Grant: Project Grant

Obesity kills over 4 million people every year worldwide. Meanwhile, more and more are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and its cardiovascular complications. This is especially so in women. Abnormal storage, within the human body, of the fats that come from our food is linked to heart and liver disorders, offering a possible explanation as to why obesity so often leads to T2D and its complications. "Bariatric" surgery may reset dietary fat storage in fat tissues while leading to rapid remission of T2D within days. Using our unique medical imaging methods, we discovered that improved dietary fat storage in abdominal fat seems to improve heart and liver disorders in persons with T2D after bariatric surgery. This may open up an entirely new treatment strategy to prevent and cure T2D and its cardiovascular complications. This new study therefore aims to demonstrate a cause to effect relationship between improved dietary fat storage and improved heart and liver metabolism and function, in persons suffering from obesity and T2D who have undergone bariatric surgery. Our study will include a sufficient number of women and men, with and without T2D, in order to be able to detect any significant differences in results between both sexes. We recently made exciting technological additions to our state-of-the-art medical imaging methods and facilities to measure all features of fat tissue fatty acid metabolism. We have also validated a pharmacological approach that improves dietary fat storage in fat tissues. Both will help us understand the exact impact of improved dietary fat storage, and whether it is key to remission of T2D after bariatric surgery. We will also investigate how the liver manages to get rid of excess fat, as well as how the heart's use of energy and functions improve in obese persons with T2D after bariatric surgery. Our results may lead to a new therapy to help protect people with T2D against deadly heart and liver complications.