A study from Rutgers Health and other institutions indicates that stress hormones – not impaired cellular insulin signaling – may be the primary driver of obesity-related diabetes. The paper in Cell Metabolism may transform our understanding of how obesity-induced insulin resistance develops and how to treat it.
“We have been interested in the basic mechanisms of how obesity induces diabetes. Given that the cost of the diabetes epidemic in the U.S. alone exceeds $300 billion per year, this is a critically important question,” said Christoph Buettner, chief of endocrinology, metabolism and nutrition at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the study’s senior author. Scientists have long thought obesity causes diabetes by impairing the way insulin signals within liver and fat cells. However, the new research shows that overeating and obesity increase the body’s sympathetic nervous system – the “fight or flight” response – and that the increased level of the stress hormones norepinephrine and epinephrine counteract insulin’s effects even though cellular insulin signaling still works. To read the full story.