PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Esben Søndergaard
AU  - Michael D Jensen
TI  - Quantification of adipose tissue insulin sensitivity
AID  - 10.1136/jim-2016-000098
DP  - 2016 Apr 12
TA  - Journal of Investigative Medicine
PG  - jim-2016-000098
4099  - http://hw-f5-jim.highwire.org/content/early/2016/04/12/jim-2016-000098.short
4100  - http://hw-f5-jim.highwire.org/content/early/2016/04/12/jim-2016-000098.full
AB  - In metabolically healthy humans, adipose tissue is exquisitely sensitive to insulin. Similar to muscle and liver, adipose tissue lipolysis is insulin resistant in adults with central obesity and type 2 diabetes. Perhaps uniquely, however, insulin resistance in adipose tissue may directly contribute to development of insulin resistance in muscle and liver because of the increased delivery of free fatty acids to those tissues. It has been hypothesized that insulin adipose tissue resistance may precede other metabolic defects in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Therefore, precise and reproducible quantification of adipose tissue insulin sensitivity, in vivo, in humans, is an important measure. Unfortunately, no consensus exists on how to determine adipose tissue insulin sensitivity. We review the methods available to quantitate adipose tissue insulin sensitivity and will discuss their strengths and weaknesses.