glucose tagged posts

Confocal image showing glucose signalling.

Glucose may actually be crucial in the fight against cancer and inflammatory disease as scientists have just discovered a new role in which it stimulates cells that work on the front line in the fight against tumours and infection. The immune cells become very active during an immune response, such as when responding to infection, and as a result they tend to have high demands for glucose. Unsurprisingly, when immune cells are starved of glucose, as might occur within tumours for instance, they become dysfunctional.

However, new research led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin shows that the immune cells that monitor our bodies for signs of danger (dendritic cells) are different—when they are starved of glucose they actually become better at s...

In comparison to other organs, the human brain has the highest energy requirements. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Zurich

They show for the 1st time in the intact mouse brain evidence for an exchange of lactate between different brain cells. With this study they were able to confirm a 20-year old hypothesis. In comparison to other organs, the human brain has the highest energy requirements. A hypothesis from the 1990’s postulates, that a well-orchestrated collaboration between astrocytes and neurons, is the basis of brain energy metabolism.

Astrocytes produce lactate, which flows to neurons to cover their high energy needs. Due to a lack of experimental techniques, it remained unclear whether an exchange of lactate existed between astrocytes and neurons...

Age-related onset of type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance may be due to the lowered ability of muscle mitochondria to switch from metabolizing fatty acids to metabolizing glucose in healthy elderly people compared to young people. Americans >65yo are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes or glucose intolerance. The reasons for this are largely unknown, but studies have shown that muscle insulin resistance, increased intramyocellular lipid content (IMCL, triglycerides located within muscles), and decreased metabolic rates are related to aging.

Singling out mitochondrial function in muscle cells is hard via indirect calorimetry which provide information about the body’s basal metabolic rate, not just metabolism in muscle cells...