Grant: Operating Grant

The current obesity epidemic is responsible for an increased incidence and decreased age of onset of type 2 (insulin-resistant) diabetes. It is therefore imperative to understand the mechanisms responsible for the development of insulin resistance in obesity. It was once thought that adipose (fat) cells simply store excess fat. Importantly, work in recent years has indicated that fat cells also make and secrete a range of substances that can travel in the bloodstream to affect other parts of the body. These substances have now been shown to play a role in controlling blood glucose levels. Specifically, here we will further investigate the ability of adiponectin to regulate glucose uptake and metabolism in skeletal muscle cells, a major target tissue of insulin action. We are only now beginning to understand the events stimulated by adiponectin to occur inside muscle cells which control the use of glucose and fatty acids. It is anticipated that development of results arising from this work may potentially yield new therapies to prevent or treat diabetes and its associated complications.