Diabetes Melitus Type II
With an estimated half billion obese people worldwide and another billion overweight, obesity is one of the most pressing health challenges of our time. A primary complication in obesity is diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2), a disease of which the prevalence is increasing with a worrying speed in many countries, including Croatia.
DM2 is characterized by chronic high blood glucose levels and insulin resistance (IR), but also with chronic low-grade systemic inflammation. This inflammation is thought to be an important underlying cause of insulin resistance and an inducer of the most life-threatening pathologies of DM2.
Treatment of DM2 currently primarily focuses on reducing blood glucose levels and conventional therapy generally only leads to stabilization of disease. Unfortunately, improvement of DM2-associated clinical complications is accomplished only in a minority of DM2 patients. Therefore, targeting the underlying cause of systemic inflammation holds much promise for future therapies.