This Thanksgiving, envy the dolphin: They have an on/off switch for diabetes

It’s a bummer to modulate your calorie intake at Thanksgiving but sadly, most of us […]

It’s a bummer to modulate your calorie intake at Thanksgiving but sadly, most of us fear the fat pants – and, for the diabetics in particular, the carbo-loading. If only we had the metabolism of our aquatic friend, the dolphin:

Dolphins can selectively choose to turn their diabetes on and off – on a daily basis. The National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego is conducting research on what triggers this voluntary switch, and how it can be applied to us mere mortals.

Why do dolphins have this odd mechanism? Well, it’s an evolutionary development to help them maintain their big brains. Dolphins, after all, have huge brains like we do in terms of body-to-brain proportion. People need to keep a constant level of glucose in their blood streams to keep brain function up – as do dolphins.

Dolphins, however, have a diet that’s super protein-dense – fish, fish and more fish. So while we, the people, eat complex carbs to keep a steady blood glucose level, dolphins need another means to keep their sugars afloat. Diabetes.

They only turn on the diabetes when it’s most necessary, though – largely at night.

National Geographic wrote of an Ice Age connection:

Most recently, the foundation’s preliminary data has shown that some dolphins can develop harmful side effects from having too much insulin, such as kidney stones and a form of iron overload in the blood called hemochromatosis.

Hemochromatosis has been linked to insulin resistance in humans, and its symptoms can include everything from arthritis to liver cancer.

For the most part, however, dolphins seem to be able to control their diabetes-like condition to maintain healthy blood-sugar levels.

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