LONDON - Drug researchers have found that a natural substance produced by fat cells plays an important role in determining whether someone becomes diabetic in later life.
The scientists believe that the findings could lead to the mass production of a drug to treat type-2 diabetes, which affects millions of people
and is one of the fastest-growing metabolic disorders.
Type-2 diabetes usually occurs when people develop resistance to their own insulin, a hormone that balances sugar levels in the bloodstream.
It usually affects those over the age of 40, and is linked with obesity. It can cause blindness, kidney damage and cardiovascular disease.
The latest findings focus on a substance called adiponectin, which is produced by fat cells and seems to play an important role in controlling the body's fat metabolism and energy balance.
Scientists have found that adiponectin injections "cure" a form of type-2 diabetes in laboratory mice.
The research was published in Nature Medicine. Specialist Dr Alan Saltiel said type-2 diabetes sufferers were often overweight and it was thought that fat cells, especially in muscle tissue, contributed to a lack of sensitivity to insulin.
Adiponectin appeared to work by burning fat in the muscle cells, which might in its turn retrigger the sensitivity.
He said fat cells were now recognised as tissue for secreting important hormones such as adiponectin that played a role in body metabolism and sugar regulation.
The findings were "highly preliminary", but they lent support to the idea that adiponectin might prove useful in the development of drugs to combat diabetes or even obesity.
"Either way," said Dr Saltiel, "an agent that burns fat is certain to be a big hit."
- INDEPENDENT
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