I like to think of walking as comparing it to the stock in a soup. By this I mean that it seems such a simple almost unimportant aspect of movement yet walking is the foundation of human movement because you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run or jump. It is also the most convenient form …
Tackling Diabetes through exercise
At university, I learnt how much exercise can do for Diabetes, particularly Type II. Since then I have spent a lot of time researching further to really understand the topic. It just sounds too good to be true. The great thing is that all the evidence backs up what I learnt. Since then I’ve been searching for the best way …
Russell Foster: Why do we sleep?
If we don’t sleep we simply don’t work properly. So what does it do for us, how much do we need, what types are there and many other questions are answered.
Exercise alters metabolism in minutes
Exercise has an impact on your health within minutes. That is the insight I take from a New York Times piece explaining how exercise changes fat and muscle cells.It is in interesting piece exploring the extra detail we are now gaining about just how exercise affects muscle and fat cells. Of course that mostly means extra detail about something we …
How exercise combats Heart Disease, Insulin Resistance and Diabetes
Introduction It may surprise you to learn that getting fit won’t just help you lose much weight. It’ll help you do something far more important because it will help keep you alive and just as important it’ll help you thrive. It is now becoming clear that the major diseases in the west are diseases of our lifestyles and our daily …
Calorie and nutrient intake over time
I’ve noticed for many years that physical activity is a great way to maintain or lose weight because by being active you get to add to your life. It’s a positive thing. Many people instantly tell me they don’t like being active but I quickly and consistently find things they like doing that are active that they didn’t realise could …
The French Paradox: Having your cake and eating it
I mentioned to a friend recently about the French paradox. That is the idea that some things the French do go counter to current wisdom in health education yet they still have fantastic results in many of the health statistics that we compare nations by. In the same search I found that in some quarters the ‘French Paradox’ doesn’t hold up, …
Can you reverse insulin resistance
I read an article Insulin resistance and pre diabetes and just had to report the findings of the major study they refer to. ‘lifestyle changes reduced the risk of diabetes by 58 percent’ The main recommendation is to be active and eat well. I just wanted to make the point that insulin resistance can be reversed. They also found that many people with …
Insulin resistance affects two thirds of the human body. Is there a simple effective treatment?
Ok I’m amazed again. I know it’s abit geeky but I’m just fascinated about the human body. I’ve just been genning up on insulin and boy has it taught me few things. For reference I have been reading a couple of articles on Wikipedia. One about insulin itself and one about insulin resistance. The article on insulin resistance linked to the one on …
Glycation: it’s role in diabetes
I’ve just come across a biological process that’s new to me that’s related to diabetes in particular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycation: when sugars combine with protein or fat without the help of enzymes. This is considered a reducing reaction much like oxidation and has been linked to certain diesaes such as diabetes Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGEs) are basically the products of glycation which …
The Molecular Basis of Insulin Resistance
In answering a forum post on insulin sensitivity I found these articles. They are pretty heavy going but they also get to the nitty gritty of the issue and explain specifically how glut 4 is an important insulin receptor inthe body and how it works. This article from 2001 explains how the disruption of the GLUT 4 mechanism can affect …
Why are trans-fats so bad?
The answer is very simple really. Trans-fats get a bad name because they are linked to the increased rates of coronary heart disease and many related risk factors. Coronary heart disease is caused at a basic level by the pipes of the bodies blood transport system, the arteries, veins and capillaries becoming less elastic, and more prone to blockages as …
Diabetes and Glut4
Reading through wikipedia’s page on diabetes mellitus raised the question for me about whether glut 4 levels in the cells of the body correlate in any way with insulin resistance.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus. Other posts on this blog have described a potential pathway for glut 4 to mediate insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake within cells. Lot’s of the articles I ‘m reading at …