Modeling the Effect of High Calorie Diet on the Interplay between Adipose Tissue, Inflammation, and Diabetes

Figure 5

Number of macrophages in the two differentiation classes M1 and M2 per μL of simulated adipose tissue at different time points of simulations of varying calorie diets. The shift toward the M1 proinflammatory phenotype of the macrophage population is not meaningful at the first year (a) but becomes pronounced from year three onwards (c–e) even for relatively lower values of the excess caloric intake (e). Note that at year five (e) also the number of M2 anti-inflammatory macrophages is increased in high calorie diets , indicating the attempt of the immune system to counterbalance the inflammation by empowering anti-inflammatory mechanisms.

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