Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main purposes of metabolism are: the conversion of food to energy to run cellular processes; the conversion of food/fuel to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates; and the elimination of metabolic wastes. These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. The word metabolism can also refer to the sum of all chemical reactions that occur in living organisms, including digestion and the transport of substances into and between different cells, in which case the above described set of reactions within the cells is called intermediary metabolism or intermediate metabolism. In various diseases, such as type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cancer, normal metabolism is disrupted.
Abdominal obesity, also known as central obesity and truncal obesity, is a condition when excessive abdominal fat around the stomach and abdomen has built up to the extent that it is likely to have a negative impact on health. Abdominal obesity has been strongly linked to cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and other metabolic and vascular diseases.
Ketosis is a metabolic state characterized by elevated levels of ketone bodies in the blood or urine. Physiologic ketosis is a normal response to low glucose availability, such as low-carbohydrate diets or fasting, that provides an additional energy source for the brain in the form of ketones. In physiologic ketosis, ketones in the blood are elevated above baseline levels, but the body's acid–base homeostasis is maintained. This contrasts with ketoacidosis, an uncontrolled production of ketones that occurs in pathologic states and causes a metabolic acidosis, which is a medical emergency. Ketoacidosis is most commonly the result of complete insulin deficiency in type 1 diabetes or late-stage type 2 diabetes. Ketone levels can be measured in blood, urine or breath and are generally between 0.5 and 3.0 millimolar (mM) in physiologic ketosis, while ketoacidosis may cause blood concentrations greater than 10 mM.
Sir Kurt George Matthew Mayer Alberti, is a British doctor. His long-standing special interest is diabetes mellitus, in connection with which he has published many research papers and served on many national and international committees. In the 1970s, Alberti published recommendations for the management of diabetic ketoacidosis, a serious metabolic emergency which affects people suffering from severe insulin deficiency. This 'Alberti regime' rationalised the use of insulin and fluid therapy in this condition to the undoubted benefit of many patients.
William E.M. Lands is an American nutritional biochemist who is among the world's foremost authorities on essential fatty acids. Lands graduated from University of Michigan in 1951 and served on the faculty there from 1955 to 1980. He then moved to University of Illinois Chicago (1980–1990) and subsequently the National Institutes of Health (1990–2002), where he served as the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He was named a Fellow by the American Society for Nutrition, Society for Redox Biology and Medicine, International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Lands is credited for discovering the beneficial effects of balancing the effects of excess omega-6 fatty acids with dietary omega-3 fatty acids. The effect of essential fatty acids on formation of hormones is documented in his book, "Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health" and in interviews for the lay public. University of Michigan's Department of Biological Chemistry endowed a "Lectureship on the Biochemical Basis for the Physiology of Essential Nutrients" in honor of William E.M. Lands.
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel. The roots of the society were in the American Physiological Society, which had been formed some 20 years earlier. ASBMB is the US member of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Adipose triglyceride lipase, also known as patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 2 and ATGL, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the PNPLA2 gene. ATGL catalyses the first reaction of lipolysis, where triacylglycerols are hydrolysed to diacylglycerols.
Long-chain fatty acid transport protein 1 (FATP1) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SLC27A1 gene.
Daniel Willett Foster, M.D., M.A.C.P. was the John Denis McGarry, Ph.D. Distinguished Chair in Diabetes and Metabolic Research and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas. He was Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine for 16 years. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. He was a Master of the American College of Physicians. He was also a former member of the President's Council on Bioethics.
The Journal of Lipid Research is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1959. Since 2000, it has been published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It covers research on lipids in health and disease, including lipid function and the biochemical and genetic regulation of lipid metabolism. The journal also covers patient-oriented and epidemiological research. In its aim and scope, the journal "aims to be on the forefront of the emerging areas of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics as they relate to lipid metabolism and function."
Jeffrey Scott Flier is an American physician, endocrinologist, researcher, and the 21st Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University.
George F. Cahill Jr. was an American scientist who significantly advanced the diabetes mellitus research of the 20th century.
Carl Ronald Kahn is an American physician and scientist, best known for his work with insulin receptors and insulin resistance in diabetes and obesity. He is the Chief Academic Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center, the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1999.
Lynne Elizabeth Maquat is an American biochemist and molecular biologist whose research focuses on the cellular mechanisms of human disease. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. She currently holds the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair and is a Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Pediatrics and of Oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Professor Maquat is also Founding Director of the Center for RNA Biology and Founding Chair of Graduate Women in Science at the University of Rochester.
Guenther Boden was a German-born American endocrinologist and diabetes researcher who helped link insulin resistance with fatty acids in the blood. Dr. Boden was born in Ludwigshafen, Germany on January 8, 1935. He received an M.S. from Heidelberg University in 1956 and an M.D. from Munich University, School of Medicine in 1959. Dr. Boden completed a doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich in 1960. Dr. Boden completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry at Tuebingen University in Germany in 1965. He then continued his medical practice and studies in the United States. Dr. Boden was a research fellow in Medicine at the E.P. Joslin Research Laboratory, Harvard Medical School from 1965–1967, where he also served as Assistant in Medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He then assumed the position of Assistant and Associate Resident in Medicine at Rochester General Hospital.
Stuart Arthur Kornfeld is a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and researcher in glycobiology.
Gökhan S. Hotamisligil is a Turkish-American physician scientist; James Stevens Simmons Chair of Genetics and Metabolism; Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH); Director of the Sabri Ülker Center for Metabolic Research and associate member of Harvard-MIT Broad Institute, Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Joslin Diabetes Center.
Doctor (Prof.) Jasvinder K Gambhir is an Indian doctor, researcher and professor in the fields of clinical biochemistry, diabetology and cardiology. Dr Gambhir completed her Masters in Biochemistry in 1972 from Punjab University and PhD from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research She has an experience in the field of over 40 years. She is Senior professor and Head of Department, Biochemistry at University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and Senior Professor at School of Medical Sciences and Research Noida. Dr. Gambhir is also a member of American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC).
Barbara B. Kahn is an endocrinologist and the George Richards Minot professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also the vice chair for research strategy in the department of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and was formerly the chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess. Her research focuses on insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Israel Lyon Chaikoff was a Canadian-American physiologist and biochemist, known for the Wolff–Chaikoff effect. He and his colleagues were pioneers in the use of radioactive iodine (iodine-131) to investigate thyroid function.
