According to the research, only in men did a sedentary lifestyle and excessive sugar consumption cause lower insulin-stimulated leg blood flow and a decline in a protein called adropin.New research from theSchool of Medicine provides the first evidence in humans that short-term lifestyle changes can disrupt the response to insulin in blood vessels. It is also the first study to demonstrate that men and women respond differently to these changes.
“We know that incidence of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease is lower in premenopausal women compared to men, but we wanted to see how men and women reacted to reduced physical activity and increased sugar in their diet over a short period of time,” said Camila Manrique-Acevedo, MD, associate professor of medicine.
“These findings underscore a sex-related difference in the development of vascular insulin resistance induced by adopting a lifestyle high in sugar and low on exercise,” said Manrique-Acevedo. “To our knowledge, this is the first evidence in humans that vascular insulin resistance can be provoked by short-term adverse lifestyle changes, and it’s the first documentation of sex-related differences in the development of vascular insulin resistance in association with changes in adropin levels.