Diabetes, Obesity & Metabolic Syndrome

Diabetes is one of the most challenging health problems in the 21st century and one of the most common non-communicable diseases globally. It is the 4th or 5th leading cause of death in most high-income countries, with ~366 million diabetics in 2011 and an estimated 552 million in 2030. About 11% of total adult healthcare expenditure in the US and 8-18% in the EU is diabetes related. Asia is emerging as the epicenter of the diabetes epidemic. India and China have the greatest numbers of people with diabetes, and by 2025, they could each have 20 million affected individuals. The global diabetes drug and devices market is estimated to be a whopping 72.4 billion by 2018. Understandably the number of studies on diabetes over the last 20 years has also been extraordinary.

On the other hand, obesity has also become a world-wide epidemic. For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people rivals the number of underweight people. Globally there are > 1 billion overweight adults with about 300 million clinically obese. Of the 22 industrialized countries, the U.S. has the highest obesity statistics. About 2/3rd of Americans over age 20 are overweight. About 1/3rd of Americans over age 20 are obese. According to new statistics released by the CDC, the number of obese American adults (~34%) now outnumber those who are overweight (~33%). It is estimated that if current obesity trends continue, by the year 2030, 86.3% of adults will be overweight or obese and 51.1% will be obese and by 2048 all adults will be overweight or obese. Obesity-related annual healthcare costs in the US equals about 240 billion. Obesity is also responsible for 2–8% of healthcare costs and 10–13% of deaths in different parts of EU. In the South-East Asia Region, about 300,000 people die of obesity every year.

Obesity leads to adverse metabolic effects on blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin resistance. The likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes and hypertension rises steeply with increasing body fatness. Confined to older adults for most of the 20th century, this disease now affects obese children even before puberty. Type 1 diabetes is "insulin-dependent diabetes." Type 2 diabetes is "insulin-resistant diabetes." Approximately 85% of people with diabetes are type 2, and of these, 90% are obese or overweight. Although type 1 diabetes is less common, it is a potentially devastating disorder affecting both children and adults. Diabetes & obesity are major contributors to various other chronic diseases such as coronary artery diseases, myocardial infarction, hypertension, dyslipidemia and a number of other complicated disorders

Needless to say, DIABESITY is indeed a GLOBAL CHALLENGE

While treatments for both types of diabetes exist, neither is curable and effective treatments for obesity are yet to be developed. Desire to find cures for diabetes, obesity and related metabolic syndrome are high and pushing the demand for innovative reagents for research in this area.

BioVision, with its very diverse line of products caters very effectively to this demand. We have a whole portfolio of products dedicated to these research needs. We have products for studying the signaling pathways in diabetes/obesity, the involved lipid metabolism, cytokines, growth factors and hormones, various products serving as anti-diabetics, and much more.

Multiple signaling pathways get affected in diabetes and obesity. Insulin/leptin and adipokine signaling may easily be one of the most important ones amongst these, since Leptin and insulin act as adiposity signals. AMPK is involved in regulation of insulin synthesis and secretion. Diabetic individual’s exhibit reduced PI3K activity. Overactive mTOR activity has implications in obesity and insulin resistance (mTOR signaling). Wnts are important for adipogenesis and crosstalk between adipocytes and endocrine cells. Hyperactivity of TGF-beta signaling is involved in diabetic nephropathy. BioVision diabetes and obesity related signaling pathways portfolio includes myriad products types, including assay kits (for sought after targets like glucose uptake and DPP4 activity), antibodies, proteins and enzymes, activators, inducers, inhibitors etc.

Obesity and diabetes status have an unfavorable interaction that also results in multiple pathologic lipid and lipoprotein changes. These changes are generally associated with low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and HDL2 cholesterol and high total, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) triglyceride concentrations. Changes in lipid metabolism may be a cause or a consequence of diabetes. We have several assay kits in both colorimetric/fluorometric and ELISA formats in this category. We also have many antibodies, Antihyperlipidemics, Phosphodiesterases (PDE) inhibitors, and various kinds of proteins and enzymes in this sub-portfolio.

Numerous adipose cytokines and growth factors lead to the “inflammatory syndrome” in diabetes and metabolic diseases. Adipose tissue also releases numerous immnumodulatory factors (cytokines, hormones etc) which are also involved in visceral obesity. The chronic low grade inflammatory state leads to insulin resistance amongst other effects. Our cytokines, growth factors and hormones portfolio is enriched by the presence of in-demand drug targets like adiponectins, resistins, leptins, visfatins etc. of human, mouse and rat origins, which are very well complimented by the assay kits, antibodies, inhibitors and inducers for the same targets from the other sub-portfolios.

In addition we also house various Anti-diabetic compounds and Obesity Peptides for both in vitro & in vivo research including the highly studied DPP4 inhibitors.

In summary, this portfolio includes a diverse and comprehensive list of products for all you diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome research.

Diabetes, Obesity & Metabolic Syndrome Categories