Diabetes type 2- cold adaption or result from history?

 

Diabetes Type 2 - cold adaption or result from history?

One topic from the book was why people develop diabetes (pages 23-48). This relates to big idea 1: the process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life. Diabetes, a disease that got passed down, even though it is detrimental to our health (refer to Jeremy Bush's post). We all know that people with type 1 diabetes are born with it (heredity/genetics), but how about type 2? According to the book diabetes helped early humans survive through cold weather. However, there is a known  link between how people tend to like sweet & salty foods over others. There is scientific research that proved that people favor sugary and saltier foods because during the early human times, these substances were hard to find. Caloric substances (sweet and salty foods) may have given early humans growth advantages when calories were scarce. Could it be that our natural instinct to load up on the calories got passed down, and now with the easy access to the fast food, more and more of us are developing diabetes?

"Why would you take a drug that is guaranteed to kill you in forty years? One reason right? It's the only thing that will stop you from dying tomorrow"(p.4). The same reason why early humans stocked up on glucose and sodium phosphate, it increased their chance of survival in the short run.

We know that insulin is not an enzyme but a hormone. Is there an enzyme that directly breaks down glucose or sodium chloride? If so, what can we do to lower the activation energy of these enzymes?

- Jay Selvaraj (jselvaraj95@gmail.com)