(nods nods) There's a *s**tload* of scientific firepower directed against understanding obesity-associated diabetes (my entire PhD thesis was aimed at it), given the obesity epidemic currently underway and the epic trainwreck waiting ten-twenty years down the line when all of today's obese people become tomorrow's diabetics. It's also a testament to how awesomely complex obesity and diabetes are turning out to be that we still don't totally understand WTF is going on.
The real problem is that the human body is evolved to defeat any attempt to lose weight -- after all, up until the last few decades, starvation, rather than excess weight gain, was the primary threat to human life. All mechanisms we've found so far get counter-regulated when we try to turn them down. Still, continued research into things like leptin, resistin, adiponectin, incretin and all the other zillions of molecules we've discovered involved in nutrition, weight gain, and so on will lead to more discoveries and a better understanding of WTF is actually going on.
(For more, see The Big Fat Question (http://turnberryknkn.livejournal.com/204152.html), 6/14/2004.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-14 05:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-17 06:08 am (UTC)The real problem is that the human body is evolved to defeat any attempt to lose weight -- after all, up until the last few decades, starvation, rather than excess weight gain, was the primary threat to human life. All mechanisms we've found so far get counter-regulated when we try to turn them down. Still, continued research into things like leptin, resistin, adiponectin, incretin and all the other zillions of molecules we've discovered involved in nutrition, weight gain, and so on will lead to more discoveries and a better understanding of WTF is actually going on.
(For more, see The Big Fat Question (http://turnberryknkn.livejournal.com/204152.html), 6/14/2004.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-17 11:27 am (UTC)Would you be willing to weigh in on this:
http://psyco-path.livejournal.com/253965.html
Also, can I solicit your very nice and intellegent wife's opinion as well?