Insulin Therapy and Weight Gain

Despite no change in their physical activity and food intake, in many people with Type 1 diabetes, the beginning of insulin therapy is followed by weight gain. On the other hand, despite insulin therapy and no change in their physical activity and food intake, many people with Type 1 diabetes don't experience weight gain. Still, it has become a quickly accepted theory that insulin enables glucose to enter the cells, and the glucose that the cells do not use is being accumulated as fat. I couldn't find who first put forward that theory, and it seems to me that it is just one of the many medical theories with no known author.

The theory that insulin enables the glucose to enter the cells and the glucose that has not been used is accumulated as fat is not only absolutely wrong, but it is responsible for the huge rise in the practice of deliberately skipping insulin in order to prevent or to lose weight. Before that theory, that practice was unknown.

Despite the fact that no one knows who is the author of such a theory, the practice of deliberately skipping insulin in order to prevent or to lose weight is called diabulimia. The word diabulimia appears in use immediately after the theory that insulin enables the glucose to enter the cells and the glucose not used by the cells is accumulated as fat has gained publicity.

Side note: It is strange that the practice of deliberately skipping insulin injections in order to lose weight is called diabulimia. In my opinion, it has nothing to do with bulimia, but it has much in common with anorexia. Instead of diabulimia it may be called diaanorexia.

Actually, both words should disappear from the dictionary. The reason to make them disappear is to prevent people from skipping insulin in order to prevent weight gain or lose weight. The way to do so is to publicly explain that insulin treatment doesn’t cause weight gain and that lack of insulin doesn’t cause weight loss. The fact that insulin therapy is correlated with weight gain and that the lack of insulin is correlated with weight loss doesn’t mean that lack of insulin causes weight loss and that insulin therapy causes weight gain.

It is necessary to understand why some people gain weight and why some don’t when they start their insulin therapy. It is impossible to give a meaningful explanation as long as the biological basis of weight gain/weight loss is unknown.

The first essential condition to have a reasonable discussion about the mechanism of weight gain seemingly induced by insulin therapy and the mechanism of weight loss seemingly induced by lack of insulin is to understand the biological basis (Biomechanology) of weight gain/weight loss.

The second condition is to understand the mechanism underlying body weight distribution.