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Comment by joshuahaglund | Hacker News Reader

I'm no biologist but it's my understanding that insulin causes cells take up glucose, not fats. And I don't see anyone suggesting insulin or the pancreas is involved in any of this. So what does the pancreas have to do with Alzheimers?

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> I don't see anyone suggesting

Have you looked?

"Although many factors affect fat cells, the hormone insulin exerts dominant anabolic control. Insulin decreases the circulating concentration of all major metabolic fuels by stimulating glucose uptake into tissues, suppressing release of fatty acids from adipose tissue, inhibiting production of ketones in the liver, and promoting fat and glycogen deposition." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082688/

Or this one: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-show...

There are many many other studies and articles, as the insulin-fat storage connection is very well documented

It depends what cells we're talking about. Thanks to insulin, glucose can be stored in the liver and muscle tissues as glycogen. In folks with poor insulin sensitivity these cells do not respond as effectively to insulin, and their uptake and storage is reduced, leaving more glucose in the bloodstream. In the obese, it's also likely the liver and muscle tissue glycogen stores are near max capacity. In this case insulin facilitates the uptake of glucose into adipose (fat) tissue through a process known as lipogenesis. When I wrote "insulin pushes fat into cells" that's what I meant.

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