David Perlmutter M.D. – Empowering Neurologist: The food, the facts, the science to control your genetic destiny. The leading causes of death and disability worldwide are chronic degenerative conditions. These familiar diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type II diabetes are increasing globally, at a dramatic rate, in every region, and in all socioeconomic classes. To be clear, chronic degenerative conditions exceed deaths caused by famine, war, and even infectious diseases. Importantly, this was not always the case. What has changed? Certainly, it hasn’t been our genetics. Our DNA has changed very little in the past hundred thousand years. And yet, we are suddenly experiencing a virtual explosion in the prevalence of these conditions. To understand why do these conditions are now so widespread, we have to ask if there’s any shared mechanism that underlies chronic degenerative diseases as a group. Indeed there is. In a word, it’s Read More
Articles posted in Diabetes
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Diabetes Risk and Impulsivity
Understanding the relationship between less healthful dietary and lifestyle choices and developing type-2 diabetes, a recent study linking the brain’s center for impulsive behavior and diabetes risk was really interesting. The research was performed at the Massachusetts General Hospital and involved 232 non-diabetic subjects. These individuals underwent brain-imaging studies that measured the metabolic activity of their amygdalas, an area of the brain that is involved with fear, stress, and impulsivity. Researchers demonstrated that individuals with an amygdala that showed higher activity were much more likely to later develop diabetes. This risk seemed to be independent of obesity. Even the risk for insulin resistance, the harbinger for diabetes, also correlated with increased activity in the amygdala. There are a lot of interesting ideas that this relationship brings to mind. First, the amygdala is activated by stress. Stress also increases the level of cortisol hormone in the blood, which may then go Read More
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Diabetes Risk and Impulsivity
Understanding the relationship between less healthful dietary and lifestyle choices and developing type-2 diabetes, a recent study linking the brain’s center for impulsive behavior and diabetes risk was really interesting. The research was performed at the Massachusetts General Hospital and involved 232 non-diabetic subjects. These individuals underwent brain-imaging studies that measured the metabolic activity of their amygdalas, an area of the brain that is involved with fear, stress, and impulsivity. Researchers demonstrated that individuals with an amygdala that showed higher activity were much more likely to later develop diabetes. This risk seemed to be independent of obesity. Even the risk for insulin resistance, the harbinger for diabetes, also correlated with increased activity in the amygdala. There are a lot of interesting ideas that this relationship brings to mind. First, the amygdala is activated by stress. Stress also increases the level of cortisol hormone in the blood, which may then go Read More