Grant: Project Grant - PA: Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes

The development of metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes are characterized by progressive difficulty in handling sugar and fat, often leading to the dysfunction of various organs including the heart. Exercise and nutritional interventions have shown varying success in counteracting the development of these diseases. One emerging approach proposed as a potent stimulus to disrupt the metabolic dysfunction observed in obesity and type 2 diabetes is the application of mild cold exposure. In healthy individuals, cold exposure can increase energy expenditure and the utilization of sugar and fat stored in our body or from a meal. Repeated exposures to the cold can lead to improvements in glucose and insulin levels, and change the proportion of sugar and fat taken up by specific organs, even in healthy individuals. These changes in the utilization of sugar, fat and the organs involved in taking up these fuels are consistent with the needs required to treat or prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. The objectives of this proposal are to determine how daily cold exposure can improve the dissipation of energy following a meal and the organs most adaptable to these changes in individuals with prediabetes, who show persistently elevated levels of insulin and fat in the blood and an impaired tolerance to glucose. Using a medical imaging technique with the injection of a fat tracer and ingestion of a separate fat tracer mixed within a milkshake, we will determine how repeated exposures to the cold can improve glucose and insulin levels, which organs are responsible for these improvements and where the fat from a milkshake can be redirected to protect vital organ function. The proposed research will determine whether repeated exposures to the cold can elicit metabolic improvements, analogous to an exercise intervention, as a means of providing a complementary treatment strategy to counteract the development of type 2 diabetes.