Endocrinology

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The global diabetes epidemic as a consequence of lifestyle-induced low-grade inflammation
Diabetologia - Clinical and Experimental Diabetes and Metabolism, 11/09/09

Kolb H et al. – The recent major increase in the global incidence of type 2 diabetes suggests that most cases of this disease are caused by changes in environment and lifestyle. All major risk factors for type 2 diabetes (overnutrition, low dietary fibre, sedentary lifestyle, sleep deprivation and depression) have been found to induce local or systemic low–grade inflammation that is usually transient or milder in individuals not at risk for type 2 diabetes. By contrast, inflammatory responses to lifestyle factors are more pronounced and prolonged in individuals at risk of type 2 diabetes and appear to occur also in the pancreatic islets. Chronic low–grade inflammation will eventually lead to overt diabetes if counter–regulatory circuits to inflammation and metabolic stress are compromised because of a genetic and/or epigenetic predisposition. Hence, it is not the lifestyle change per se but a deficient counter–regulatory response in predisposed individuals which is crucial to disease pathogenesis. Novel approaches of intervention may target these deficient defence mechanisms.

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