New research dispels some type 2 diabetes/obesity myths

24th August 2007

New research dispels some type 2 diabetes/obesity myths

Researchers at the Touchstone Center for Diabetes Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have discovered that obesity doesn’t automatically equal a type 2 diabetes sentence.

Using mice, researchers discovered that it’s not necessarily obesity in general which causes type 2 diabetes, but that the disease is determined more so by where fat is stored. And where fat is stored in the body is largely genetically pre-determined, they say.

Lead researcher Philipp Scherer:

“You have a lot of obese individuals who are not type 2 diabetics, and you have lean individuals that can be type 2 diabetics,” he said.

All of this means that measuring fat as an indicator of general health might not hold up anymore, Scherer said. “It’s really a matter of where we deposit these excess calories,” he said. “Fat is a little like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location.”

Of course, no article is complete without those niggling stabs at obesity, with Scherer noting that this research should not be seen as a “free pass to become obese.”

“Exercise and reduction of food intake are the best ways to stay healthy,” he said.

While his advice is good advice, nonetheless Scherer too assumes that obese people do not exercise and must overeat - why else would they be obese? This is despite his acknowledgment that most people can’t prevent some fat from being stored in the liver and muscle.

*Shakes head* You have to take the good with the bad, I guess.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Fat Bias, Health/Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On August 24th, 2007, Fillyjonk

said:

Not to mention the assumption that we’re all just waiting for a free pass to get fat (or, more to the point, a free pass to eat). Newsflash: only people who spend all their time worryng about getting fat and/or punishing themselves for getting fat would read a study like this and go “huzzah, bring on the cream puffs!”

posted on August 24th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

2 On August 24th, 2007, Meowser

Dig it, Fillyjonk. It’s not like I read HAES/size neutral research and then go, “Oh goody, now I can have chili cheese fries for lunch instead of that icky salad!” I don’t eat icky salad or icky anything else if I can help it, and on those rare occasions I might want chili cheese fries I certainly don’t look to the media to give or deny me “permission” to eat them. And I already do eat less and exercise more and consume far fewer sweetened drinks than I used to and it hasn’t made me thin, so they can bite my fat-filled internal organs already.

I think there must be some kind of law that says, “Every media story about fat, even if it talks about a study that makes a good case for weight neutrality, MUST end with, ‘but ladies, don’t stop watching those figures’!” (You know it isn’t men who read this shit, with rare exceptions.)

posted on August 24th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

3 On August 24th, 2007, holls

This is NOT related, but I needed someone to see this!

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/855004.html

posted on August 24th, 2007 at 6:32 pm

4 On August 25th, 2007, Tari

Ye gods, am I tired of hearing every piece of potentially-fat-neutral information couched in a heaping bed of caveats based on ignorant generalizations that so often don’t even pertain to the information in the first place!

I also really like the way “excess calories” = “fat.”

Oh, and holls…..I don’t even know what to say. That is unfreakingbelieveable. Or at least I wish it was.

posted on August 25th, 2007 at 2:51 am

5 On August 25th, 2007, Kate Harding

Ditto to Fillyjonk and Meowser, and I would also like to nitpick. This:

“Exercise and reduction of food intake are the best ways to stay healthy,” he said.

is actually not good advice. Exercise and a balanced diet? A varied diet? Sure. But “reduction of food intake” is certainly not “the best way to stay healthy” for everyone. I know you know that better than anyone, Rachel. So I just want to call attention to how the language of HAES can become the language of disordered thinking just by changing a couple words.

posted on August 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am

6 On March 7th, 2008, wriggles

Not forgetting that mathematics will tell you that fat doesn’t equal diabetes, at the end of last year a scientist was lamenting the - he thought- shameful fact that, wait for it, type II diabetes was at a rate of 1 in 20 of ‘obese’ people.I remember thinking say what, you mean 5%?

posted on March 7th, 2008 at 8:20 am