Obesity and type 2 diabetes change the levels of certain hormones produced by the pituitary gland, which are important for maintaining the balance of the immune system and metabolism in the liver. When this balance is disrupted, it can lead to NAFLD. However, there is not much known about how obesity affects the internal balance of the pituitary gland itself. Recent work led by FOEDRC faculty, Dr. Ling Yang, discovered that both obese mice and humans have a weaker stress response and higher levels of inflammation in their pituitary glands. This inflammation disrupts a specific stress response pathway, making it harder to prevent hormonal issues and the progression of NAFLD. Dr. Yang and her team also discovered that they could simulate the effect of obesity on the pituitary by removing a stress response gene called IRE1 from the pituitary gland. Interestingly, this caused hypothyroidism (a condition where the thyroid does not produce enough hormones) and reduced the ability of the liver to handle metabolic stressors like diabetes and fat accumulation. Dr. Yang and her team then administered a thyroid hormone-like medication to the mice, and found that the liver ability to handle metabolic stress was restored to normal and this improved NAFLD in mice with pituitary gland issues. The study by Dr. Ling and colleagues is the first to show how obesity causes problems in the pituitary gland and how the communication between the pituitary gland and liver affects the progression of NAFLD. Related Articles DRC Director's Report - August 2021 Postdoctoral research scholar, Calvin Carter, PhD, member of the FOEDRC and recipient of the prestigious FOE Bridge to the Cure award, in collaboration with other FOEDRC researchers, has discovered a safe new way to manage blood sugar non-invasively. Exposing diabetic mice to a combination of static electric and magnetic fields for a few hours per day normalized blood glucose levels and reversed insulin resistance. “The more we look, the more the transfer of electrons seems to underlie diabetes,” Carter said in a Q&A with the American Diabetes Association (ADA). That search was borne out last fall, when Carter and MD/PhD student Sunny Huang, PhD, published ground-breaking findings in Cell Metabolism, showing that static electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) can be used to normalize blood glucose in diabetic mice. Reactions in the press were excited and swift to the researchers’ evidence that blood sugar and insulin sensitivity could be controlled non-invasively. DRC Director's Report - August 2020 The prevalence of obesity continues to increase worldwide due to changes in dietary composition including the addition of sweetners to many food products and evolving patterns of eating behaviors. In particular, excessive consumption of sugars has been linked to metabolic diseases such as diabetes, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a liver-derived hormone that signals to the brain to reduce sugar intake, but the mechanism for this effect was unknown. This new study by Ph.D. student Sharon Jensen-Cody and other colleagues in the laboratory of Matt Potthoff, Associate Professor in the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Center and Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience discovered that FGF21 signals to specific nerve cells called glutamatergic neurons in the brain to lower sugar intake and sweet-taste preference. DRC Director's Report - August 2022 This June, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) hosted its 82nd Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, LA. Each year, thousands of attendees join together from across the world to hear the latest cutting-edge research. Sharing the latest scientific findings, the annual meeting is the largest and most important gathering focused on diabetes research. The ADA is the nation’s leading voluntary health organization fighting to bend the curve on the diabetes epidemic and help people living with diabetes thrive. For 82 years, the ADA has driven research to treat, manage and prevent diabetes while also working relentlessly for a cure. Diabetes is the most common underlying chronic condition in the United States. 133 million Americans currently live with diabetes or prediabetes and, in the last 20 years, the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes has more than doubled. The ADA is focused on timely, critical advancements in diabetes research and care. DRC Director's Report - August 2023 The FOEDRC maintains two Core Research Facilities. FOEDRC scientists rely heavily on these two Core Research Facilities. These Cores are centralized laboratories that allow researchers to perform experiments needing specialized technologies in a time- and cost-efficient way. This month we focus our report on the world-class FOEDRC Metabolomics Core Facility. DRC Director's Report - March 2024 Diabetes, the leading global journal for basic diabetes research, sought the expertise of Dr. Renata Pereira, a faculty member of the FOEDRC, to review and analyze recent development in specific, but important area of diabetes research. This state-of-the-art review recently authored by Dr. Pereira titled "Mitochondrial Dynamics, Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Disease" was published in the January edition of the journal. DRC Director's Report - September 2024 FOEDRC faculty, Dr. Samuel Stephens, Associate Professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Internal Medicine, has been awarded 2 major grants. The first is a three-year, $1.3M R01 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for his project, “Defining the contribution of mitochondrial redox metabolism to support proinsulin folding in the endoplasmic reticulum.” Showing 0 Comment