The Syndrome of Insulin Resistance and Its Links to Atherosclerosis

Abstract

Obesity, central fat distribution, altered glucose tolerance, dyslipidemia, and hypertension cluster together to a variable extent presumably because of the common pathogenetic denominator represented by insulin resistance. This cluster has been named insulin resistance syndrome, or dysmetabolic syndrome X, or metabolic syndrome, and possibly is involved in the etiology and/or pathophysiology of atherosclerosis, as also demonstrated by epidemiological studies in which hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance are independent indicators/predictors of cardiovascular disease. This relationship may be explained by the presence of a common antecedent (“common soil” hypothesis), causing both insulin resistance and atherosclerosis, or by a direct causal role of insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia in atherogenesis (“insulin‐resistance‐dependent atherosclerosis” hypothesis). At the molecular level, the common soil hypothesis may find its counterpart in the I‐κB‐kinase‐mediated activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor κB raised by the common soil hypothesis and by the insulin‐resistance‐dependent atherosclerosis hypothesis remains unsolved, largely because it may be inherently difficult to gauge the biological link(s) between one “complex” phenotype (the insulin resistance syndrome) and another “hypercomplex” phenotype (the atherosclerotic plaque).

The Metabolic Syndrome Is a Risk Indicator of Microvascular and Macrovascular Complications in Diabetes

“…Insulin resistance and/or compensatory hyperinsulinemia also are risk factor(s) for atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12). These and other observations have led to postulate the existence of the pathobiological entity metabolic syndrome, at the biologic core of which lies insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia (13,14), which would play a significant role in promoting/accelerating atherosclerosis (15,16). The link between the metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and atherosclerosis may be due to negative crosstalk between angiotensin II and insulin signaling (17) and/or to TACE-TIMP3-mediated effects on the latter (18).…”

Application of surface growth model for a pathological process in a blood vessel's wall

“…Atherosclerosis may start when certain factors cause a damage for inner layers of arteries. These factors include, for example, smoking, high amounts of certain fats and cholesterol in the blood, high blood pressure, high amounts of sugar in the blood due to insulin resistance, 11 or diabetes. Atherosclerosis is a chronic disease with asymptomatic progression for decades.…”

“…Both simplified theories discussed in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 for thin (10) and thick (11) walled growing solids give adequate mathematical models of growing processes for different applications. Nevertheless, the development of the general nonlinear theory is very important especially from the point of view of new constitutive equation for material description of a continuum with microstructure.…”

“…The stress-strain state of a cylinder depends on the rate of growth. The boundary value problem in virtue of (11) and taking into account the axial symmetry condition can be derived in the form…”

Claimed effects, outcome variables and methods of measurement for health claims proposed under European Community Regulation 1924/2006 in the area of blood glucose and insulin concentrations

“…Replacing food items by others containing the same amount of available carbohydrates (CHO), but able to elicit lower glucose peak, could be considered beneficial on cardiometabolic risk reduction [10][11][12]. The simultaneous determination of insulin concentrations may provide information about the degree of hyperinsulinaemia to which body tissues are exposed following ingestion of selected foods, in the light of the potential detrimental role that prolonged, repeated overexposure to insulin may play in pathophysiological processes such as atherogenesis [13,14].…”