Insulin Isn’t the Only Blood Sugar Regulator

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 5, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Scientists have recognized for 100 years that insulin is the physique’s most important mechanism for controlling blood sugar ranges, however researchers have now found a second hormone does the identical job a bit in another way — and so they say it may very well be a brand new goal for treating diabetes.

The hormone, referred to as FGF1, is produced within the physique’s fats tissue. Like insulin, it swiftly lowers sugar ranges within the blood, however researchers present in mice that it really works independently of insulin, and by a unique mechanism.

Type 2 diabetes arises when the physique turns into immune to insulin, resulting in chronically excessive blood ranges of glucose (sugar). Over time, that may take a toll on the physique’s arteries and nerves, resulting in problems like coronary heart and kidney illness, stroke, imaginative and prescient issues and everlasting nerve injury.

In the brand new research, scientists discovered FGF1 suppresses the breakdown of fats tissue, which reduces the liver’s capability to churn out glucose. Insulin additionally does these issues, however FGF1 accomplishes it by way of a unique “signaling pathway” within the physique.

And in lab mice with insulin resistance, injections of FGF1 considerably decrease blood sugar.

“This mechanism is mainly a second loop, with all some great benefits of a parallel pathway,” mentioned research writer Gencer Sancar, a postdoctoral researcher on the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

“In insulin resistance, insulin signaling is impaired,” Sancar mentioned in an institute information launch. “However, with a unique signaling cascade, if one shouldn’t be working, the opposite can. That approach you continue to have the management of [fat breakdown] and blood glucose regulation.”

However, whether or not the animal findings will finally translate to folks with kind 2 diabetes stays to be seen.

One query is whether or not people who find themselves insulin-resistant would even be immune to FGF1, famous Dr. Emily Gallagher, an endocrinologist who was not concerned within the research.

She mentioned it is also potential that focusing on FGF1 may very well be efficient in sure folks with kind 2 diabetes, however not others.

“Type 2 diabetes is a posh situation the place totally different people have totally different metabolic profiles,” defined Gallagher, an assistant professor within the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Diseases on the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Scientists had recognized one thing concerning the workings of FGF1. In previous research, the Salk researchers discovered that it lowered blood sugar in lab mice, and when given regularly it lessened insulin resistance within the animals.

The new research, revealed Jan. 4 within the journal Cell Metabolism, delved into precisely how the hormone works.

The researchers discovered that, much like insulin, FGF1 suppresses fats breakdown, which in flip helps management blood sugar. But its modus operandi is totally different: Insulin acts by means of an enzyme referred to as PDE3B, which units off a series of occasions referred to as a signaling pathway.

FGF1 makes use of a unique enzyme — referred to as PDE4.

“Now that we have got a brand new pathway, we will determine its function in power homeostasis within the physique and how one can manipulate it,” mentioned senior research writer Michael Downes, a employees scientist at Salk.

Gallagher mentioned it is “very fascinating” that FGF1 can have insulin-like results in fats tissue. But rather more stays to be discovered.

More lab analysis, she mentioned, is required to know the long-term results of FGF1 on insulin signaling and insulin resistance.

“And in folks,” Gallagher mentioned, “it might be vital to know extra concerning the systemic results of administering FGF1, as FGF1 impacts many organ programs — together with the inflammatory system — and in addition can alter tumor progress.”

Whether manipulating the hormone, or the proteins it regulates, can be acceptable in folks with kind 2 diabetes “stays to be decided,” Gallagher mentioned.

More data

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has extra on kind 2 diabetes.

SOURCES: Emily Gallagher, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Diseases, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City; Cell Metabolism, Jan. 4, 2022; Salk Institute, information launch, Jan. 4, 2022