Yvonne Bruls published her article titled "Carnitine supplementation improves metabolic flexibility and skeletal muscle acetylcarnitine formation in volunteers with impaired glucose tolerance: A randomised controlled trial." in EBioMedicine. The full article can be found on https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2019.10.017 Read the abstract below. BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes patients and individua...

To have healthy employees, Maastricht UMC has organized the Healthy Living Week for all employees. On Wednesday, our colleague Kay Roumans was able to explain to people with an exiting quiz that simple changes in your lifestyle or eating habits can also be very healthy, for example exposing yourself to a colder temperature. 

Recently, Lotte Grevendonk was a co-author in the article titled "Older adults demonstrate interlimb transfer of reactive gait adaptations to repeated unpredictable gait perturbations.", published in Geroscience. The full article can be found on https://doi.org/10.1101/673574  Read the abstract below. The ability to rapidly adjust gait to cope with unexpected mechanical perturbations decline...

Esther Phielix has published a new article titled "Athletes feature greater rates of muscle glucose transport and glycogen synthesis during lipid infusion" in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight. The full article can be found on https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.127928  Read the abstract below. BACKGROUND: Insulin resistance results from impaired skeletal muscle glucose transport/p...

The Diabetes and Metabolism Research Group spent some time outside of the research labs to fully align with the circadian rhythm in the form of a treasure hunt on and around the Sint Pietersberg and open-air winter barbecue.

Congratulations to our colleague Jan-Frieder Harmsen who secured a grant of the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes (E FSD)! The project will focus on circadian rhythm and will build further on the previous day-night rhythm studies performed by our group. These studies revealed that pre-diabetes volunteers lack day-night rhythmicity in mitochondrial function and in 24h substrate m...

During the NVDO meeting, Maaike Bergman presented her work on the assessment of metabolic flexibility upon insulin stimulation and incremental submaximal exercise. Metabolic flexibility is defined as the adaptability of substrate oxidation to substrate availability, which is commonly measured as the change in respiratory exchange ratio. In obese, metabolically compromised subjects, metabolic fl...

Rodrigo Mancilla presented during the NVDO meeting about the slow activation of oxidative metabolism at the onset of exercise and how this is associated with low CRAT protein activity. Metabolically compromised subjects, such as obese and type 2 diabetic patients, exhibit a strong reliance on oxygen-independent pathways (for example PCr hydrolysis) to resynthesize ATP when exercise starts. This...

Carlijn Remie presented on behalf of Kay Roumans about how replacing sedentary time by standing and walking is as effective in improving peripheral insulin sensitivity compared to exercise training. Replacing sitting time with several hours of walking and standing does improve peripheral insulin sensitivity to the same extent as replacing sitting time by 1 hour of vigorous exercise.

During the NVDO meeting of 28 and 29 November 2019, Carlijn Remie presented her results on the effects of nicotinamide riboside on human metabolism. NR supplementation of 1000 mg/day for six weeks did not improve markers of metabolic health in overweight/obese men and women, except for minor changes in body composition and skeletal muscle acetylcarnitine concentrations.