Room 6C/6E Effects of High Chromium Nutritional Yeast on Insulin Resistance and Metabolic Syndrome

Friday, October 12, 2012: 8:00 PM
6C/6E (WSCC)
Shireen Attaran , United States Department of Agriculture, Albany, CA
Jose De J Berrios, PhD , United States Department of Agriculture, Albany, CA
 Effects of High Chromium Nutritional Yeast on Insulin Resistance and Metabolic Syndrome

 

Diabetes is a disease that currently afflicts approximately 350 million individuals worldwide. It is associated with several conditions such as insulin resistance, hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels as well as obesity. Although the mechanism of causation has yet to be elucidated, the primary pathology of this disease, insulin resistance, appears to be due to an attenuated biological response to insulin levels in the serum. In this study, the effects of dietary nutritional yeast fortified with Cr3+were studied in C57BL/6J-ob/ob mice. The diets used in this study had Cr3+ variations in both dose and concentration. Initial examinations of glucose tolerance tests (GTT) and insulin tolerance tests (ITT) indicated a preliminary decrease in serum glucose levels, both at fasting time points and when observed as area under the curve, in mice consuming diets with high chromium extrudate concentrations. Plasma cholesterol concentrations in obese mice were indicative of an elevated total cholesterol concentration, of which, a large contribution to this elevation was due to higher HDL levels. Overall, epididymal adipose levels decreased in the obese model, which were fed a diet with the highest Cr3+ concentration. This data could be correlated to the initial lowered serum glucose levels. Further analysis would need to be conducted to elucidate the alterations in the metabolic pathways involved, but current initial findings are indicative of glucose and adipose levels trending lower in comparison to the control.