Does Glucocorticoids Affect Adipose Tissue?

Glucocorticoids promote preadipocyte conversion to mature adipocytes, causing hyperplasia of the adipose tissue. Glucocorticoids also have acute antilipolytic effect on adipocytes, whereas their genomic actions facilitate increased lipolysis after about 48 hours of exposure.

How does cortisol affect adipose tissue?

Cortisol exerts its effects in adipocytes by binding to both glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) with similarly high affinity. Obesity has been associated with increased adipose HSD1 activity, further increasing intra-adipocyte cortisol concentrations.

What cells do glucocorticoids affect?

At the cellular level, glucocorticoids can induce apoptosis of T lymphocytes, neutrophils, basophils and eosinophils to reduce inflammation [47]. In a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced sepsis model, glucocorticoids were shown to modulate macrophage cytokine production by inhibiting p38 MAPK [14,55].