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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Nov 15, 2018; 9(11): 195-198
Published online Nov 15, 2018. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v9.i11.195
Circadian rhythms of hormone secretion and obesity
Rajendra Raghow
Rajendra Raghow, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Memphis, TN 38104, United States
Rajendra Raghow, Department of Pharmacology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN 38163, United States
Author contributions: Raghow R solely wrote this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Rajendra Raghow declares that there is neither a conflict of interest with regard to the publication discussed in this FOV communication nor with respect to a commercial entity.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Rajendra Raghow, PhD, Professor, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 1030 Jefferson Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104, United States. rraghow@uthsc.edu
Telephone: +1-901-5238990 Fax: +1-901-5237274
Received: July 19, 2018
Peer-review started: July 19, 2018
First decision: August 9, 2018
Revised: October 8, 2018
Accepted: October 24, 2018
Article in press: October 24, 2018
Published online: November 15, 2018
Processing time: 118 Days and 12.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Bahrami-Nejad et al examined pre-adipocytes for their ability to differentiate into fat cells in response to hormonal stimuli that were presented either in a pulsatile manner, mimicking circadian rhythms, or delivered continuously. These experiments revealed that adipocyte differentiation program, made up of slow and fast feedback circuits, was able to distinguish between the oscillating and continuous hormonal signals. The authors showed that pre-adipocytes apparently used the fast, positive feedback network to reject the oscillating hormonal cues. In contrast, if delivered continuously, similar strength glucocorticoids impinged on the slow positive feedback circuit to trigger maximal differentiation of pre-adipocytes into bone fide fat cells. The pulsatile vs continuous hormone stimuli were similarly discriminated in vivo since mice receiving glucocorticoids in a non-oscillating manner for 21 d elicited increased accumulation of subcutaneous and visceral fat. These data elucidate a potential mechanism underling the development of obesity associated with chronic stress or Cushing’s disease.