Describe the relationship between activity/diet and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Until recently, humans evolved on a high-exercise regime as hunters and gatherers, and their diet consisted of natural and unprocessed foods. At the present time, our lack of activity and a diet of unlimited processed food have drastically diverged with what our physiology has evolved to do. Our current "unnatural" lifestyle (lack of exercise and overeating of unhealthy foods) manifests itself in many metabolic disorders. One of the most widespread and rapidly growing metabolic disorders is T2DM. In T2DM, tissues fail to respond to insulin. In healthy individuals, an increase in blood glucose levels (for example, after a meal) initiates the production of insulin. Under normal conditions, insulin improves glucose uptake via glut-4 transporters in tissues such as skeletal muscle (a key glucose-consuming tissue). Skeletal muscles of individuals with T2DM are insensitive to insulin, so the glucose is taken up by the liver and adipose tissue and converted to fat. All the extra fat is associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension. Furthermore, as a result of the insensitivity of tissues to insulin, beta cells of the pancreas keep on synthesizing insulin, and after a while the beta cells fail to function. The problem with T2DM is two folds; it may lead to obesity, but obesity can also lead to T2DM.