Dylan Olver, PhD, of the Department of Biomedical Sciences, has been honored with a manuscript being chosen as an APSselect article, for the paper, “Microvascular insulin resistance in skeletal muscle and brain occurs early in the development of juvenile obesity in pigs.” Together with a research team from the University of Missouri Biomedical Sciences and Exercise Physiology departments, as well as researchers from Brock University, Olver discovered that in the early stages of juvenile obesity development, the microvasculature and prefrontal cortex exhibit impaired insulin signaling. Such adaptations may underscore vascular and neurological derangements associated with juvenile obesity.
Current estimates indicate that approximately 20 percent of American children ages 6-13 are obese. Poor diet and increasingly sedentary behavior contribute to this and associated health consequences. Understanding the underlying mechanisms is key to developing therapies to combat this epidemic.
APSselect articles are a collection from the American Physiological Society that showcases the best recently published articles in physiological research.