New genomic, proteomic tools yield clues to exercise/diet effects on obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes

Applying the latest genomic and proteomic techniques has given researchers new clues for the interaction between exercise and diet, glucose metabolism and improvement in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.

With obesity and the metabolic syndrome being increasingly recognized as emerging major public health problems, “biomarkers for the progression of NIDDM (non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, or type-2 diabetes) are sorely needed, as are quantitative endpoints for exercise and diet interventions,” according to Dustin S. Hittel of the Research Center for Genetic Medicine at Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC), Washington, D.C.

Hittel said the results of a recent study “indicate the widespread and differential expression of metabolic, contractile and signal transduction proteins with training. We believe that comparative mRNA and proteomic profiling has provided us with a unique insight into the underlying metabolic crisis in chronically untrained muscle and clues as to how exercise reverses these effects.”