A research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found out that steroids called glucocorticoids can cause hypertension and diabetes. The team found that a protein called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-alpha (PPAR-alpha) is critical in this process because it is activated by fatty acids that stimulate the diseases. The findings help explain the high incidence of diabetes and hypertension in obese individuals.

PPAR-alpha is found in the liver, kidney, muscles, blood vessels and other organs. It is activated by fatty acids, while glucocorticoids alter fatty acid processing. This correlation led the research team to assume that the two may act together to produce the disease-causing effects.

From Bio-Medicine:

The team found that when given the glucocorticoid dexamethasone, mice lacking only LDLR had increased levels of insulin, fasting glucose and leptin, all signs of diabetes. The animals also became less hypoglycemic when given insulin, suggesting that they were developing insulin resistance, the precursor to diabetes. Mice lacking both LDLR and PPAR-alpha showed no signs of diabetes.

The team also examined human liver cells in a petri dish. When PPAR-alpha was activated and steroids were added, expression of genes related to glucose production tripled.

“The scientific community hasn’t fully appreciated the potentially important role of the liver in these conditions,” Semenkovich says. “These results strongly suggest that the liver is the key to controlling blood pressure and glucose, and our preliminary evidence with human liver cells strongly suggests that the results in mice are relevant to human disease.”

The researchers claim that the results in the mice trials are relevant to human, hence they claimed that people who are overweight or obese experience diabetes and hypertension because they have higher glucocorticoids. Similarly, patients who are treated with glucocorticoids medication have higher risk of developing these diseases since their bodies receive more glucocorticoids.

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