Diabetes, Puberty and Inflammation: Why Diet and Exercise is Medicine

Two articles bring to the forefront, again, what research is homing in on: that inflammation wreaks havoc beyond swelling, redness, and pain.

The first, on how inflammation contributes to diabetes – and, by the way, how diabetes feeds into inflammation – comes from Health News Canal: Here we learn of an apparent linkage of body fat and the inflammatory process that may actually cause Type 2 diabetes (T2D). Without reviewing the science, let it be said that eating a high sugar, high calorie diet is pro-inflammatory, and that doing so regularly not only leads to excess weight gain; it also leads to other diseases – heart, osteoarthritis, metabolic, maybe even some cancers – and all ties in on the balance of diet and calorie burning, or exercise.

The article says “that insulin suppressed glucose production by the liver by inhibiting the breakdown of fat, which would result in a reduction in hepatic acetyl CoA, a key molecule that they showed was critical in regulating the conversion of amino acids and lactate to glucose. They also found that reversal of this process, due to inflammation in adipose (fatty) tissue, led to increased hepatic glucose production and hyperglycemia in high-fat-fed” lab animals. (My italics.)

What’s this mean? Simple: eat healthier, get fat weight under control – i.e. OFF, and start exercising because muscles use the blood sugar which comes from the sugars you consume.

This article in the NYT on early puberty in young girls, as early as age 7, is frightening:

Longer exposure to estrogen, female hormones that normally escalate in early adolescence, are linked to higher rates of breast cancer. However, it also is linked to lower rates of heart disease in females up to menopause, and higher bone density, both of which are good. However, these earlier boosts of estrogen are not coming from natural events as humans have pretty much progressed through puberty at the same time of life for millions of years. What makes this a notable piece of info is that the rise in estrogen in young females is due to excess body fat!

That highlights the long term consequences of the lifestyles we are providing our kids, with sedentary activity (really, sedentary inactivity) and prolific volumes of unhealthy dietary options, amounting to a form of disease creation. We, the modern parent, both upper and lower class parents, are, in effect, sentencing our daughters to decreased life spans and life quality.

If this sounds like Chicken Little, so be it. At least, maybe, you won’t get your kids fried chicken tenders or wings. Ultimately, getting kids started on a healthy diet, which takes the commitment of parents, and a more active lifestyle, which takes a commitment of parents, is key to longevity and health. At STEPS, we don’t do fad diets or extreme weight loss programs. We emphasize ‘real’ lifestyle changes that mitigate risk from the typical American lifestyle.