Evidence for Fat-Triggered Immune Dysfunction in the Liver to Contribute to the Symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes

In this research, scientists explore a link between the presence of excess fat and the dysfunctional blood sugar regulation that is characteristic of type 2 diabetes. The vast majority of type 2 diabetes patients suffer the condition because they are overweight, and could turn back its progression even in late stages through sustained low-calorie diets and losing that weight. Type 2 diabetes is a prevalent age-related disease because we live in an age of cheap calories and little exercise, older people have more time and opportunity to gain the necessary excess fat tissue to trigger the condition, and other mechanisms cause a decline in the aging pancreas and its beta cells, making it more likely that a given gain in weight will push metabolic syndrome over the line into full blown diabetes. Using cells from mice and human livers, researchers demonstrated for the first time how under specific conditions, such as obesity, liver CD8+ T cells, white blood cells which play an important role in the control of viral infections, become highly activated and inflammatory, reprogramming themselves into disease-driving cells. Scientists have been trying for many years to discover why the liver continues to pump out too much glucose in people with diabetes. This paper sheds light on the markers of activation and inflammation in CD8+ T cells and the Interferon-1 pathway which helps stimulate their function. In fact, the normal function of the immune cells becomes misdirected. The...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs