Our laboratory, through extensive study of pancreatic islet cells, has observed that obesity-induced diabetes involves an accumulation of triglycerides within these cells. This accumulation leads to apoptosis of the islets by increasing ceramide formation, which results in enhanced nitric oxide production. Diabetes occurs in obesity because the reduced population of b -cells cannot meet the increased demands for insulin imposed by the elevated triglyceride content of the target tissues of insulin.
Identical abnormalities occur in nonadipose tissue throughout the body.
This breakdown in triglyceride homeostasis is the result of insensitivity to leptin. This laboratory has demonstrated that leptin serves to regulate triglyceride homeostasis in nonadipocytes such as the pancreatic islets. The cause of the leptin insensitivity in obesity and aging, America's most common health problems, is the focus of the work of this laboratory. Novel form of lipolysis induced by leptin. A link between obesity and diabetes.