Implanting sponges in fat tissue?

Things are getting crazy!

This report suggests that implanting sponges into the fat tissue of type 2 diabetics may be a helpful process, as a previous study showed positive results in rats.

You can read the article in its entirety at the link above, but I do have issues with a few of the statements. These are highlighted below.

Here is the main quote from early on in the article:

“The team found that 3 weeks after receiving polymer sponge implants in their fatty abdomens, obese mice with type 2 diabetes fed on a high-fat diet gained less weight and had lower levels of blood sugar than untreated equivalent mice.”

This outcome is what provides them “promise” of it being helpful to humans in the future.

A couple of nit-picky points on this:

• A high-fat diet in “research talk” for mice is typically a higher fat rat chow, with most fat calories coming from some processed, poly-unsaturated fat like soybean oil.
• They gained less weight? They had lower levels of blood sugar? Is this confirmation that elevated blood sugar leads to weight gain?

This can be confusing because the experts tell us that chronically elevated blood sugar is not associated with fat gain. But this statement seems to contradict that.

Type 2 diabetics are lazy or stupid (maybe both)

Here is one statement in the article, which clearly shows medical professionals (practitioners and researchers) have no clue how to treat or think of type 2 diabetics:

As yet there is no cure for diabetes, and current treatments depend heavily on patients’ ability to manage them. Thus, researchers are keen to discover ways to manage diabetes that do not need patients to perform daily tasks.

How insulting!

Let’s look at the first part of this statement. “As yet, there is no cure for diabetes.” Of course there isn’t! As I constantly say, the approach to treating type 2 diabetics is a misnomer. It should be more appropriately called condition management. The problem is insulin resistance and the target for treatment is blood sugar. It’s as if we don’t even know what the hell we are doing.

The second part of this statement is also infuriating. “…researchers are keen to discover ways to manage diabetes that do not need patients to perform daily tasks.” It’s as if researchers think diabetics are incapable of performing a simple finger stick.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand there is a huge secondary market for strips on places like eBay. But why would a type 2 diabetic endlessly stick their finger when they are constantly told that their diabetes can’t be cured and all they have to do is take their medicine?

Yay…

Excuse me while I don’t celebrate!

the team found that compared with non-implanted mice, the PLG-implanted mice had 60 percent raised levels of glucose transporter type 4, which is a protein that helps to transport sugar from the blood into muscle cells.

So these sponges, implanted into the fat tissue, increased Glut4 levels? When this happens, your body is better at moving glucose from the blood into the muscle tissue. Do you know what else does that? Exercise! Do you know what else does that? Proper sleep! Exercise and sleep do it by improving insulin resistance. Unfortunately, these sponges have zero impact on insulin resistance.

With a zero impact on insulin resistance, these sponges will have no effect on the incidence or prevalence of type 2 diabetes. In the end, all it means is that the pool of type 2 diabetics gets larger and the costs continue to increase.

Why Bother?

What is the point? Why would anyone or why should anyone expose themselves to an implant like this if the outcome doesn’t change? Their condition will not be eliminated; it won’t even be improved. Why should or would anyone do this?

It’s just more of the same and until the target is changed, little will be done to stem the tidal wave.

Maybe we should all hope that Warren Buffett sees the light and starts putting pressure on the American Medical Association.

In the meantime, we will be here, helping diabetics improve their condition. We do that better than anyone because we understand that insulin resistance is the problem, which allows us to fix the problem.

Featured image courtesy of Capri23auto.

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