Mechanisms of Insulin Resistance

Research: Understanding the mechanisms of insulin resistance

Eugene J. Barrett, MD, has been involved in the care of patients with diabetes for 30 years. And for the last three decades he has also been conducting NIH-funded research on the mechanisms of insulin resistance. A past president of the American Diabetes Association, Dr. Barrett is particularly interested in interventions to prevent or limit vascular complications of diabetes. His research lab studies the cellular mechanisms of insulin action and how these are impacted by insulin resistance, obesity, and diabetes mellitus.

“We have experimental evidence that both the ability of insulin to cause smooth muscle relaxation and to promote its own transport are impaired in states of insulin resistance (e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes). The step involving insulin transport across the endothelium appears to be the rate-limiting step for overall insulin action on skeletal muscle, which is the major target tissue for insulin-mediated glucose disposal.”
In an editorial published in the December 2012 issue of Diabetes, Barrett and co-author Etta Eringa wrote that the future of diabetes research lies in part in “improvements in optimal imaging techniques such as multiphoton and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, [which] may permit us to address in vivo the cellular pathways involved in insulin transfer.” Such studies, says Barrett, will help us better understand how impairments in insulin transfer impact body metabolism in states of insulin resistance.