Research

Hormonal

In the absence of adipose tissue, the liver becomes the primary site of action for thiazolidinediones (TZDs) like rosiglitazone.

For patients with severe lipoatrophy, TZDs like rosiglitazone work by acting on the liver, not fat. If you lack fat tissue, the liver is the key to the drug's effectiveness. In normal individuals, the liver's role in this drug's action is minor compared to fat tissue.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Inactivation of AZIP liver PPAR-gamma also abolished the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of rosiglitazone, demonstrating that, in the absence of adipose tissue, the liver is a primary and major site of thiazolidinedione action.
Oksana Gavrilova et al. · Journal of Biological Chemistry · 2003

Why this rating

Clear demonstration of drug efficacy loss when the target tissue is removed.

Source

Liver Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor γ Contributes to Hepatic Steatosis, Triglyceride Clearance, and Regulation of Body Fat Mass

Oksana Gavrilova et al. · Journal of Biological Chemistry · 2003

DOI 10.1074/jbc.m300043200

mechanism_onlyCited 765×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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