Insulin resistance has been studied extensively at systemic, organ, tissue and cellular and molecular levels. Overnutrition plays an essential role in the development of chronic metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. For subjects without genetic defects, the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes is a graduate process. How the transition from an insulinsensitive state to an insulin-resistant state occurs, and what the roles of nutrients are in the process have not been fully understood. Here, we try to summarize the current understanding of insulin-regulate gene expression in the liver, and describe a phenomenon of hepatic insulin resistance at gene expression (HIRAGE), which may be linked to overnutrition.

Obesity has reached a global epidemic and it predisposes to the development of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and related metabolic diseases. Current interventions against obesity and/or type 2 diabetes such as calorie restriction, exercise, genetic manipulations or established pharmacological treatments have not been successful for many patients with obesity and/or type 2 diabetes.

In 2018, our group published a letter in The Lancet detailing a case in which a patient had taken a herbal preparation to treat her diabetes [1]. In essence, our laboratory was approached by the treating physician after the patient, a 58 year old lady of south Asian origin with a 30 year history of type 2 diabetes said that, during the previous two years, she had replaced some of her prescribed anti-diabetic medication with a herbal remedy purchased in India.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) remains undiagnosed for many years in large number of persons living in developing countries. The cost of diagnostic tests and the invasive procedures involved in conventional screening methods remain a major setback to timely testing

The question of whether or not correction of vitamin D deficiency might reduce the risks of later type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been under debate for many decades. The necessity of vitamin D for normal insulin secretion was first identified experimentally in the 1980s.