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Evolutional Genetics and Diseases of Civilization

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Abstract

Inclination for hyperinsulinemia that was formed in the human population at early stages of development and was fixed genetically in the process of evolution is suggested to underlie pathogenesis of the currently most widely spread diseases of the cardiovascular system (atherosclerosis and hypertension) as well as diabetes mellitus of the 2 type and obesity that are concomitant with a high frequency. Under conditions of civilization, chronic hyperinsulinemia can develop in response to the regularly excessive nutrition. The consequence of the excessive food consumption and the chronic hyperinsulinemia can be overcrowding with lipids (triglycerides) of adipose tissue—the organism lipid store. The natural protective reaction of the cell that contains the limitedly possible amount of lipids is a decrease of the number of insulin receptors and development of insulin resistance. The insulin resistance, in turn, provides the appearance of hyper- and dislipoproteinemia alongside with hyperglycemia. One of the most clinically significant ways of achievement of homeostasis is storage of lipids in the arterial wall. Atherogenic and other concomitant metabolic disorders, specifically changes of blood coagulation properties providing susceptibility to hypercoagulation, affect the blood rheological properties and seem to lead to pathology of the entire vascular system: chronic venous insufficiency, disturbance of microcirculation, and arterial atherosclerosis. There is substantiated the natural interconnection of atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and arterial hypertension that at present are accepted as the main clinical manifestations of the so-called “metabolic syndrome.” It is suggested that the basis for arterial hypertension might be disturbances of microcirculation leading to an increase of peripheral vascular resistance as well as insufficiency of renal blood supply at the level of arterial and microcirculatory bed.

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  1. Research Institute of Experimental Medicine, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    I. S. Liberman

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__________

Translated from Zhurnal Evolyutsionnoi Biokhimii i Fiziologii, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2005, pp. 186–191.

Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Liberman.

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Liberman, I.S. Evolutional Genetics and Diseases of Civilization. J Evol Biochem Phys 41, 233–239 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10893-005-0058-7

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