Advances on metabolic diseases

The worldwide increase in obesity leads to severe metabolic diseases and represents a major health challenge. Among them, type 2 diabetes affects already hundreds of millions of people. Despite huge research effort, new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches still need to be found.

Lipids as potential biomarkers

Type 2 diabetes is diagnosed as an increase in blood glucose level. However, many factors contribute to the development of this very heterogenous disease. In their recent article in Acta Physiologica, researchers from the laboratory of Pr. Charna DIBNER identified lipids which could act as potential biomarkers of type 2 diabetes. One of them, deoxyceramide appeared to be particularly abundant in the blood of diabetic individuals. This study paves the way of a better identification of diabetic types and represent an important step towards personalized medicine in diabetes.

Lipid metabolite analyses in human blood and metabolic tissues (skeletal muscle and white adipose tissue) using mass-spectrometry based lipidomics allow to establish tissue-specific and disease-specific lipid signatures in humans.

The role of inflammation

As diabetes, whatever its type, provokes an inflammatory stress, scientists tried also to understand the specific mechanisms involved. The pancreas contains islets where cells that produce blood glucose regulating hormones are grouped together. In their recent article in International Journal of Molecular Sciences, researchers highlighted that inflammatory stress perturbs the circadian clocks of these pancreatic islets. According to the exact mechanism and importance of this clock dysregulation, these results might contribute to the development of antidiabetic drugs.

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