And the Winner is….

Dear Reader,

As announced in the previous issue of Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology&Diabetes, we will announce the winner of the 2013 Thieme Award for the Best Original Paper in this issue. The decisive criteria are based on scientific quality as well as citations drawn thus far. The winners will receive a prize money of USD 2 000.

This year’s winner is a paper by Z. Zhang and his coworkers, with the title “Increased plasma levels of Nesfatin-1 in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus” [1].

Here is what the jury, Professors Nawroth and Gudermann, have to say about their choice: Nesfatin, derived from the nucleobindin-2-precursor suppresses the nocturnal food intake and reduces body weight after intraventricular injection. It’s inhibition stimulates food intake indicating that it plays a central role in controlling caloric uptake. It’s plasma levels are reduced by fasting and increased after refeeding. It is prominently expressed in the hypothalamus and the spinal cord, but is also present in peripheral tissues including adipocytes, gastric mucosa, beta-cells, thus a link to diabetes seems to be possible.

The authors of this manuscript demonstrate that plasma Nesfatin-1 is elevated in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes, compared to control. It also correlates positively with BMI, HbA1c, FBG and HOMA-IR. Importantly after adjustment for body mass index, plasma Nesfatin-1 remains positively correlated with HbA1c, FBG and HOMA-IR. Thus there might be indeed an interesting relation between diabetes, obesity and Nesfatin. The paper has been cited by other investigators because it is one of the papers typically suited to start research by other groups, which will in the future include the effect of diabetes control on Nesfatin levels as well as the effect of body mass reduction, bariatric surgery, or special kinds of diet on Nesfatin levels. However this study has now demonstrated that Nesfatin is elevated in type 2 diabetes and in impaired glucose tolerance, and is also associated with metabolic and anthropometric parameters in these patients. The future has to show whether Nesfatin turns out to be an important anorexigenic factor opposing weight gain and improving insulin resistance, further studies have also to show whether this protein is involved in late diabetic complications.

Congratulations to the winners!

We are already looking forward to choosing next year’s winner from the wealth of world class papers published in this journal. There is no formal application procedure, all original papers published in 2013 will be considered for the 2014 Thieme Award for the Best Original Paper.

• References

• 1 Zhang Z, Li L, Yang M et al. Increased plasma levels of Nesfatin-1 in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus. Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes 2012; 120: 91-95