Endocrine Abstracts

There is accumulating epidemiological evidence that a physically active life plays an independent role in the protection against type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, dementia and even depression. For most of the last century, researchers sought a link between muscle contraction and humoral changes in the form of an ‘exercise factor', which could be released from skeletal muscle during contraction and mediate some of the exercise-induced metabolic changes in o...

There is an accumulating amount of evidence that the metabolic adaptations to endurance exercise that result in increased intramuscular triglyceride (IMTG) stores and IMTG oxidation during exercise, also exert a protective effect on muscle insulin sensitivity. This seems to be a contradiction (known as the athlete's paradox) as large IMTG stores in sedentary and obese individuals coexist with high levels of fatty acid (FA) metabolites (specifically long-chain acylCoA, DAG and ...

Glycogen breakdown and synthesis plays a critical role in regulating energy metabolism and glucose homeostasis. Glycogen synthesis is considered to be of major importance for glucose homeostasis, as the conversion of glucose to glycogen is a major fate of glucose ingested in the body. Glycogen synthase (GS), a key enzyme in glycogen synthesis, is activated by the allosteric stimulator glucose-6-phosphate (G6P) and by dephosphorylation through inactivation of GS kinase-3 (GSK3)...

Mitochondria are complex dynamic intracellular organelles that are responsible for many aspects of muscle metabolism, including energy production via the Krebs cycle, fatty acid beta oxidation, and the respiratory chain and oxidative phosphorylation system; calcium homeostasis; cell signalling via the generation of reactive oxygen species; and regulation of apoptotic cell death. This lecture will discuss muscular phenotypes related to mitochondrial dysfunction, including ocula...