Endocrine system and metabolic diseases articles within Nature

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  • Autumn Books |

    David Katz applauds an analysis of the carbonated-drinks industry and public health.

    • David Katz

  • News & Views |

    A microneedle-containing patch that is designed to sense elevated blood glucose levels and to respond by releasing insulin could offer people with diabetes a less-painful and more-reliable way to manage their condition.

    • Omid Veiseh
    •  & Robert Langer

  • Letter |

    Group 2 innate lymphoid cells are shown to have a critical role in energy homeostasis by producing methionine-enkephalin peptides in response to interleukin 33, thus promoting the beiging of white adipose tissue; increased numbers of beige (also known as brown-like or brite) fat cells in white adipose tissue leads to increased energy expenditure and decreased adiposity.

    • Jonathan R. Brestoff
    • , Brian S. Kim
    •  & David Artis

  • Article |

    Non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS), widely used food additives considered to be safe and beneficial alternatives to sugars, are shown here to lead to the development of glucose intolerance through compositional and functional changes in the gut microbiota of mice, and the deleterious metabolic effects are transferred to germ-free mice by faecal transplant; NAS-induced dysbiosis and glucose intolerance are also demonstrated in healthy human subjects.

    • Jotham Suez
    • , Tal Korem
    •  & Eran Elinav

  • Letter |

    An investigation of the influence of age on the generation of insulin-producing cells after β-cell loss in mice reveals that, whereas α-cells can reprogram to produce insulin from puberty to adulthood, efficient reconstitution in the very young is through δ-cell reprogramming, leading to complete diabetes recovery.

    • Simona Chera
    • , Delphine Baronnier
    •  & Pedro L. Herrera

  • Letter |

    An association mapping study of type-2-diabetes-related quantitative traits in the Greenlandic population identified a common variant in TBC1D4 that increases plasma glucose levels and serum insulin levels after an oral glucose load and type 2 diabetes risk, with effect sizes several times larger than any previous findings of large-scale genome-wide association studies for these traits.

    • Ida Moltke
    • , Niels Grarup
    •  & Torben Hansen

  • Letter |

    Obesity-associated noncoding sequences within FTO are functionally connected with IRX3, and long-range enhancers in this region recapitulate aspects of IRX3 expression, suggesting that the obesity-associated interval is part of IRX3 regulation; Irx3-deficient mice have lower body weight and are resistant to diet-induced obesity, suggesting IRX3 as a novel determinant of body mass and composition.

    • Scott Smemo
    • , Juan J. Tena
    •  & Marcelo A. Nóbrega

  • Letter |

    The three-dimensional structure of the insulin–insulin receptor complex has proved elusive, confounded by the complexity of producing the receptor protein; here is the first glimpse of the interaction between insulin and its primary binding site on the insulin receptor, a view based on four crystal structures of insulin bound to truncated insulin receptor complexes.

    • John G. Menting
    • , Jonathan Whittaker
    •  & Michael C. Lawrence

  • World View |

    The energy in–energy out hypothesis is not set in stone, argues Gary Taubes. It is time to test hormonal theories about why we get fat.

    • Gary Taubes

  • News & Views |

    An innovative method for probing the genomes of the vast community of microorganisms that inhabit the human gut provides an alternative approach to identifying risk factors for type 2 diabetes. See Letter p.55

    • Julia Oh
    •  & Julia A. Segre

  • Article |

    The authors have developed a new method, metagenome-wide association study (MGWAS), to compare the combined genetic content of the faecal microbiota of healthy people versus patients with type 2 diabetes; they identify multiple microbial species and metabolic pathways that are associated with either cohort and show that some of these may be used as biomarkers.

    • Junjie Qin
    • , Yingrui Li
    •  & Jun Wang

  • Letter |

    A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of phenotypic variation for height and body mass index in human populations using 170,000 samples shows that one single nucleotide polymorphism at the FTO locus, which is associated with obesity, is also associated with phenotypic variation.

    • Jian Yang
    • , Ruth J. F. Loos
    •  & Peter M. Visscher

  • News |

    Obesity treatment shows promise for patients with diabetes despite concerns that it could cause heart complications.

    • Brendan Borrell

  • Outlook |

    The number of people living with, and dying of, diabetes across the world is shocking: 90 million Chinese live with diabetes and 1.3 million died in 2011; 23% of Qatari adults have developed diabetes. Here we chart the extent of the global epidemic and present some of the implications for national governments by Tony Scully.

    • Tony Scully

  • Outlook |

    Decades of study into the causes of diabetes have produced no definitive answers.

    • Erika Jonietz

  • Outlook |

    While type 1 diabetes might be promising ground for a vaccine, the most effective way to avoid type 2 remains good old-fashioned diet and exercise.

    • Scott P. Edwards

  • Outlook |

    Artificial pancreases promise to take the decision-making — and human mistakes — out of managing type 1 diabetes.

    • Elie Dolgin

  • Outlook |

    Promising drugs to treat diabetes stumble in the latter stages of clinical testing. Thomas Mandrup-Poulsen explains why — and how to fix it.

    • Thomas Mandrup-Poulsen

  • News & Views |

    The protein Sema3A both restrains bone degradation and stimulates bone building in mice, suggesting a potential therapy for conditions such as osteoporosis. See Article p.69

    • Mone Zaidi
    •  & Jameel Iqbal

  • Article |

    Downregulation of the glucose transporter GLUT4 in adipose tissue occurs early in the development of type 2 diabetes; here GLUT4-mediated glucose uptake is shown to induce a novel form of the transcription factor ChREBP, which regulates de novo lipogenesis and systemic glucose metabolism.

    • Mark A. Herman
    • , Odile D. Peroni
    •  & Barbara B. Kahn

  • News |

    Profiles of a researcher's genes, proteins and more show personalized genomic medicine in action.

    • Carina Dennis

  • Editorial |

    The soaring incidence of diabetes is driving the United Arab Emirates' science ambitions.

  • News & Views Forum |

    Variation in a genomic region that contains the cancer-associated gene ATM affects a patient's response to the diabetes drug metformin. Two experts discuss the implications for understanding diabetes and the link to cancer.

    • Morris J. Birnbaum
    •  & Reuben J. Shaw

  • Letter |

    A non-coding region on chromosome 9p21 was previously shown to associate with coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes, and the region has been implicated in regulating neighbouring genes. Here, 33 distinct enhancers within this region are identified, showing that SNPs in one of the enhancers affect STAT1 binding. Furthermore, it is shown that in human vascular endothelial cells the enhancer interval physically interacts with a number of specific loci and that IFN-γ activation strongly affects the chromatin structure and transcriptional regulation of the 9p21 locus, including STAT1 binding, long-range enhancer interactions and expression of neighbouring genes.

    • Olivier Harismendy
    • , Dimple Notani
    •  & Kelly A. Frazer

  • News & Views |

    With the spread of fast-food outlets and more sedentary lifestyles, the prevalence of diabetes in India is rising alarmingly. But the subpopulations at risk and the symptoms of the disease differ from those in the West.

    • Jared Diamond

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