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Eating ANYTHING increases risk of diabetes in overweight people, new research reveals

January 20, 2017  23:39

Dieting won't prevent overweight adults from getting type 2 diabetes, scientists warn.

Groundbreaking new research shows that, in fact, eating anything could actually increase their risk.

Food triggers the increased production of insulin in those overweight - leaving them vulnerable to the potentially-deadly condition.

While in slim people, the same negative effect doesn't occur - instead, it just provides their immune system a boost.  

During eating, nutrients are consumed. But regardless of how healthy the food is, a significant amount of bacteria always enters the body at the same time.

It means the body is faced with juggling two tasks simultaneously: distributing the ingested glucose, and fighting the new bacteria.

This multi-tasking triggers an inflammatory response in humans, Swiss researchers found for the first time.

All intestines - healthy or not - are filling with macrophages, a type of immune cell.

These so-called scavenger cells, which destroy infected ones around the body, multiply in numbers during meal times to remove any foreign or waste products from the body.

To perform their clean-up, they produce just the right amount of proteins, called IL-1beta, that release insulin to regulate blood sugar levels.

This occurs while the macrophages are busy keeping the immune system remains active, the study published in the journal Nature Communications found.

But this exact science is thrown off balance if the body has an unhealthily high concentration of glucose in the blood - a common feature of overweight people.

With too much glucose, more IL-1beta is produced - and therefore more insulin - than the body needs.

Eventually, these overused cells start to die off, making it harder for the body to both regulate blood sugar levels and keep the immune system in check.

Normally, doctors advise overweight people to avoid sweet or fatty foods to prevent this calamity.

But the new study by the Universität Basel found that, in fact, any kind of food will throw this exact science off kilter.

However, the researchers make clear that this will not be remedied by eating nothing at all.  

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