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[ypauly]

All sorted.

 

[mcdonagh47]

Forum challenge time.

Causes of type 2 diabetes other than weight.

the causes of Type 2 Diabetes are unknown -that's why there is no treatment for the condition.
The usual catchall phrase is "genetic". This actually translates as "we have no idea".
Other speculation suggests that there might actually be half a dozen different conditions with the same symptom - insulin resistance leading to T2.
Then you have the Metabolic Syndrome - T2 diabetes, hypertension, raised cholesterol and obesity ( the four horsemen of the Apocalypse) all riding together and exacerbating each other. In that view T2 is just a symptom of the deeper malaise (so far undiscovered) that is causing all four of them.
Then you have the geneticists who argue that the genes predisposing to Type 2 Diabetes are beneficial genes from our early past. Raised bgs would be useful in a famine situation or for older members of the tribe with less access to food.
This view suggests that the genes for T2 are so widespread and so carefully conserved and passed on through the generations that they must have been useful at some point in the past.
In the early 1990s when I was dxed there was much interest in Amylin ( a hormone co-secreted with insulin). Over secretion of amylin was suggested as negating the action of insulin causing raised bgs. Not heard much about that idea since.
Then there is the issue of malformed insulin. Powerful scanning microscopes have shown that some T2s have insulin that has feeble or non-existent tethers and cannot signal to cells that glucose has been delivered.( Insulin has to tether itself in the insulin receptor port for the glucose to be collected). That,s one of thevreasons injected insulin usually works for T2s - artificial insulin is always perfectly formed.
Then there is the association of T2 and steroids which can trigger it.
So the causes of T2 are unknown, it probably is several different conditions with common symptoms. Let's hope the answers are already there in the multitude of research that has been done and just waiting for another scientific genius to put the pieces of the jigsaw together in a new way.

 

[ypauly]

Well thank you sir. I did find a few things myself but in all honesty I didn't know that type 2 didn't actually have known causes. I just thought there were many.


/sits in the corner feeling ashamed.

 

[Northerner]

I think the thing is that weight is a risk factor and it's (theoretically!) one of the things that people have most control over, so this is why all the campaigns put out this one simple message. Unfortunately, this leads Joe public to imagine that it is the only factor and that it is always controllable.

 

[mcdonagh47]

I think the thing is that weight is a risk factor

Not just "a" risk factor, the dominant one, the dominant trigger, with obesity being the single most powerful predictor of Type 2 Diabetes. Getting across the association between overweight/obesity and Type 2 Diabetes is an important public health message that should not be blunted by ifs and buts and maybes.
And now research is increasingly showing that overweight and obesity are also triggers for Type 1 Diabetes as well. The Insulin Resistance resulting from obesity and overweight is the final straw for pancreases struggling to cope.
There is some recent Australian research that shows that children who are overweight or obese aged 5 are 3 times more likely to develop Type 1 Diabetes by the age of 21 than other children.

 

[mcdonagh47]

Well thank you sir. I did find a few things myself but in all honesty I didn't know that type 2 didn't actually have known causes. I just thought there were many.


/sits in the corner feeling ashamed.

The causes of Type 1 Diabetes are also unknown and that's why there is no treatment for that.😉