[acb-diabetics] type 2 diabetes may be brought on mylow muscle mass

[Patricia LaFrance-Wolf]

Dieting to Reduce Diabetes Risk May Not Work in People With Low Muscle Mass 

Patrick Totty

Jun 18, 2010 

 

One of the factors that    increases the risk of acquiring 

type 2 

diabetes

 is excess body fat. So it makes sense that losing weight has always been
one of the first lines of defense against the disease. Yet people who are
slender

-skinny, even- sometimes develop 

type 2

. Why is that? Does the fact that a slender person can acquire type 2 negate
the need for weight control?

 

It turns out there is an explanation for this seeming contradiction:
sarcopenia, a condition of low muscle mass and strength that actually
increases 

insulin resistance

. Derived from the Greek words meaning "poverty of flesh," sarcopenia is an
affliction commonly associated with the elderly. As people grow old, their
muscle

mass and tone declines. Because muscles are the body's greatest "consumers"
of blood glucose, they are crucial to the maintenance of proper 

blood sugar

 levels.

 

Young and middle-aged people can have sarcopenia, too. Lack of muscle mass
is also common in obese individuals. Despite their large size, their muscles

have become weakened by sedentary habits brought on by the difficulty of
moving comfortably with great weight.

 

The role of sarcopenia in the onset of type 2 was elucidated by recent
research at the University of California Los Angeles. Researchers there did
a cross-sectional

analysis of data on 14,528 people who had been tracked by the National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III -an exhaustive cross-relational
database

that has allowed researchers to find previously unsuspected relationships
among diseases and disease-causing factors.

 

The UCLA researchers found that sarcopenia was associated with 

insulin

 resistance in people whether they were obese or not. Because insulin
resistance is considered a prime factor in the development of type 2, the
researchers

also searched for other diabetes-related factors that were associated with
sarcopenia. They found that in the elderly, the condition was associated
with

higher blood sugar levels in obese people, but not in thin. In people under
the age of 60, both obese and thin people who had sarcopenia also had higher

blood sugar levels. 

 

Nobody knows if there is a chicken-or-egg chain of causation here. Does low
muscle mass, for whatever reason, invite the onset of insulin resistance
and,

later, type 2? Or does some factor that is also associated with diabetes
create sarcopenia, thus starting a cascade of events that pulls an
individual

toward type 2?

 

Whatever the answer, one response to sarcopenia appears to be old-fashioned
resistance training, involving 

exercises

 with weights designed to increase muscle tone and mass. In that case,
putting on weight is not a drawback because the extra pounds are
glucose-consuming

muscles, not insulin-resistant fat.

 

A summary of the study is available 

here.

 

* * *

 

Source:

 

Diet alone may not help stave off type 2; muscle mass important

 

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Categories: 

Complications & Care, 

Endocrinology, 

Health Research, 

Insulin Resistance,

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