Resistin

Where it comes from

Made in

Fat cells in mice; in people, macrophages and monocytes above all

Sent out by

Inflammation raises it; the human fat cell makes little

Acts on

• Liver and muscle (in mice)
• Endothelium
• Macrophages

What it does

• Causes insulin resistance in mice, the finding that named it in 2001 ¹
• In people its ties to diabetes are weak and to inflammation and atherosclerosis stronger
• Raised in sepsis and kidney disease

In medicine

• A research marker of inflammation and cardiovascular risk
• No approved medicine copies it or blocks it. The mouse hormone comes from fat cells and the human one does not, so the result that made resistin interesting does not transfer ¹

Beyond the body’s own use

• Resistin is in no human trial, as a treatment or as a target. The work that continues is on CAP1, the receptor through which human resistin inflames monocytes ²
• Nothing is approved and nothing is taken outside medicine. The question left is whether a hormone named for insulin resistance in mice should be read in people as an inflammatory signal instead ²