The role of fat as a signal substance

Fat is not only a much-discussed food substance. Fat can also function as a signal substance in the body and activate a special receptor in the cells of important organs like the heart and liver. This opens opportunities for new ways of explaining the genesis of diabetes, a disease that is strongly associated with obesity.

This new role for fat was discovered by a team of researchers headed by Professor Christer Owman and Associate Professor Björn Old of the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center at Lund University, Sweden. They have found a previously unknown receptor on the surface of cells in the heart, liver, and muscles as well as the insulin cells of the pancreas.

A receptor can be likened to an antenna on the surface of a cell that receives chemical signals from its surroundings relays them inside the cell. Many of our most common diseases have to do with disturbances in the function of various receptors.

The Lund scientists’ discovery involves a receptor for fats, or rather a whole family of receptors that are activated by short, medium-length, and long fatty acids. They have dubbed these receptors FFARs (free fatty acid receptors).

The fact that fats can function as signal substances to activate events inside the cell is an entirely new insight. It is also interesting that the newly discovered receptors have a clear connection with diabetes: they are influenced by modern anti-diabetes drugs (so-called glitazones), and they exist on the surface of cells of precisely those organs that are involved in sugar metabolism: the liver, muscles, heart, and pancreas.

“The discovery of FFAR can provide a new explanation for the connection between fat and diabetes,” says Professor Christer Owman. He hopes the research breakthrough will help to clarify the dual role of fats in the body, being both essential to life and potentially damaging.

The research team has also been able to demonstrate that the newly discovered receptors also occur in the brain. In this context there are possible connections to the importance of fats in the development of the brain and of brain disorders like Parkinson’s disease. Christer Owman and his associates hope to be able to study this more closely in the future.

These research results are now being published in the prestigious international journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. The research team has applied for a patent on the function of these receptors in order to be able to use them to develop drugs for diabetes and obesity.