Anna Fenzl

TL;DR: Betatrophin is a recently identified hormone, the circulating concentrations of which are unaltered in human insulin resistance but correlate significantly with atherogenic lipid profiles in high-risk cohorts with morbid obesity or type 2 diabetes, which could be a novel pathomechanistic player in dysfunctional lipid metabolism associated with high cardiovascular risk.

TL;DR: Preclinical observations have gained additional significance with the recent discovery that active BAT is present in adult humans and can be detected by 18fluor-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography coupled with computed tomography.

TL;DR: Circulating betatrophin concentrations are dramatically increased in pregnancy and are significantly higher in GDM versus pregnant NGT, and it correlated significantly with lipid parameters including triglycerides and total cholesterol in pregnancy, as well as estrogen, progesteron and birth weight.

TL;DR: It is shown that ex vivo, exBAT exhibited UCP1 immunostaining, lipid droplet formation, and mitochondrial metabolic activity consistent with native BAT, which enables a simple and scalable tissue-grafting strategy, rather than pharmacological approaches, for increasing endogenous BAT and studying its effect on host weight and metabolism.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated here that PTH is a novel mediator of human adipocyte browning, suggesting a hitherto unknown endocrine axis between the parathyroid gland and adipose tissue in humans.