To determine if there are sex and ethnic differences in FFA flux and to ensure adequate enrollment of both African American and whites, this investigation is a collaborative effort between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland and the Mayo Clinic in Olmsted County, Minnesota. The greater Washington, DC, metropolitan area, where NIH is located, has a large African-American community whereas over 90% of residents of Olmsted County are whites. Therefore, sex differences in FFA flux in African Americans will be mainly studied at the National Institutes of Health. Sex differences in FFA flux in whites will be mainly studied at the Mayo Clinic. The results of the two studies will be combined to determine if there are ethnic differences in FFA flux. To ensure results are attributable to ethnic differences (African American versus white) rather than site differences (NIH versus Mayo) some whites will be enrolled at NIH and some African Americans at Mayo. At NIH, 50 African-Americans (25M, 25W) and 14 whites (7M, 7W) will be enrolled. Equal numbers of normal weight, overweight and obese subjects will be recruited. As outpatients, participants will be placed on weight maintaining diets for two weeks and then admitted for a two-day hospital stay. On each in-hospital morning, resting energy expenditure will be measured and stable isotopes infused to measure FFA flux. Stable isotopes are naturally occurring forms of elements, which are safe and non-radioactive. At NIH 7 African-American men, 14 African-American women and 3 white women have completed the protocol and analyses are underway.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
Budget End
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$124,143
Indirect Cost
City
State
Country
Zip Code
Sumner, Anne E (2009) ""Half the dsylipidemia of insulin resistance"" is the dyslipidemia [corrected] of insulin-resistant Blacks. Ethn Dis 19:462-5
Jo, Junghyo; Gavrilova, Oksana; Pack, Stephanie et al. (2009) Hypertrophy and/or Hyperplasia: Dynamics of Adipose Tissue Growth. PLoS Comput Biol 5:e1000324
Sumner, Anne E; Luercio, Marcella F; Frempong, Barbara A et al. (2009) Validity of the reduced-sample insulin modified frequently-sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test using the nonlinear regression approach. Metabolism 58:220-5