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INTRODUCTION: Childhood obesity is a public health problem characterized by early insulin resistance (IR), inflammation, and oxidative stress. The presence of an uninterrupted low-grade inflammatory state impairs metabolic and cardiovascular health. The population is particularly susceptible to develop metabolic disorders related to increased body fat. METHODS: Eighty-three adolescents were recruited and grouped according to HOMA-IR and BMI in either with or without IR and obese or normal-weight respectively. Anthropometric, biochemical, immunological and hormonal variables were determined. Transverse Analytical Study. RESULTS: Obesity, dyslipidemia, IL-6, and C-reactive protein were significantly higher in the IR group than in the non-IR group. Obese adolescents showed increased insulin levels, HOMA-IR, inflammatory markers, and triglycerides; while having lower HDL-C, and adiponectin when compared to normal-weight adolescents. As expected, obesity-related anthropometric markers positively correlated with IR and inflammatory markers while negatively correlated with adiponectin levels. CONCLUSIONS: Early IR, subclinical inflammation, dyslipidemia, and hypoadiponectinemia characterize obesity in adolescents. These factors may increase the risk of future coronary heart disease (CHD) and diabetes mellitus development (DM) in early adulthood.
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BACKGROUND: Diabetes is complex disease, which involves primary metabolic changes followed by immunological and vascular pathophysiological adjustments. However, it is mostly characterized by an unbalanced decreased number of the ß-cells unable to maintain the metabolic requirements and failure to further regenerate newly functional pancreatic islets. The objective of this study was to analyze the properties of the endothelial cells to facilitate the islet cells engraftment after islet transplantation. METHODS: We devised a co-cultured engineer system to coat isolated islets with vascular endothelial cells. To assess the cell integration of cell-engineered islets, we stained them for endothelial marker CD31 and nuclei counterstained with DAPI dye. We comparatively performed islet transplantations into streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice and recovered the islet grafts for morphometric analyses on days 3, 7, 10, and 30. Blood glucose levels were measured continuously after islet transplantation to monitor the functional engraftment and capacity to achieve metabolic control. RESULTS: Cell-engineered islets showed a well-defined rounded shape after co-culture when compared with native isolated islets. Furthermore, the number of CD31-positive cells layered on the islet surface showed a direct proportion with engraftment capacities and less TUNEL-positive cells on days 3 and 7 after transplantation. CONCLUSIONS: We observed that vascular endothelial cells could be functional integrated into isolated islets. We also found that islets that are coated with vascular endothelial cells increased their capacity to engraft. These findings indicate that islets coated with endothelial cells have a greater capacity of engraftment and thus establish a definitely vascular network to support the metabolic requirements.