# name
Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Function/Dysfunction and Type 2 Diabetes

# metadata.dc.description.abstract[].value
“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food” stated Hippocrates, the father of
Western medicine, in 400 B.C. This statement was based on the belief that food was able to
influence disease, a concept that was revived several times in later years by painters, writers,
scientists, and philosophers. One such philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, famously wrote in his
1863-4 essay “man is what he eats” introducing the idea that if we want to improve the spiritual
conditions of people we must first improve their material conditions (Feuerbach, 2003).
However, for years his warnings remained unheeded, at least in Western countries, in contrast
to the teachings of Indian and Chinese medicine which for millennia have argued that a living
organism has to assume a healthy diet. Like diet, physical activity has been also considered an
important starting point for people's health. Hippocrates wrote in his book Regimen "if we could
give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too
much, we would have found the safest way to health" (Hippocrates, 1955). Our knowledge
about the links between diet, exercise, and disease has vastly increased since Hippocrates time.
A healthy lifestyle based on diet and physical activity is now considered the keystone of disease
prevention and the basis for a healthy aging. However, modern society has created conditions
with virtually unrestricted access to food resources and reduced physical activity, resulting in a
positive overall energy balance. This is far from the environment of our ”hunter-gathered
ancestros” whose genes were modulated over thousands of years adapting our metabolism to
survive when food was scarce and maximizing energy storage when food became available. In
terms of evolution, this radical and sudden lifestyle change in modern society has led to a
dramatic increase in the incidence of metabolic diseases including obesity and type 2 diabetes
mellitus (T2DM). It seems clear that the development of T2DM has a genetic component that
becomes obvious when individuals are exposed to western lifestyle. However, environment plays a critical role in the incidence of the disease being obesity the main etiological cause of
T2DM. Thus, modest weight loss is enough for obese glucose intolerant subjects to prevent the
development of T2DM (National Task Force on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity, 2000)...

# metadata.dc.rights[].value
cc by (c) González Franquesa, Alba et al., 2012

# metadata.dc.source[].value
Articles publicats en revistes (Ciències Fisiològiques)

# metadata.dc.title[].value
Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Function/Dysfunction and Type 2 Diabetes