A protein that can reverse type 2 diabetes

A simple protein could revolutionize the way we treat type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance.  

While the focus on weight loss and diabetes has always been on our white fat, the new therapy harnesses brown fat, the body’s second fat that burns sugars to warm us when we’re cold. Although it’s always been known that babies have brown fat, it was assumed we lose it as we get older, but it was only 20 years ago that researchers discovered adults retain some brown fat, usually around the shoulders, to regulate body temperature.

Adding the protein, perilipin 5, to brown adipose tissue (BAT) helps control levels of glucose, our blood sugars, and makes us more sensitive to insulin, which breaks down the sugars from the carbohydrates in our diet.  

Insulin resistance and the body’s inability to process sugars are the first signs of type 2 diabetes —and adding the protein to brown fat has a positive knock-on effect to the white fat as well, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Centre discovered.

They genetically engineered mice that made extra perilipin in their brown fat and, as a result, were able to maintain much lower concentrations of blood sugar and had higher insulin sensitivity.  The mice also had fewer fatty deposits in their livers, a condition that’s common in diabetes.

The protein prompted the brown fat to burn even more sugars than usual—a phenomenon that is usually seen only in extremely cold temperatures—and the lowering of glucose levels happened because the brown fat was somehow communicating with the white fat, although the exact mechanism isn’t understood.

(Source: Nature Communications. 2021; 12: doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23601-2)

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