EUGENIZATION.

Type 2 (Non-Insulin Dependent) Diabetes is probably what you could consider a disease of civilization. It stems from the fundamental issue of insulin insensitivity - an inability of insulin to affect blood sugar levels.

Insulin is required to export glucose (sugar) from your bloodstream into your waiting, hungry cells. As your cells’ insulin sensitivity decreases, higher and higher levels of insulin are required to ferry the same amount of glucose into your cells.

Liken it to your attempts to enter the most exclusive restaurant in town with your date on a busy Saturday night. Not unlike an old Hollywood cliche, you slip the maitre’d a $20 so that you and your date can hobnob with the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan (motivation notwithstanding). This is no mere fancy restaurant, however; it’s the hottest show in town, and soon your $20 bribe is but a mere trifle for the maitre’d, who’s under strict orders to keep non-elites like you out. So you up your ante to $40, which works for a time. But faced with letting you in and keeping Justin Timberlake out, $40 just doesn’t cut it. So you keep raising the stakes…

…well, at some point, you simply won’t have enough money to buy your way in. You could offer the maitre’d $100,000 and he’d still throw you out. You have been effectively shut out of the restaurant.

This is almost exactly how you end up with Type 2 Diabetes. Eventually, your cells just ignore insulin and shut glucose out. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t deadly.

As you might imagine, the epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes is of some concern to public health officials, who typically rely on recommendations from government agencies to treat these problems.

Well, some new evidence is surfacing that offers an alternative methodology for treating diabetes - methods similar to those that just a generation ago, a little-known metabolic doctor named Robert C. Atkins was reviled for.

Original Human “Stone Age” Diet is Good For People With Diabetes, Study Finds.

I’m sure Dr. Cordain is happy at this bit of positive news for his nutritional philosophy.

Eating a Paleo-style diet is pretty easy: Simply eschew all foods that would require technology to process for consumption, i.e., don’t eat what a caveman wouldn’t have been able to. In other words: DON’T eat grains, legumes, alcohol, and dairy.

So what’s left? Simply the most nutritious (pound for pound) foods on Earth: DO eat meat, leaves, and berries.

The study found that Paleo-style eating improved markers for insulin sensitivity even more than the so-called dietary “gold standard”, the Mediterranean diet.

More food for thought - if top-level athletes and coaches like Joe Friel, Steve Maxwell, and Dan John all promote Paleo-style eating, then you could certainly come to the conclusion that “there might be something to all this caveman stuff.”

Something to think about this weekend over those burgers and dogs. Happy Fourth, everyone.

P.S. Super secret bonus study on diabetes and insulin resistance.