Obese non-diabetic rhesus macaque monkeys (five males and five ovariectomized (OVX) females) were maintained on a high-fat diet and treated for 12 weeks with escalating doses of FGF21.
Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) has potent effects on normalizing glucose, lipid, and energy homeostasis, and represents an attractive novel therapy for type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity.
Fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF-21) improves insulin sensitivity and lipid metabolism in obese or diabetic animal models and has been proposed as a potential therapeutic agent for treating T2DM, obesity, and their related complications.
Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), liver-derived hormone, exerts diverse metabolic effects, being considered for clinical application to treat obesity and diabetes.
Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a potent endocrine regulator with physiological effects on glucose and lipid metabolism and thus garners much attention for its translational potential for the management of obesity and related metabolic syndromes.
A low-calorie, high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet was beneficial for overweight or obese individuals carrying the carbohydrate intake-decreasing allele of the FGF21 variant to improve body composition and abdominal obesity.
Although increased circulating levels of FGF21 have been documented in animal models and human subjects with obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the functional interconnections between metabolic ER stress and FGF21 are incompletely understood.
Although the associations between adiponectin, leptin, resistin and metabolic abnormalities in our paediatric population were similar to those in adults, correlations of FGF21 levels with obesity, IR and MetS were the inverse of those found in adults.
Among those browning agents reported recently, FGF21 play as a quite promising candidate for treating obesity for its obvious enhancement of thermogenic capacity in adipocyte and significant improvement of metabolic disorders in both mice and human.
Besides, serum levels of FGF21 increase in various diseases including in diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and obesity, which may be related to initiating and exacerbating atherosclerosis.
Cardiac FGF21 was expressed and secreted (real time RT-PCR/western blot and ELISA) in an autocrine-paracrine manner, in response to obesity and hypoxia, involving FGFR1-βKlotho components.
Circulating serum FGF19 concentrations were decreased (P < 0.01) similarly in obese patients regardless of their degree of insulin resistance, while FGF21 levels were increased in obesity (P < 0.01), being further increased in obesity-associated T2D (P < 0.01).
Clinical use of recombinant fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and other disorders linked to obesity has been proposed; however, its clinical development has been challenging owing to its poor pharmacokinetics.
Collectively, the results of the present study revealed a new mechanism underlying the regulation of hepatic ER stress and FGF21 expression induced by EPO; thus, EPO may be considered as a potential therapeutic agent for the treatment of fatty liver and obesity.