A group from Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Jan Waldenströms gata 15, floor 5, Malmö, Sweden, etc. has reported about interesting correlation between Galectin-4 and a type of Obesity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9250274/
Obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) contributes to health complications and reduces life expectancy with up to approximately 20 years. This is mainly due to the significantly increased risk of developing numerous non-communicable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes (DM2), cardiovascular disease (CVD) and certain types of cancer.
Gal-4 is expressed almost exclusively in the gastrointestinal tract of healthy individuals, where it plays a role in controlling intestinal inflammation. It reduces proinflammatory cytokine production in the intestinal mucosa, and knockdown of the Gal-4 peptide promotes colorectal cancerogenesis. This suggests that Gal-4 plays a significant role in the pathophysiology of the development of both inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancers. However, the physiological role of Gal-4 is multifaceted and further include apical protein trafficking, lipid raft stabilization, intestinal wound healing and bacterial pathogen fighting. Epidemiological data also strongly propose an involvement of Gal-4 in cardiometabolic diseases, suggesting it may be considered as a predictive biomarker for the development of CVD and diabetes.
In this study, comparing hospitalized subjects with obesity (HO) with non-hospitalized subjects with obesity (NHO), it was found that the Gal-4 level was associated with a higher probability of being HO in the fully adjusted logistic regression model (OR 1.72; CI95% 1.16–2.54; p = 0.007).
Very curious, isn’t it?