An Epidemic Genetic Disease

The story for type 2 diabetes is really quite different. T2D is essentially an epidemic disease. Prevalence has increased from a few percent to well more than ten percent over the past 30 years and continues to trend upward at an alarming rate. Genes alone cannot cause an epidemic; there must be some environmental agent. And we all know what that agent is: the transition to a fast food, slow couch-potato lifestyle. The genes are just accomplices—from their viewpoint unwitting ones. In the blame game, they are innocent victims of changes that humans have wrought upon themselves, caught up in a disease they have no business being associated with.

We can talk about hyperglycemia and insulin resistance as much as we want, but the root problem in T2D is that regulation of metabolism is out of control. Constantly exposed to high sugar levels in the diet, we produce insulin at higher levels than the body evolved to tolerate. Eventually it cries wolf, shutting down its response to the hormone. The modern lifestyle has pushed an exquisitely evolved system of checks and balances to the limits of its buffering capacity. Those who are unlucky enough to be genetically less buffered find themselves more susceptible to developing diabetes.