A mathematical model of the human metabolic system and metabolic flexibility

Pearson, Taliesin; Wattis, Jonathan A.D.; King, John. R.; MacDonald, Ian A.; Mazzatti, Dawn

Abstract

In healthy subjects some tissues in the human body display metabolic flexibility, by this we mean the ability for the tissue to switch its fuel source between predominantly carbohydrates in the post prandial state and predominantly fats in the fasted state. Many of the pathways involved with human metabolism are controlled by insulin, and insulin- resistant states such as obesity and type-2 diabetes are characterised by a loss or impairment of metabolic flexibility.
In this paper we derive a system of 12 first-order coupled differential equations that describe the transport between and storage in different tissues of the human body. We find steady state solutions to these equations and use these results to nondimensionalise the model. We then solve the model numerically to simulate a healthy balanced meal and a high fat meal and we discuss and compare these results. Our numerical results show good agreement with experimental data where we have data available to us and the results show behaviour that agrees with intuition where we currently have no data with which to compare.

Citation

Pearson, T., Wattis, J. A., King, J. R., MacDonald, I. A., & Mazzatti, D. (2014). A mathematical model of the human metabolic system and metabolic flexibility. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 76(9), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-014-0001-4

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Aug 15, 2014
• Deposit Date: Sep 7, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 7, 2015
• Journal: Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
• Print ISSN: 0092-8240
• Electronic ISSN: 0092-8240
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 76
• Issue: 9
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-014-0001-4
• Keywords: Multicompartmental Modelling, Insulin, Glucose, Free Fatty Acids, Triglyceride
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/734125
• Publisher URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-014-0001-4
• Additional Information: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11538-014-0001-4