Abstract
Insulin resistant type 2 diabetes mellitus in the obese elderly has become a worldwide epidemic. While exercise can prevent the onset of diabetes in young subjects its role in older diabetic people is less clear. Exercise stimulates the release of the β2-agonist epinephrine more in the young. Although epinephrine and β2-agonist drugs cause acute insulin resistance, their chronic effect on insulin sensitivity is unclear. We fed C57BL/6 mice a high fat diet to induce diabetes. These overweight animals became very insulin resistant. Exhaustive treadmill exercise 5 days a week for 8 weeks had no effect on their diabetes, nor did the β2-blocking drug ICI 118551. In contrast, exercise combined with the β2-agonist salbutamol (albuterol) had a beneficial effect on both glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity after 4 and 8 weeks of exercise. The effect was durable and persisted 5 weeks after exercise and β2-agonist had stopped. To test whether β2-agonist alone was effective, the animals that had received β2-blockade were then given β2-agonist. Their response to a glucose challenge improved but their response to insulin was not significantly altered. The β2-agonists are commonly used to treat asthma and asthmatics have an increased incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Although β2-agonists cause acute hyperglycemia, chronic treatment improves insulin sensitivity, probably by improving muscle glucose uptake.
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Abbreviations
- HFD:
-
High fat diet
- NE:
-
Norepinephrine
- E:
-
Epinephrine
- GTT:
-
Glucose tolerance test
- ITT:
-
Insulin tolerance test
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Elayan, H., Milic, M., Sun, P. et al. Chronic β2 adrenergic agonist, but not exercise, improves glucose handling in older type 2 diabetic mice. Cell Mol Neurobiol 32, 871–877 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10571-012-9819-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10571-012-9819-1