Editorial: Metabolic miscommunication among organs: The missing links

Abstract

Editorial on the Research TopicMetabolic miscommunication among organs: The missing links Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is one of the modern metabolic diseases that involve impaired or faulty communication between tissues and/or organs. Extracellular vesicles, endocrine hormones, and cytokines are just some of the communication/signaling molecules that may be affected, involving both commensal microbiota and constitutive tissues. For these processes to be identified and characterized in a clinical setting, various disciplines and methods of analysis and diagnosis must be integrated. As an example, the imaging of liver fat and fibrosis could be analyzed along with the characterization of intestinal microbiome activity to understand the role of intestinal dysbiosis in fatty liver disease development.The goal of this Research Topic was to present new progress in the integration of epidemiology and pathogenic mechanisms that improve the understanding of biological crosstalk within diabetes and related disorders. Indeed, the authors replied to our call and the manuscripts within this Research Topic include the link between diabetes and intestinal disorders, kidney disease, bone metabolism, nocturia, iron and nitrogen metabolism, exercise as well as inflammation and liver disease.Meneses et al. studied the impact of high-fat and high-fructose feeding on the metabolome of the liver, muscle, white and brown adipose tissue. By feeding male mice with these diets for 12 weeks, it was possible to disclose that although both diets have deleterious effects on the liver, causing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), high-fat resulted in a higher impact on hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism than high-fructose, leading namely to glucose intolerance. Moreover, while high-fat had alterations in brown adipose tissue metabolites that indicate increased thermogenesis, high-fructose led to increased levels of betaine, known to be a shielding metabolite against fructose-induced inflammation. Overall, this study indicates that high-fat and high-fructose feeding have a negative but distinct effect on the metabolome of the abovementioned organs.Besides high circulating lipid and fructose levels, iron levels also impact metabolic homeostasis. Wang et al. aimed at exploring the association of serum iron levels with metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) in Chinese patients with T2D in a cross-sectional study with 1,467 individuals. Indeed, the association between iron metabolism and insulin resistance has been explored in the last few years, and the present study found a positive correlation between the presence of MAFLD and serum iron levels in Frontiers in Endocrinology frontiersin.org 01