Promovendus Gül Turan van Human and Animal Physiology onderzoekt het effect van immobiliteit op spieren. Foto Ruben Eshuis Not everyone with their arm in plaster has broken a bone. They might be a test subject in the research of PhD candidate Gül Turan (Human and Animal Physiology). She uses test subjects to find out how our muscle metabolism is impacted by a short period of being immobile.
This so-called plaster research is a first on Wageningen campus. Turan is investigating how the metabolism of amino acids and glucose changes after a short period of inactivity. She is looking at both healthy people and people with Type 2 diabetes. The plaster is not in place to allow fractured bones to heal, but to prevent the test subject from moving their arm.
Sensitive to insulin
‘During physical inactivity due to illness or after surgery, the muscles of people with normal insulin levels, become less sensitive to insulin’, Turan explains. ‘As a result, they absorb less than half the sugars from the bloodstream. This issue is exacerbated in people with diabetes, as they are already less sensitive to insulin.’
Such immobilisation studies have, to date, been done mainly in test subjects with normal insulin levels. ‘So, we do not know how people with diabetes react to periods of inactivity.’
Comparing
Turan fits a plaster cast on one forearm of each of the test subjects. ‘But we take measurements on both arms. The subjects are given a standard meal, after which we take blood samples at different times. The composition of the blood samples shows what nutrients the muscle absorbs, revealing how the immobilised muscle reacts. We can then compare that to the muscle in the arm that has not been fitted with a cast.’
Turan still needs subjects for her research: men and women between 18 and 65 with a BMI (body mass divided by the height squared) between 18.5 and 30. Learn more about her research here or contact Gül Turan by email gul.turan@wur.nl.
