Unfortunately, though, the fix needed to stop the body rot of this problem is due to the design of the body and its early optimization against starving 10,000 years ago and requires one today to manage energy input and get sufficient hearty exercise in conjunction with any required meds.
My layman’s understanding of the reason for the problem lies at the feet of the incredible advances by science after the second world war that found ways to increase the bounty many fold of the high energy grains, corn and rice grown on huge farms along with the development of computers that have led to the most incredible collection of couch potato laptop tools, video games, wide screen TV along with cars to transport us everywhere.
Unfortunately this massive change in the food energy content availability was matched with an incredible drop in energy burn at same time. Our present bodies were designed and optimized to survive in times past when food was scarce, scrawny and poor calorie content and required huge effort to find, catch and collect. Except in extremely occasional good random times would the energy input easily exceed the energy expended.
In fact there were many periods of lean, starvation times. The current body is optimized for this by all the steps the body can take with its glucose storage in liver, kidneys, fat cells and skeletal muscle cells along with all the processes to convert/scavenge fat stores and muscles back to energy in a pinch.
Worst off, the hunter gatherer gene digestion track grabs every available calorie from food eaten and converts to glucose and loads into the blood stream. In the past it was simply not possible to overfill the body’s finite glucose stores on any regular basis making it unnecessary that energy input and exercise was balanced out.
Under today’s present situation; it would have been better to have either a less efficient gut/intestine or one that could throw over the side the excess calorie/glucose when the internal body glucose stores are filled up.
The body’s glucose regulation system is based upon storing spare glucose using insulin which depends on the fact that the glucose stores of the fat cells and especially the skeletal muscle cells always have room available to store more glucose on command of the insulin. When no more room exists, the skeletal muscle cells will turn off the power of the body’s insulin to stop glucose transfer from blood stream to the storage sections of the skeletal muscles. That is insulin resistance.
Therefore under today’s situation; it is critical for a type 2 insulin resistant diabetic to carefully manage carbs-energy input and insure sufficient exercise to flush out the glucose stores so that the glucose regulation storage loop of the body stays functioning and under control and to do so must always have room to store more glucose.
It is then the persons responsibility to ensure that energy input and exercise match up so as to keep the energy glucose stores partly empty. This was not a requirement in years past and agricultural innovation prior to the second world war but certainly seems so today.
As for cures for this, they may be better answers tomorrow with better diagnostic tools and drugs but stopping the rot today necessitates the combined punch of meds coupled with carefull energy management of carbs-energy consumption and matching exercise. Yes that obviously will impact one’s life style.
Thank science for the help.
I say all this from my own experience cleaning up my own mess after a stroke that resulted in meds to shut off a leaky liver, a 1200 calorie diet and one to two miles walking a day or its equivalent.
Anybody doing hearty physical labour – ie moving 2 ton stone blocks by hand for the pharaoh’s tombs and edifices probably does not have to worry about this situation and probably needs to ensure they eat sufficient rich grains, corn, rice etc to ensure they keep their weight up.
