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Even the sight and smell of food trigger insulin release in the body: Study

Rajeev Choudhury

Mere sight and smell of food trigger insulin release long before carbohydrates reach the bloodstream, findings of a new study show.

The study conducted by researchers from Basel University in Switzerland was published recently in the journal Cell Metabolism.

The researchers of the study have shown for the first time that insulin release depends on a short-term inflammatory response in the body and that the initial phase of insulin secretion is mediated through the vagus nerve and is not due to stimulation of pancreatic b cells.

Till now scientists were not clear about how sight and smell trigger the pancreas to start producing insulin in the body, which has been solved by the researchers of the study.

Working on the animal model the scientists found that an inflammatory factor known as interleukin 1 beta (IL1B), which is also involved in the immune response to pathogens or in tissue damage, triggers responses that stimulate the pancreas to start producing insulin in the body.

“The fact that this inflammatory factor is responsible for a considerable proportion of normal insulin secretion in healthy individuals is surprising because it’s also involved in the development of type 2 diabetes,” the leader of the study Professor Marc Donath from the Department of Biomedicine and the Department of Endocrinology said in a statement.

“The smell and sight of a meal stimulate specific immune cells in the brain known as the microglia,” added the author of the study, Dr Sophia Wiedemann.

“These cells briefly secrete IL1B, which in turn affects the autonomic nervous system via the vagus nerve,” she added.

However, the researchers found that sight and smell-mediated insulin release was impaired in obesity, in both mice and humans, and in mice, they further found that the neural signals of IL1B get disrupted.

Prof Donath concluded that the result of their study indicates that IL1B plays an important role in linking up sensory information such as the sight and smell of a meal with subsequent nerve-mediated insulin secretion – and in regulating this connection.
    

 


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