Defenestration and the Roots of Age-Related Insulin Resistance

Defenestration is apparently a word with two meanings. The second, a scientific term, is the removal or loss of fenestrations. Let it never be said that this is not a place of learning. What, one might ask, are fenestrations? This is another word adopted by the scientific community and given an additional meaning: it refers to a collection of small openings or pores in our biology. The particular small openings or pores that concern us today are those found in the blood vessels of the liver, one of the organs involved in the development and progression of type 2 diabetes. While we might tend to think of type 2 diabetes as a disease caused by excess fat tissue, and for more than 90% of patients in our modern era of cheap calories this is entirely true, it is also the case that the damage of aging ultimately leads to a similar dysfunction in insulin metabolism. The path to the same end is quite different, however. While even the comparatively late stages of visceral-fat-induced diabetes can be reversed through a sustained low-calorie diet and loss of that fat, there is nothing much that can yet be done to effectively deal with purely age-related diabetes. This is just one of the many age-related conditions we'd like to reverse through rejuvenation therapies based on the SENS research programs. The short open access commentary below summarizes some of the mechanisms involved in loss of insulin sensitivity in the old, distinct from those losses caused by fat tissue....
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs