MONDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- The consumption of high levels of fructose by healthy-weight, prepubescent children as their adipocytes mature may change the behavior of these cells, leading to an increase in visceral obesity and negative effects on insulin sensitivity, according to research presented at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society, held from June 19 to 22 in San Diego.
Georgina Coade, of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and colleagues harvested preadipocytes from biopsy specimens of both subcutaneous and visceral fat from 32 healthy-weight children who had not yet gone through puberty. The preadipocytes were differentiated for 14 days in media containing low/physiologically normal glucose (5mM), high glucose (25mM), or high fructose (20mM). Or, alternately, cells were differentiated to maturity in low glucose media, followed by a 48-hour exposure to low glucose, high glucose, or high fructose.
The researchers found that visceral adipocytes differentiated in fructose showed an Oil red O staining increase, suggesting an increase in differentiation. This was verified by a significant four-fold increase in GPDH activity and a two-fold increase in adipocyte fatty acid binding protein abundance. However, both visceral and subcutaneous adipocytes differentiated with fructose demonstrated a significant decrease in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, which was not attributable to changes in total GLUT4 abundance. In exposing mature adipocytes to fructose, insulin-stimulated glucose uptake showed significant two-fold and 1.5-fold increases in subcutaneous and visceral cells, respectively.
"Our results suggest that high levels of fructose, which may result from eating a diet high in fructose, throughout childhood may lead to an increase in visceral [abdominal] obesity, which is associated with increased cardiometabolic risk," Coade said in a statement.
Abstract No. P2-482
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