Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Meta-Anal. Apr 26, 2015; 3(2): 89-92
Published online Apr 26, 2015. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v3.i2.89
Unsaturation index and type 2 diabetes: Unknown, unloved
Rob NM Weijers
Rob NM Weijers, Teaching Hospital, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, 1090 HA Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Author contributions: Weijers RNM solely contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest: The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be constructed as a potential conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It 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: Rob NM Weijers, PhD, Member of Teaching Hospital, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Oosterparkstraat 9, PO Box 95500, 1090 HA Amsterdam, The Netherlands. robw01@xs4all.nl
Telephone: +31-30-6362637
Received: December 14, 2014
Peer-review started: December 17, 2014
First decision: January 20, 2015
Revised: January 28, 2015
Accepted: April 1, 2015
Article in press: April 7, 2015
Published online: April 26, 2015
Processing time: 135 Days and 7.8 Hours
Abstract

A useful parameter for interpreting analyses of membrane fatty-acid composition is the unsaturation index (UI), a measure of unsaturation that is calculated as the mean number of cis double bonds per fatty-acid residue multiplied by 100. The UI is a fundamental parameter that contains information about many membrane biophysical properties and behavior. UI is a crucial index for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and other disorders, yet it is not properly considered in the scientific community. The goal of the present editorial is to familiarize the scientific T2D community with the UI. The idea of early systemic cell-membrane disease necessitates new thinking and suggests that UI should feature prominently on the research agenda.

Keywords: Type 2 diabetes; Unsaturation index; Phospholipid; Cell membrane; Fatty acid

Core tip: A useful parameter for interpreting analyses of membrane fatty-acid composition is the unsaturation index (UI), a measure of unsaturation that is calculated as the mean number of cis double bonds per fatty-acid residue multiplied by 100. The UI is a fundamental parameter that contains information about many membrane biophysical properties and behaviour. UI is a crucial index for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and other disorders, yet it is not properly considered in the scientific community. The goal of the present editorial is to familiarize the scientific T2D community with the UI.