Your doctor has just announced, you are pre-diabetic. He advises that you lose some weight. You feel hollow and very afraid, you have so many pounds to lose, the task feels overwhelming.

Will it really help ?

The enemy is inflammation

The big trouble with being overweight, is not actually the extra rolls and padding that it brings, but the metabolic chaos it creates, it is this metabolic chaos, known as metabolic syndrome, which ultimately leads to a diagnosis of diabetes or a heart attack.

The overstuffed fat cells seem to draw the attention of the immune system. A system which is “supposed” to protect and serve, but in the type 2 diabetic, becomes a liability.

It fails to respond appropriately to bacterial invaders, but instead “attacks” the body, in effect, setting the body on fire. It is this inflammation that simmers in the background, causing much of the damage and destruction associated with diabetes.

It is this inflammation, that is not really “fixed” by medicines that tightly control the sugar levels, leaving type 2 diabetics susceptible to cardiovascular disease etc.

Putting out the fire

A team of Australian researchers concerned about the growing levels of obesity and aware of the underlying inflammatory storm, investigated whether draining the unhappy fat cells, would “fix” the problem.

The researchers recruited type 2 diabetics and made sure that they lost weight. Participants were put on a calorie restricted diet and to help things along, gastric banding was performed at week 12.

Gastric banding involves squishing the tummy, so it is a lot smaller than normal, a smaller stomach requires less food, to feel FULL.

Emptying the fat cells helped

The 13 obese subjects, all with sugar troubles, did some serious DIETING. In the end, they managed to lose on average 17 odd kilograms, over a 24 week period.

Rather impressive.

But this was not the focus of the study, the researchers were more interested in how the immune system responded to the fat loss.

This result was also pretty impressive.

Draining out all that fat through SERIOUS DIETING, changed the temperament of the immune system. The balance of T-cells shifted, the offensive arm, the Th1 cells stood down, while the Th2 cell numbers increased.

NOTE : The Th1 cells are the guys who shoot first, ask questions later, the Th2 cells are far more reserved, reigning in their over-zealous Th1 team mates.

This shift, resulted in a far more balanced i.e. less trigger happy immune system. And better sugar levels – most of the participants were able to decrease their anti-diabetic meds.

You don’t have to lose 17 kg

Or have gastric banding.

The immune benefits were seen in the first half of the study, in this part of the study, the dieters were doing it without the additional help, the gastric binding.

By week 12, the dieters had managed to drain their fat cells of on average 6 kg of fat. A 6 kg fat loss, is something that is quite do-able, especially if you follow a low carb diet. If you need help, check out my Tame your Sugar Gremlin on-line programme.

The ratio of Th1 to Th2 went from the Th1 cells outnumbering the Th2 cells (2.5:1), to the Th2 cells outnumbering the Th1 cells (0.5:1).

Shift the immune balance

Being overweight is a precursor for a long list of health problems… particularly cardiovascular disease. The blockages in blood vessels, reflects blood vessel inflammation.

Modest weight reduction can reduce this inflammation.

So if you’ve got an extra layer and you’re feeling overwhelmed, the good news, you don’t need to lose it all, just losing A LITTLE, will help create Better Body Chemistry.

Further reading

Turning down an iron pump – irons out diabetes	The side effects of obesity stopped by omega-3s	Tweedle dum and tweedle dee lacked fat cell membrane synergy