Abstract
Many environmental changes have accompanied the rising onset of obesity and diabetes. Much has changed in the world to explain this epidemic incidence of obesity and diabetes and many of those changes have not been carefully studied. Foods have changed, living conditions, activity levels, the air we breathe have all changed. In this lecture, the speaker will present evidence that redox changes in response to nutritional state and some food additives and may serve to communicate the metabolic status to all tissues. These redox changes may influence tissue specific functions probably through generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Previous studies have explored the role of intracellular redox in regulating metabolism. The capacity of extracellular redox to communicate to the inside of the cell is potentially an important form of inter-organ communication that may prove exciting for further investigation and possible intervention. If the concept that redox-driven ROS generation is validated, particularly in humans, it may be possible to use this knowledge in food selection and to prevent a cascade from β-cell hypersecretion of insulin secretion leading to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
The approach the speaker will discuss and the model she will present introduces the novel concept of redox as a master regulator of metabolism. Metabolism generates signals to alter metabolic function in β-cells and other tissues thus regulating anabolic and catabolic function appropriately. This is perhaps analogous to the generally accepted concept of transcriptional master switches that regulate families of anabolic and catabolic genes. Data also suggest that it is important to assess environmental factors that have arisen in recent decades as modifiers of redox or ROS and thus metabolic state.
About the speaker
Prof Barbara Corkey received her PhD at University of Pennsylvania in 1981. She was a Research Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in University of Pennsylvania from 1983-1986 and joined Boston University as an Assistant Professor in 1987. She is currently the Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and the Director of Obesity Research Center in the Boston Medical Center.
Prof Corkey’s research focuses on the metabolic regulation of signal transduction and energy metabolism in fat cells, β-cells, and human fibroblasts. She and her colleagues have been studying fuel-stimulated insulin secretion by the pancreatic β-cell; fuel partitioning in rat adipocytes; cytokine signaling; and Ca2+ transients in human fibroblasts from patients with inborn errors of fatty acid oxidation and type 1 diabetes.
Prof Corkey received numerous awards including Banting Medal for Outstanding Research in Diabetes by American Diabetes Association (2011); Paul Lacy Medal Lecture by Midwest Islet Club, Indianapolis, Indiana (2010), the George Bray Founders Award by the Obesity Society: NAASO, New Orleans (2007) and the MERIT Award by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) (1991).
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