Grant: Project Grant

Young and healthy people are able to easily metabolize (burn) the fuel from the foods we eat (sugar, fat, protein) to generate energy for supporting our daily living. Just as important, the body of a young and healthy person is flexible with regards to how it uses fuel to generate energy based on the nutritional environment. This means that when a young and healthy person is fasting/starving, their body can readily use fat for energy due to its increased abundance in the bloodstream. On the other hand, when a young and healthy person eats a meal containing sugar (carbohydrates), their body can easily switch to using that sugar as a major energy source. Unfortunately, as a young and healthy person ages, their body loses the flexibility to switch between fuel sources regardless of their nutritional environment. This is likely a major factor explaining why people are more likely to develop diabetes and other chronic diseases as they age. The goals of our research are to understand why our bodies lose their flexibility with regards to how we burn fuels for energy as we age, and whether we can reverse this process to delay aging-related diabetes and potentially other diseases of the elderly.