Diabetes is a major health problem that is usually associated with obesity, together with hyperglycemia and increased advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) formation. Elevated AGEs elicit severe downstream consequences via their binding to receptors of AGEs (RAGE). This includes oxidative stress and oxidative modifications of biological compounds together with heightened inflammation. For example, albumin (major circulating protein) undergoes increased glycoxidation with diabetes and may represent an important biomarker for monitoring diabetic pathophysiology. Despite the central role of adipose tissue in many physiologic/pathologic processes, recognition of the effects of greater AGEs formation in this tissue is quite recent within the obesity/diabetes context. This review provides a brief background of AGEs formation and adipose tissue biology and thereafter discusses the impact of AGEs-adipocyte interactions in pathology progression. Novel data are included showing how AGEs (especially glycated albumin) may be involved in hyperglycemia-induced oxidative damage in adipocytes and its potential links to diabetes progression.

Several of our laboratories in Animal Physiology consist of having undergraduate students observe and draw histological preparations 1 . Students are asked to view the slide, observe and locate the features that they will draw. Representations of the tissue in the physiology lessons and in the pre-laboratory settings help students identify structures. On their answer sheet, students should include above the drawing, a title and magnification under which they observed the slide. Actually students specify only the microscope magnification without taking into account the magnification factor of their drawing. In other words, we noticed that students drawing from identical slides wrote the same magnification (for example X100) despite very different drawings in size by students. In our laboratories in Physiology when students have to perform histological drawings, they are taught the importance of including a scale and a "blood tip" to do so is provided.