Bone hormone 'osteocalcin' can control diabetes: Study

The hormone produced by bone cell known as osteocalcin plays a pivotal role in declining the furtherance of sugar and fat levels in the body, and unveil its ability to prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity found researchers

  • Updated
Poaching
Bones of a dead elephant and the poacher's snare that killed it. Missing are its ivory tusks which are illegal to sell because this species is protected under Indonesian law. With less than 2000 of the animals remaining across all of Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world, every lost elephant is significant. Paul Hilton for WCS

The hormone produced by the bone cell, known as 'osteocalcin', plays a pivotal role in declining the level of sugar and fat in the body. It also helps to prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, reports a recent study.

The team of researchers explained that osteocalcin hormone is actually produced and functions effectively in the body. These details have been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Researchers are upbeat about this hormone which is produced by bone cells and has a unique quality to metabolize sugar level more easily.

"One of the osteocalcin's functions is to increase insulin production, which in turn reduces blood glucose levels," said Mathieu Ferron, a researcher from the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), Canada. "It can also protect us from obesity by increasing energy expenditure," said Ferron.

In the study, the researchers have also found that when there were changes in the blood concentration of osteocalcin for some people, the blood sugar level did not fall.

These unique and protective features retained by the hormone drove all researchers towards this study. While conducting the experiment in mice to study how osteocalcin is released in the bloodstream, researchers found a certain enzyme called furin in mice that stimulates osteocalcin to become active, thus releasing the hormone in the blood.

They even conducted the experiment without keeping the furic enzyme in the bone cell. Though inactive osteocalcin was produced and released in the blood, there was no significant reduction in the blood sugar levels.

The researchers found that osteocalcin plays a key role in regulating the metabolism of sugar and fat, thus assisting in the prevention of the most chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes in every individual.

This article was first published on November 3, 2017
Related topics : Diabetes
READ MORE