Exploring the relationship between pancreatic fat and insulin secretion in overweight or obese women without type 2 diabetes mellitus: A preliminary investigation of the TOFI_Asia cohort

• Published in: PloS one 2022-12, Vol.17 (12), p.e0279085-e0279085
• Main Authors: Sequeira, Ivana R, Yip, Wilson, Lu, Louise W, Jiang, Yannan, Murphy, Rinki, Plank, Lindsay D, Cooper, Garth J S, Peters, Carl N, Aribsala, Benjamin S, Hollingsworth, Kieren G, Poppitt, Sally D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abdomen; Adipose tissue; Beta cells; Biology and Life Sciences; Blood Glucose; Blood pressure; Body composition; Body fat; Body weight; C-Peptide; Care and treatment; Complications and side effects; Cross-sectional studies; Dextrose; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Diabetes mellitus (non-insulin dependent); Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Ethnic factors; Female; Glucose; Glucose tolerance; Glucose tolerance tests; Health aspects; Humans; Hyperglycemia; Insulin; Insulin - metabolism; Insulin resistance; Insulin Resistance - physiology; Insulin Secretion; Intravenous administration; Liver; Magnetic resonance; Magnetic resonance imaging; Medicine and Health Sciences; Minority & ethnic groups; Obesity; Overweight; Pancreas; Patient outcomes; People and Places; Peptides; Physical Sciences; Regularization; Research and Analysis Methods; Secretion; Spectrum analysis; Type 2 diabetes; White people; Women
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279085

While there is an emerging role of pancreatic fat in the aetiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), its impact on the associated decrease in insulin secretion remains controversial. We aimed to determine whether pancreatic fat negatively affects β-cell function and insulin secretion in women with overweight or obesity but without T2DM. 20 women, with normo- or dysglycaemia based on fasting plasma glucose levels, and low (< 4.5%) vs high (≥ 4.5%) magnetic resonance (MR) quantified pancreatic fat, completed a 1-hr intravenous glucose tolerance test (ivGTT) which included two consecutive 30-min square-wave steps of hyperglycaemia generated by using 25% dextrose. Plasma glucose, insulin and C-peptide were measured, and insulin secretion rate (ISR) calculated using regularisation deconvolution method from C-peptide kinetics. Repeated measures linear mixed models, adjusted for ethnicity and baseline analyte concentrations, were used to compare changes during the ivGTT between high and low percentage pancreatic fat (PPF) groups. No ethnic differences in anthropomorphic variables, body composition, visceral adipose tissue (MR-VAT) or PPF were measured and hence data were combined. Nine women (47%) were identified as having high PPF values. PPF was significantly associated with baseline C-peptide (p = 0.04) and ISR (p = 0.04) in all. During the 1-hr ivGTT, plasma glucose (p 0.05). In women with overweight or obesity but without T2DM, PPF did not modify β-cell function as determined by ivGTT-assessed ISR. However, the salient feature in biphasic insulin secretion in those with ≥4.5% PPF may be of clinical importance, particularly in early stages of dysglycaemia may warrant further investigation.