• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, October 6, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Uranium toxicity may be causing high rates of obesity and diabetes in Kuwait

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
July 8, 2019
in Health
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Dr. Max Goodson

Kuwait has some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world, and scientists don’t know why. This question was addressed by Dr. Max Goodson, Emeritus Professor at the Forsyth Institute.

Goodson is the principal investigator of a large-scale study that analyzed diet, salivary bacteria, salivary protein biomarkers, and salivary metabolites of 10-year-old Kuwaiti children. Researchers collected saliva samples from 94 children once in 2012 and again in 2014.

All of the children were healthy at the start of the study, but approximately half of them developed obesity and metabolic syndrome two years later. When analyzing differences in metabolites found in saliva samples, Goodson and his colleagues discovered elevated levels of a biomarker for uranium toxicity were present in the saliva of children who became obese. The results were published recently in Frontiers in Endocrinology.

The biomarker, a compound called N1-Methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide (2PY), is a metabolite of the vitamin niacin. It is present at low levels in almost everyone’s saliva. However, 2PY was found at higher than normal concentrations only in the saliva samples of the obese children in Kuwait. In a comparable group of obese children from Maine and Massachusetts, elevated levels of 2PY in obese children were not found.

“The implication,” Goodson said, “is that these children may be suffering from uranium toxicity, which may be contributing to the high rates of obesity and diabetes in Kuwait.”

The idea that uranium toxicity would be a health concern in Kuwait makes sense. In 1990-1991, the United States dropped almost 300 tons of uranium-containing munitions in the central region of the country, Goodson said. As part of the recent study, researchers found that the highest rates of obesity and salivary 2PY were concentrated in that central region and reduced in peripheral areas of Kuwait.

Goodson is careful to point out that the study measured a biomarker for uranium, not uranium itself. More research is needed to determine whether toxicity from exposure to the heavy metal is truly the culprit for high rates of obesity and diabetes seen in Kuwait.

###

Media Contact
Alexandra Nicodemo
[email protected]

Original Source

https://www.forsyth.org/blog/uranium-toxicity-may-be-causing-high-rates-obesity-and-diabetes-kuwait#.XSN259NKglJ

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2019.00382

Tags: Diet/Body WeightEating Disorders/ObesityMedicine/HealthPublic Health
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Unraveling Mental Health Issues in Autoimmune Thyroiditis Kids

October 6, 2025

Broad T Cell Response Against Omicron Spike Variants

October 6, 2025

HUWE1 Loss Drives Stemness, Drug Resistance in CRC

October 6, 2025

Keys to Strong Academic–Industry Collaborations

October 6, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    95 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    93 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    71 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Unraveling Mental Health Issues in Autoimmune Thyroiditis Kids

Broad T Cell Response Against Omicron Spike Variants

HUWE1 Loss Drives Stemness, Drug Resistance in CRC

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 63 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.