Study finds sexual dimorphism in development of vascular insulin resistance induced by obese lifestyle

A new study from the University of Missouri School of Medicine is the first human evidence that short-term lifestyle changes can disrupt the way blood vessels respond to insulin. It’s also the first study to show that men and women respond differently to these changes.

Vascular insulin resistance is a feature of obesity and type 2 diabetes that contributes to vascular disease. Researchers studied vascular insulin resistance in 36 young and healthy men and women by subjecting them to reduced physical activity for 10 days and reducing their step count from 10,000 to 5,000 steps per day. The participants also increased their intake of sugary drinks to six cans of soda a day.

We know that insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease are lower in premenopausal women compared to men, but we wanted to see how men and women responded to reduced physical activity and increased sugar in their diets over a short period of time.”

Camila Manrique-Acevedo, MD, associate professor of medicine

The results showed that only in men, the sedentary lifestyle and high sugar intake led to decreased insulin-stimulated blood flow to the legs and a drop in a protein called adropine, which regulates insulin sensitivity and is an important biomarker of cardiovascular disease.

“These results underscore a gender difference in the development of vascular insulin resistance induced by adopting a high-sugar and low-physical lifestyle,” said Manrique-Acevedo. “To our knowledge, this is the first human evidence that vascular insulin resistance can be induced by short-term adverse lifestyle changes, and it is the first documentation of gender differences in the development of vascular insulin resistance associated with changes in adropine levels.”

Manrique-Acevedo said she next wants to study how long it takes to reverse these vascular and metabolic changes and more comprehensively assess the impact of gender’s role in the development of vascular insulin resistance.

The entire MU research team consisted of Jaume Padilla, PhD, associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology and co-author of this work; Luis Martinez-Lemus, DVM, PhD, professor of medicinal pharmacology and physiology, and R. Scott Rector, PhD, associate professor of nutrition. It also included postdocs Rogerio Soares, PhD; and graduate students James A. Smith and Thomas Jurrissen.

Their study, “Young women are protected from vascular insulin resistance induced by obesogenic lifestyle adoption,” was recently published in the journal Endocrinology. Part of the support for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health and a VA Merit Grant. The content does not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the funding body. The authors disclose no potential conflicts of interest.

Manrique-Acevedo and her collaborators operate from the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building at MU, which anchors the nationwide initiative to bring government and industry leaders together with innovators from the system’s four research universities to achieve life-changing advances in precision health. The University of Missouri Systems’ bold NextGen initiative underscores the promise of personalized healthcare and the impact of large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration.