(Press-News.org) SAN FRANCISCO-- Reduced effectiveness of the hormone insulin, or insulin resistance, is associated with weakened bones, a clinical study shows. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
In the United States, the incidence of diabetes is quickly mounting. Between the years of 1980 and 2011, the number of cases diagnosed jumped from about 6 million to nearly 21 million, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Type 2 diabetes is the result of insulin resistance, which causes cells to react improperly to the insulin that is secreted. Normally, insulin helps regulate sugar, or glucose, concentrations in the blood. With insulin resistance, the pancreas produces increased amounts of the hormone to compensate. This leads to abnormally high levels of insulin in the blood, or hyperinsulinemia.
In turn, hyperinsulinemia increases the risk of other diseases. Left unchecked, it can cause high blood pressure, obesity and other serious complications. Together, these conditions are known as metabolic syndrome, which greatly increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
In addition, type 2 diabetes is linked to a greater risk of bone fractures, even though bone-mineral density often is higher among diabetics, compared to non-diabetics. To assess the effects of insulin resistance on bone strength, researchers correlated bone strength relative to load with the level of insulin resistance.
They found that bone strength decreased by 10 to 14 percent every time insulin resistance doubled. This decrease in bone strength corresponded to high insulin levels in the blood, rather than high blood-sugar concentrations.
"This finding could have significant public health implications for the bone health of a large number of obese individuals, both those with and those without type 2 diabetes," said the study's lead author Preethi Srikanthan, MD, associate clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Being obese not only increases your risk of being diabetic, but it also increases your risk for fragile bones."
Researchers assessed bone strength with a special X-ray test that measures bone-mineral density. They combined bone density with bone size and body height and weight to estimate bone strength relative to load. They then analyzed insulin resistance by measuring levels of sugar and insulin in blood samples, and correlated these data with the bone strength data, adjusted for age, sex, race and, for women, menopause transition status.
They obtained study data from 717 participants in a nationwide project called the Biomarker Project of the Midlife in the United States Study.
###
Founded in 1916, The Endocrine Society is the world's oldest, largest and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology. Today, The Endocrine Society's membership consists of over 16,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in more than 100 countries. Society members represent all basic, applied and clinical interests in endocrinology. The Endocrine Society is based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at http://www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter.
Insulin resistance linked to weaker bones
2013-06-17
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Skipping breakfast may make obese women insulin resistant
2013-06-17
SAN FRANCISCO—- Overweight women who skip breakfast experience acute, or rapid-onset, insulin resistance, a condition that, when chronic, is a risk factor for diabetes, a new study finds. The results, which were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, suggest that regularly skipping breakfast over time may lead to chronic insulin resistance and thus could increase an individual's risk for type 2 diabetes.
"Our study found that acute insulin resistance developed after only one day of skipping breakfast," said the study's lead author, ...
Short-term antidepressant use, stress, high-fat diet linked to long-term weight gain
2013-06-17
SAN FRANCISCO—- Short-term use of antidepressants, combined with stress and a high-fat diet, is associated with long-term increases in body weight, a new animal study finds. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
"Our study suggests that short-term exposure to stress and antidepressants, rather than a high-calorie, high-fat diet alone, leads to long-term body weight gain, accompanied with increased bone and spleen weights," said study lead author Suhyun Lee, a PhD candidate in the medical sciences at the John ...
Father's diet before conception affects offspring's body fat in mice
2013-06-17
SAN FRANCISCO—- When fathers eat a high-fat diet before conception of offspring, the male offspring have increased body weight after weaning and high body fat in midlife despite eating a low-fat diet, a new study in mice finds. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
"Many researchers have studied the effects of maternal diet on the risk of obesity in their children. We found that the father's diet also affects the offspring in ways that are inherited," said the study's principal investigator, Felicia V. Nowak, ...
JCI early table of contents for June 17, 2013
2013-06-17
Scouring the genome of adenoid cystic carcinoma
Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a slow-growing and often fatal malignancy that can occur at multiple organ site, but is most frequently found in the salivary glands. The primary treatment is surgical removal; however, the majority of patients develop metastatic disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Andrew Futreal at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, MA, performed a type of genetic sequencing known as whole exome sequencing of 24 ACC cases. They identified a genetic ...
Scouring the genome of adenoid cystic carcinoma
2013-06-17
Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a slow-growing and often fatal malignancy that can occur at multiple organ site, but is most frequently found in the salivary glands. The primary treatment is surgical removal; however, the majority of patients develop metastatic disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Andrew Futreal at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, MA, performed a type of genetic sequencing known as whole exome sequencing of 24 ACC cases. They identified a genetic translocation that can precipitate disease ...
Variants in the SIM1 gene are associated with severe obesity
2013-06-17
Although body weight is largely determined by lifestyle factors, increasingly research is revealing that genetics also play an important role in determining an individual's susceptibility to obesity. Identifying the mutations that underlie the fraction of obese patients with monogenic obesity can help us to understand complex processes like metabolic rate, eating behavior, growth, and fat storage. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, two groups identified obesity-linked mutations in the gene SIM1. Sadaf Farooqi and colleagues at Addenbrooke's Hospital ...
Eating behaviors of preschoolers may be related to future risk of heart disease
2013-06-17
Eating behaviours of preschoolers may be associated with risk of cardiovascular disease in later life, suggests a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
A study of 1076 preschool children aged 3–5 years in the TARGet Kids! practice-based research network in Toronto, Ontario, looked at the link between eating habits and serum levels of non–high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, which is a surrogate marker of later cardiovascular risk. Parents filled out questionnaires assessing eating behaviours, such as watching television while eating, dietary ...
Mobile health devices can improve health care access in developing countries, remote regions
2013-06-17
Mobile health technology has substantial potential for improving access to health care in the developing world and in remote regions of developed countries, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
In many countries, access to health care is hampered by lack of medical professionals and health care infrastructure, limited or poor equipment, sporadic power and other obstacles. However, the development of remote-presence medical devices can help fill this void by connecting people in remote locations with experienced health care professionals for ...
Abnormalities in new molecular pathway may increase breast cancer risk
2013-06-17
PHILADELPHIA — A new molecular pathway involving the gene ZNF365 has been identified and abnormalities in that pathway may predict worse outcomes for patients with breast cancer, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"Genomic instability is an increased tendency for abnormal changes in DNA, like the addition of extra copies of chromosomes, DNA breaks and mutations," said Ji-Hye Paik, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in ...
Exposure to BPA in developing prostate increases risk of later cancer
2013-06-17
Early exposure to BPA (bisphenol A) – an additive commonly found in plastic water bottles and soup can liners – causes an increased cancer risk in an animal model of human prostate cancer, according to University of Illinois at Chicago researcher Gail Prins.
Prins presented her findings at the ENDO 2013 meeting in San Francisco June 17.
"This is the first direct evidence that exposure to BPA during development, at the levels we see in our day-to-day environment, increases the risk for prostate cancer in human prostate tissue," said Prins, professor of physiology and director ...