Diabetes and Oxygen Free Radical Sophistry

My book's tone is strictly oriented towards medical science. It is both a teaching book and a narrative on research and discovery. A major observation of the pancreatic ß-cell is its unusually low complement of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, catalase, and GPx). This situation is also found in the critically important organs of the heart and the brain. After decades of study, I believe this is telling us that these organs have normal requirements for high levels of “electronically modified oxygen derivatives (EMODs)” and consequently, they have evolved correspondingly low antioxidant enzyme levels. This is especially curious in the brain, because of its high concentration of lipids and free iron. According to the teachings of the free radical theory, this is a mistake of Nature and thus, the brain, heart and pancreas should undergo the effects of chain reactions of lipid peroxidation with impending cellular death summarily. However, that does not happen. Nature must have created this situation by Darwinian design and we must have the intellectual acuity to discern its meaning. I have diligently attempted to do so. Diabetes appears to be inextricably related to other disease conditions, such as atherosclerosis, CVD, cancer, hypertension, cataracts, strokes, infections and obesity. This has made the research into this complex of diseases very difficult and arduous. It has been an investigative maze of open and dead ended passageways and has been rife with conflicting and confusing data. This is especially true as it relates to the questionable involvement or the role of EMODs in diabetogenesis. With cancer and atherosclerosis I am convinced that oxygen is definitely not causative of these conditions and I further believe that oxidants can be used in their control or cure. With diabetes I am also convinced that EMODs are not causative but I can not say that raising the body’s oxidative capacity will be capable of controlling or curing the diabetic condition. Again, diabetes is a most complex disease. That is not to say that cancer and CVD are not complex diseases but diabetes has so many facets of other diseases within it.