Audi Quattro with a lawn mower engine

 

 

Spending public money on big research equipment can be ridiculous. Often when regulations on how to spend the tax-payers’ money change, some open ends appear giving opportunity to business piracy. To win the tender and sell at dumped prices these companies are ready to sell something like an Audi Quattro with a lawn mower engine.

Of course it is not possible to use features of such a legendary vehicle with an engine that lacks orders of magnitude on horse power and other parameters of performance, even if one would manage to couple it to the wheels. How we can than rationally expect that our bodies will run well with a key metabolic engine, insulin secreting pancreas that is too small for the size and the needs of the body?

We sent a person back to the natural environment in the first post of this blog. If he/she managed to survive until few months later, his/her body mass index (BMI) is likely around or more likely below 20. This would be a wild type body size, a body volume that could easily run on lawn mower size engine, a body that could easily use a normal size insulin secreting pancreas. It is quite common these days to be 50 – 100 % over this wild type body size. More than three quarters of children at the age of 14 are above the BMI mark 20, often considerably above it. Being significantly above this wild type value changes our bodies into over sized, power-demanding vehicles, rendering insulin secreting pancreas too small to secure adequate insulin levels.

But what about the solutions of this issue? What would an engineer do with a low performance engine? With engines you can tweak control unit to increase its performance. Is it then possible to overhaul insulin secreting pancreas? Our bodies start to secrete another hormone, called glucagon, to increase glucose levels and to give insulin secreting cells a better “fuel/air” mixture to secrete more insulin. SO YES!!! Higher glucose is initially beneficial to make a better use of insulin secreting cells.

It still remains a question, why our therapeutic strategies are so much directed to lowering blood glucose? High blood glucose is the best sign, the best indicator that our metabolic engine, insulin secreting pancreas is lacking power for a long-term operation. If one bothers to change his/her BMI back towards 20, the body will do the rest. It will immediately remove excess glucagon secreting cells and glucose when they are no longer needed.