Millions of Cases of Diabetes in 2000 and Projections for 2030, with Projected Percent Changes.

Westerners have always taken pride in their ability to produce, cook and eat the most sumptuous, savory foods. Food is the centerpiece of family life in much of Western life, with dinnertime often being the main part of the day when a family can get together. Food brings people together, acts as source of comfort, and has for centuries been used for peace offerings, gifts, and to celebrate and to mourn. However, the preoccupation with pleasing the palate has become an obsession in much of Western society.

Obesity in Western culture has become such widespread phenomenon as to be a featured segment on most newscasts at least once a night. Television shows such as “The Biggest Loser” throw a beacon on the problem with glaring klieg lights, putting the issue in front of people in a way many may never have seen it. Whether one sees those kinds of shows as exploitative or just mindless fodder for reality television, it cannot be denied the medium has thrust the issue of obesity into the public eye. Now that the overall health issues of obesity have begun to unanimously trump the issue of looks and physical attractiveness, it has garnered enough attention to be able to get its fair share of research funding and media coverage.

While there are many explanations for the obesity phenomenon, it boils down to more sedentary lifestyles, which are fueled by consumption of nutrient-deficient, calorie-laden foods. A rise in white collar jobs over the last several decades, and automated machinery to make even manual labor easier have combined to reduce the amount of natural exercise people used to get at their jobs. Being over-worked, under-paid and perpetually under tremendous stress in a bad economy does not help the cause. The ‘rat race’ so readily identifiable in American culture has caused the staples of the family dinner table to be pizza and chicken tenders. Hormones and other additives used to preserve and flavor food, as well as speed the growing process, has wreaked havoc on the dietary habits of most people living in Western culture.

When the issue came to the public awareness with such staggering, sudden clarity with the arrival of the Western financial recession and the healthcare issue in the United States came under such fire, it spurred more aggressive research practices and more in-depth care from healthcare providers. There are doctors who specialize in the treatment of obesity, and wellness programs to help those who are obese are so abundant as to be innumerable.

One of the lesser-known aspects of obesity is the issue of its correlation to diabetes mellitus type 2. The lavish lifestyles and notoriously bad eating habits of Westerners have caused the rates of both obesity and diabetes to skyrocket in the last twenty some-odd years, initially leading doctors and researchers to believe obesity must have something to do with late-onset diabetes. Currently, the New England Journal of Medicine reports about ninety percent of diabetes is caused by obesity.

According to National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC), a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health (NIH), there are nearly twenty-six million diagnosed cases of diabetes type 2 in the United States, which makes up almost nine percent of the population.

The cost of obesity and diabetes on the pocketbooks of Western citizens is another catalyst in the drive to substantially lower the number of environmental- and lifestyle-induced cases of diabetes. With the world economy in such dire straits, there is a sudden charge to lower the cost of anything and everything that is not financially solvent. The cost to taxpayers is becoming ever more burdensome as Westerners continue to eat themselves into financial and physical ruin. Until Westerners realize there must be a consistent, responsible move on the part of the general population to control this ever-worsening problem, there is little evidence of any slowing down of the obesity phenomenon, and its ensuing problems such as diabetes.

Yes! We are talking about those slimy little creatures with long tongues. An astounding discovery revealed that frogs may be the answer to diabetes.

Researchers at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and United Arab Emirates discovered that a substance found on the skin of the “paradoxical frog” from South America boosts the production of insulin – the vital hormone deficient in diabetics.

This frog actually shrinks with age and thus named, “paradoxical.” The young ones are bigger than their parents and tadpoles reach up to 27 cm in length, while the frogs are only about 4 cm long. These frogs inhabit the lagoons and ponds of Amazon and Trinidad.

It is believed that the secretions of this frog could prove to be much more effective than other drugs, including Byetta, a diabetes drug released in 2005, made from the saliva of the Gila monster (venomous lizard) of North America.

According to researchers, peptide, a protein-building block that protects the paradoxical frog from infection, can be used to produce drugs to treat people with Type-2 diabetes. Lab tests have been carried out on these nocturnal frogs and it was found that this frog’s peptide, pseudin-2, increased release of insulin.

A synthetic version of pseudin-2 was also tested and it was found to stimulate the pancreatic cells into secretion of insulin and more importantly, no toxic effects were felt on the cells. (If you didn’t know, pancreas makes insulin.) In fact, the synthetic version was found to be even better at stimulating the pancreatic cells than the natural compound from the frog. This opens up several doors for developing a drug to treat diabetes better.

If you are a cola and pizza addict, think twice before reaching out for them, as diabetes is a condition often associated with obesity, and develops because the glucose (sugar) in the blood is too high. This happens when glucose in the blood does not get into the cells of the body. Insulin is needed to send glucose into cells, where it is used for energy. If glucose does not get into the cells due to lack of insulin, too much glucose remains in the blood. Type-2 diabetes develops when enough insulin is not produced or the insulin that is produced by our body does not work properly. Any treatment for people with diabetes aims at regulating blood glucose levels.

Although scientists have made an artificial copy of this peptide, they feel that more work needs to be done before this form of treatment is ready to be tested on humans.

According to Dr. Yasser Abdel-Wahab, senior lecturer in biomedical sciences at the University of Ulster, “Now we need to take this a step further and put our work into practice to try and help people with Type-2 diabetes. More research is needed, but there is a growing body of work around natural anti-diabetic drug discovery that is already yielding fascinating results.”

This could be a major health breakthrough in diabetes research that can help millions of diabetics worldwide. Even if the levels of insulin cannot be brought back to normal levels, hope remains to at least improve insulin production in patients. Who would have imagined that these creepy creatures could turn out to be our saviors.