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Summary: Recent Advances in Nutritional Sciences
Please Pass the Chips: Genomic
Insights into Obesity and Diabetes1
Samuel T. Nadler and Alan D. Attie2
Departments of Biochemistry and Comparative Biosciences,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706
ABSTRACT Type 2 diabetes mellitus is an increasingly
common disorder of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism.
Approximately 16 million individuals in the United States
have diabetes, and 800,000 new cases are identified each
year. Two important characteristics of this disease are in-
sulin resistance, the failure of peripheral tissues, including
liver, muscle, and adipose tissue, to respond to physiologic
doses of insulin, and failure of pancreatic -cells to prop-
erly secrete insulin in response to elevated blood glucose
levels. Obesity is a significant risk factor for the develop-
ment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Recent observations of
extremely lean, lipoatrophic models have revealed a similar
predisposition to developing diabetes. Although it may
seem paradoxical that both increased adiposity and se-
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