DIABETES RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #17: Why Do Some Obese People Get Type 2 and Some DON’T? BROKEN CLEANING CELLS!

From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: STARTING with a 2014 article, “Diabetes – Will it Ever be cured?”; I check up on the various therapies mentioned…

If I were to ask you what YOU think causes Type 2 diabetes in people…OK, how about I just ask myself?

“Guy, what do you think caused your Type 2 diabetes?”

I’d answer, “I’m fat.”

And I’d be right – but not ENTIRELY! How is it that I’m Type 2 and someone else I know who is JUST as fat NOT Type 2 diabetic????

“It’s just not FAIR!” I wail, weeping, pounding my chest and “Woe-ing-is-me-ing!” to beat the band.

Well, Mr. Me, I don’t know about fairness in biological problems, challenges, and illnesses – but I DO know that science is hard at work at figuring our a way to stop Type 2 from happening; fixing it; or curing it altogether! It’s an expensive disease that is spreading over the entire planet!

“Scientists and physicians have been documenting the condition now known as diabetes for thousands of years.” “in 1675 the word ‘mellitus’, meaning honey, was added to the name ‘diabetes’, meaning siphon. It wasn't until the 1800s that scientists developed chemical tests to detect the presence of sugar in the urine.”

In 1888, a French physician believed that diabetics were either thin or fat. The fat ones were ALWAYS rich and fat and had what was called “adult onset” diabetes. In contrast, thin diabetics always thin, young, desperately ill and, within a year, dead of what was called “adolescent onset” diabetes. Adult Onset was a disease of wealth and laziness; secondary to poor digestion and bad nerves. If you had it, you would die early, albeit you had longer than twelve months to live! The introduction of insulin in 1921 commuted the death sentence to a life sentence but emphasized the difference between insulin-dependent diabetes or adolescent-onset and non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Today, it’s Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Rates of type 2 diabetes have increased since 1960 unsurprisingly right along with obesity.

In 1985, there were 30 million Type 2 diabetics in the US by 2015 there were some 392 million people who were Type 2; by 2030, they expect some 600,000,000 people will be diagnosed as Type 2. But how is it that some people who gain weight suffer from the disease and others do not. The reasons for these differences are not clear, but they are related to what you body USES the fat it gets for rather than HOW MUCH body fat your body has.

The research below noticed that “Healthy fat tissue protects against new fat getting in deposited in the WRONG places. Human beings ALL need fat! The main purpose is that fat is laid down DIRECTLY underneath the skin. THAT fat protects the body from injury.

But it serves a second job: when you need energy, fat breaks down into sugar and goes to the cells so that can “burn it” to keep running. In PARTICULAR, muscle cells need sugar to keep you moving. You’re sleeping at night, so you don’t need as much instant energy, so the body stuffs your LIVER full of fat just waiting to be broken down and used as energy.

Most of you have heard the word “collagen” and you probably know that collagen is a protein in the body. Different kinds of collagen show up in many body parts like hair, skin, fingernails and toenails, bones, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, blood vessels, and intestines. IOW: It’s IMPORTANT!

Your body MAKES fat to story energy, right? The body breaks down collagen to build up fat reserves.

Scientists have found that the rise in collagen breakdown during adipose tissue expansion is done by large microscopic cells called “macrophage” (it literally means “big eater”! However, if you get OVERLY FAT, the macrophages BREAK, losing their ability to turn fat cells into energy ready for the body to use. The broken pieces of collagen are not just waste products, but they stimulate the making of MORE macrophages. That causes inflammation effects in the cells.

The most amazing discovery was still to come. Those macrophages and collagen fragments.: IT APPEARS LIKE if we can TARGET them, we JUST MIGHT BE ABLE TO PREVENT Type-2 diabetes and other conditions of impaired tissue remodeling!”

In science language: “In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of collagen-degrading macrophages and efficient removal of collagen fragments in adaptive, weight gain–induced adipose tissue remodeling. Our data suggest that impaired macrophage-mediated intracellular collagen degradation in obese SAT cannot be fully compensated for by extracellular collagen degradation. We conclude that collagen fragments, rather than being inert metabolites and solely markers of tissue remodeling, actively participate in shaping the SAT microenvironment. Further research in this area may identify novel targets in the prevention of type-2 diabetes in subjects with obesity and in other areas of impaired tissue remodeling.”

In plain English? Not ONLY can macrophages themselves help prevent Type-2; but the FRAGMENTs of the collagen from that the macrophages made when they attacked collagen, just might help as well.

Links: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240201212856.htm; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2313185121 ; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6946720/ Image: https://asploro.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Diabetes-Research_Open-Access.jpg