✍ Scribed by J. C. Brand Miller; S. Colagiuri
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
We postulate a critical role for the quantity and quality of dietary carbohydrate in the pathogenesis of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). Our primate ancestors ate a high-carbohydrate diet and the brain and reproductive tissues evolved a specific requirement for glucose as a source of fuel. But the Ice Ages which dominated the last two million years of human evolution brought a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet. Certain metabolic adaptations were therefore necessary to accommodate the low glucose intake. Studies in both humans and experimental animals indicate that the adaptive (phenotypic) response to low-carbohydrate intake is insulin resistance. This provides the clue that insulin resistance is the mechanism for coping with a shortage of dietary glucose. We propose that the low-carbohydrate carnivorous diet would have disadvantaged reproduction in insulin-sensitive individuals and positively selected for individuals with insulin resistance. Natural selection would
📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES