Whether it is called Profactor H, Syndrome X, or the Western
Disease, the complex of factors surrounding insulin resistance and
hyperinsulemia are at the heart of many of the degenerative and
lethal diseases that afflict modern human beings.  I think of
insulin resistance as glucose sparing for it impedes transfer across
membranes and, thus, preserves a higher level of circulating
glocose.  Such a mechanism would serve to protect the
glucose-demanding brain in the internal competition between muscle,
organ, and adipose tissue for scarce glucose.  (Adipose tissue
indirectly competes for glucose; when the free fatty acids are taken
up by adipose tissue, removing substrate for gluconeogenesis.)

By limiting the uptake by other tissues, insulin resistance spares
glucose for the brain.  Indeed, the evolution of a measure of
glucose-sparing insulin resistance in other tissues relative to the
brain may have been an essential step in the development of
large-brained homo sapiens.  The positive, non-linear feedback in
which hyperinsulemia promotes higher insulin resistance which
promotes higher hyperinsulemia, is also evidence of a glucose scarce
ancestral habitat.  Evolutionarily elegant design would require a
negative loop.

This hypothesis could be tested by comparing the relative passage
rates of glucose into the relevant tissues among insulin resistant
and non-insulin resistant subjects.  Insulin resistance must be a
property of adipose tissue as well as muscle tissue according to
this model.

The existence of Factor H is evidence of the scarcity of glucose in
the ancestral habitat and of the relative abundance in the modern
habitat.   Whatever our ancestors ate, glucose was relatively
scarce.

Diet is only one part of dealing with Factor H.  Intense exercise
that passes the anerobic threshold promotes growth hormone release,
which breaks the positive feedback loop.  Growth hormone is
antagonistic to insulin and at the same time sensitizes insulin
receptors.  Moderate exercise is incapable of triggering the large,
pulsate GH releases that are essential to breaking the hypercycle.
Control theory tells us that you regulate a non-linear, positive
feedback system by taking some of the non-linearity out of it
(sensitizing the insulin binding sites through GH release does this)
and by hitting it with control pulses (the pulsate GH spikes do
this).  Evolution seems to have settled on the same control
principles.

Effective exercise should be aimed at promoting hormone drive, not
at burning calories.