Obesity, insulin resistance, and microvascular adaptation

Two of the primary risk factors for the progressive evolution of cardiovascular disease are obesity and impaired glycemic control-including both insulin resistance and overt type 2 diabetes mellitus, leading to increased research emphasis on these conditions, their mechanistic bases, and their health outcomes. This Special Topics Issue of the journal Microcirculation summarizes a symposium at the recent Joint Meeting of the American Physiological Society and the Physiological Society, held in Dublin, Ireland, on July 30, 2016. This symposium, "Adaptive outcomes of microvascular networks to obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus/insulin resistance," presented four lectures, each of which addressed the larger issue from a different perspective.