This is one of the decisions taken this morning by the Governing Council during its weekly meeting, as announced by the spokesman of the Government of La Rioja Emilio del Río.
So the Minister of Education, Culture and Tourism will entrust the management of the 'Plan of investigation of the effects of the main fungi grown in La Rioja on adipocyte metabolism and its potential beneficial role in obesity and insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes 'to CIBIR.
This "parcel shall be implemented through an agreement between the Institute of La Rioja (IER), the body responsible for funding this research plan and CIBIR 15,900 euros, which will hold its management in 2011 and 2012," said Del Río.
The project's objective is to analyze the effects of fungi such as mushrooms (Agaricus Bisporis), the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) and shiitake (Lentinus Ages) may have on the metabolism of overweight and diabetes. Therefore, the work will focus on "the effects of these mushrooms in the metabolism of fats and sugars, important in the development of both metabolic diseases."
The researchers worked with cells in culture, isolated in plastic and kept growing artificially on which experiments are performed to obtain the first results. The experiment is called 'in vitro'.
The CIBIR analyze the molecular mechanisms involved in the metabolism of sugars into fat cells (adipocytes) taken from people with a healthy weight and overweight people. They try to assess the beneficial effect of mushroom extracts on the latter.
"Insulin is a key factor in the metabolism of sugars and their imbalance is responsible for numerous diseases such as diabetes or obesity." Therefore, this study also seeks to "analyze the amount of proteins involved in insulin control and characterize their status both in cells from people with a healthy weight as in obese people." The results will provide information to detail and knowledge of the system unbalanced characteristic of the disease .
Also, statistically analyzed the responses of adipocytes after three mushroom extracts under study and check whether there is differential response depending on the weight of the individual on which are tested and on the deposit type analyzed.
We also compared the effects of three extracts to see which employees mycological presents the most potent effects on the parameters discussed previously in individuals with normal weight and obese individuals. The idea is to confirm that the fungi can restore or improve these parameters are altered in overweight people.
