UC San Diego

As the rate of Type II Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) develops not only in adults but in youth, many other health related problems are starting to arise in association. A major complication related to T2DM is cardiovascular disease, which female diabetic patients have been found to have a worsened outcome compared to male diabetic patients. To get a better understanding of the sex difference in cardiovascular disease and other complications associated with T2DM, mitochondrial function was investigated to find if it was an underlying cause and if there was a difference between males and females. Through an obesity driven T2DM model, young female and male mice were fed a 45% kcal fat diet (HFD) to induce diabetes and a 10% kcal fat diet (LFD) as control. Males on HFD significantly increased weight with a more profound impairment to glucose tolerance, while females on HFD slowly increased weight, developed ulcerative dermatitis (UD), and did not have as profound impairment to glucose tolerance. There was also a statistically significant three-way interaction between mitochondrial function, gender and diet in the hippocampus and kidney. A two-way interaction between mitochondrial function and diet was found to be statistically significant in the heart, but a statistically significant interaction between mitochondrial function and gender was found in the hippocampus, liver and pancreas.