Muscle Men: Lab-grown cells mirror source’s characteristics
Researchers studying muscle cells maintained in petri dishes have found that the cells burn sugar and fat with the same efficiency as do the people from whom the cells were isolated. The finding may give scientists a leg up on understanding the mechanisms behind obesity and type-2 diabetes.
Previous research had examined the muscles of people who were both obese and resistant to the effects of insulin, a hormone that lowers sugar concentrations in blood. Such individuals’ muscles don’t burn fat as well as the muscles of people without these conditions do. Other studies showed that muscles in obese, insulin-resistant people have trouble switching between using fat and sugar as fuel.