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Obesity researcher focuses on adipose tissue, lipotoxicity
LAS VEGAS —Despite rising prevalence, obesity does not always receive the attention that research suggests it should get. For Michael D. Jensen, MD, of the endocrine research unit at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, focusing on obesity is imperative, which is why he has dedicated more than 3 decades to the field.
Jensen, who will be awarded the George A. Bray Founders Award from The Obesity Society as part of ObesityWeek, began his journey in obesity research after working with a mentor whose excitement about tackling the disease sparked Jensen’s research work.
Jensen spoke with Endocrine Today about his research interests, how diabetes and obesity interact, and the future of obesity care and research.
What was the defining moment that led you to your field?
Jensen: A mentor of mine, C. Wayne Callaway, MD, who was a physician here at Mayo, was really interested and excited about the issue of obesity. He opened my eyes to the fact that it was an important problem to which we didn’t have all the answers and that a lot people needed our help. Before that, I looked at obesity as kind of a boring topic. I think the defining moment was working with somebody who was interested in the problem and excited about how to solve it.
What area of research most interests you right now , and why?
Jensen: We currently are trying to understand why adipose tissue in people with central obesity doesn’t respond normally to insulin and why those with central obesity have excess fatty acids coming out of adipose tissue when insulin levels are high.
What is the secret to attaining and maintaining a healthy body weight or fat mass?
Jensen: I think if you’re at a healthy body weight, the secret to maintaining it is to be physically active, to work the physical activity into as much of your day as you can. Not necessarily exercise, although that’s fine, but to make sure that you stay active throughout the day.
The vast majority of the time when I work with people, they’ve got some eating habits that could stand improvement. The first step usually is to identify things that people can do better with eating habits to help them lose weight and then use physical activity to keep it off. As needed, we can then layer on top of the lifestyle changes the various medications and procedures that we have available to us. The medications and procedures are the medical side of things, but for the vast majority of people that I see who are struggling with weight, they [need] some improvement in eating habits.
ObesityWeek 2019 includes a series of lectures focus ed on diabetes . C ould you share your thoughts on the interaction between the two diseases ?
Jensen: Probably more than 95% of people in America who have type 2 diabetes have it as a consequence of excess body fat. The link is extremely strong in that if you’re susceptible and you put on extra body fat, essentially the pancreas will eventually just give out and you’re going to have type 2 diabetes. It’s such a strong, strong relationship that if we could reduce the prevalence of obesity, we would have a huge impact on the problem of diabetes.
What do you think will have the greatest influence on your field in the next 10 years?
Jensen: I think we’re eventually going to get better insight into the cellular mechanisms of lipotoxicity to understand how much of the diseases that we see we can blame on lipids and how much is due to other things. I think we’ll get a better understanding of those mechanisms and then develop some therapeutics along those lines so that even if we can’t have people lose weight per se, at least we can reduce the health consequences of obesity in terms of the metabolic consequences.
In terms of care of obesity, my hope is that eventually the country will start taking this seriously as a public health problem. The long-term solutions will likely [be] to develop some more robust public health intervention approaches that help us address this as a nation as opposed to a physician in the office with every single patient.
Disclosure: Jensen reports no relevant financial disclosures.