blog : Page archive : Page 2012-05

Most people have heard that obesity can be one of the chief causes of diabetes. But it’s equally true that diabetes can actually make you fat. So does the weight problem cause the disease, or is it the other way around? This is not really a purely academic “chicken or egg” question. To understand what’s going on we need to take a brief look at the physiology involved in becoming diabetic. When we do we discover a metabolic conundrum: body fat can increase the amount of insulin you require, while at the same time those higher levels of insulin can make you fatter.

Would someone define “antiaging,” please?

One of the difficulties inherent in running Longevity Medical Clinic is that I never know exactly how to describe my practice. I don't particularly like the term “antiaging” because I'm not exactly sure what it means. Obviously we all connect emotionally with the idea of looking, feeling and functioning as though we were younger than we are – it’s a compelling thought, one that has been around for centuries. But the obvious reality is that we can’t truly reverse our age: that, as any sci-fi fan knows, involves warping space and time, and somehow shifting us to an earlier point in the space-time continuum. While the quantum physics folks tell us that subatomic particles do this on a regular basis, I'm somewhat at a loss as to how to do it with an intact human being.