Cell Metab: new findings help prevent metabolic diseases caused by aging

November 20, 2019 / biourn / - recently, Yale University researchers revealed why "abdominal fat" around organs increases with age, which can provide new treatment possibilities for improving metabolic health, thus reducing the risk of inflammatory diseases such as diabetes and atherosclerosis The study, led by Dr Vishwa deep Dixit, Professor of comparative medicine and immunobiology at Waldemar von zedtwitz, was published in the journal Cell Metabolism on November 15 Previous work has found that the body's ability to generate energy by burning abdominal fat declines with age As a result, fat around the internal organs increases in the elderly Dixit's lab found that the immune cells (called macrophages) necessary for the fat burning process are still active, but their total number is declining as abdominal fat increases with age (image source: www Pixabay Com) the latest study found that as animals age, fat B cells in abdominal fat unexpectedly proliferate, leading to increased inflammation and decreased metabolic levels "These fat B cells are a unique source of inflammation, and usually they produce antibodies and protect against infection," Dixit said But with the increase of age, the function of fat B cells will increase, which will lead to metabolic diseases " When they work properly, some B cells expand as needed to protect the body from infection and then contract to baseline But as they age, they don't contract in abdominal fat "This makes animals prone to diabetes and metabolic disorders, such as inability to burn fat." In theory, this sustained expansion may be due to an increase in human life expectancy - the evolution of human cells beyond their limits The researchers found that fat B cells expand by receiving signals from nearby macrophages In correlation, they found that by reducing macrophage signaling and removing fat B cells, they could reverse the amplification process and prevent age-related metabolic health decline In response to this finding, the authors suggest that drugs targeting these dysfunctional fat B cells can be reused to improve health and prevent metabolic diseases For example, a drug called cytokine IL-1B, which reduces a small protein that drives the process, is currently used to prevent heart disease "It's important to study whether reducing this cytokine in the elderly can reduce the proliferation of B cells in abdominal fat," Dixit said Information source: new finding offers position for prevention age related metallic disease original source: Christina D Campell, Patrick g ü nther, Aileen Lee, Emily L Goldberg, Olga sparro, Yun He young, Andrzej Bartke, gene B Hubbard, Yuji Ikeno, Nancy h rule, Joachim Schultze, Vishwa Deep Dixit Aging Induces an Nlrp3 Inflammasome-Dependent Expansion of Adipose B Cells That Impairs Metabolic Homeostasis Cell Metabolism , 2019; DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.10.006