Expanding Our Knowledge About Expanding Waistlines

December 28, 2006 – 7:58 am | posted in Diabetes, Endocrinology, Obesity / Weight Loss

The body ensures a constant level of energy is available to all of its cells through a complex system that includes regulating how much food we eat, how much of the digested food we absorb, how much of the digested food we store away, and how much of our energy store we release for use. If this balance is upset, individuals can become obese and develop type 2 diabetes. Two hormones produced by the gut, GIP and GLP1R, are involved in this process and are known to help control the amount of insulin (the hormone that causes energy in the form of glucose to be stored) released by the pancreas. But now, new roles for GIP and GLP1R outside the pancreas have been identified, in mice, by researchers from the University of Toronto.

In a study appearing online in advance of publication in the January print issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Daniel Drucker and colleagues used mice lacking either the receptor for GIP, the receptor for GLP1R or both receptors to show that the effects of GIP and GLP1R on energy levels are not restricted to the pancreas. GLP1R was shown to decrease energy expenditure by altering the functions of cells in the brain and GIP was shown to enhance energy storage as fat and reduce energy expenditure by altering the functions of cells in the adipose tissue (fat tissue) and brain. This study increases our understanding of the function of these two hormones and might influence the development of drugs designed to target these hormones for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

TITLE: Extrapancreatic incretin receptors modulate glucose homeostasis, body weight, and energy expenditure

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