The authors found that treatment of these mice with apocynin – an antioxidant that inhibits NADPH oxidase – reduced ROS production in fat cells, restored adipocytokine production to normal, improved diabetes, and reduced the levels of fat present in the blood and liver.
The results suggest that accumulated fatty tissue is a major source of ROS in obesity and acts as an early trigger of the metabolic syndrome. While it is too early to suggest that taking antioxidants may counter the development of obesity-associated metabolic syndrome, the steps leading to excess ROS generation may represent a potentially useful therapeutic target.
TITLE: Increased oxidative stress in obesity and its impact on metabolic syndrome
AUTHOR CONTACT:
Iichiro Shimomura
Department of Internal Medicine and Molecular Science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
Phone: 81-6-6879-3730; Fax: 81-6-6879-3739; E-mail: ichi@imed2.med.osaka-u.ac.jp .
A PDF of this article will be available at: http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/114/12/1752 .
Journal of Clinical Investigation