That’s a peculiar argument to make in this context. Amenablity to lifestyle changes and inheritance are not mutually exclusive characteristics. It’s certainly true that diabetes can be slowed or reversed through dietary changes, but it’s also pretty well established that there is a strong genetic component to the disease. Similarly, the effects of PKU can be ameliorated through lifestyle changes, even though it’s most definitely a genetic condition.

I’m still working my way through the paper, but I’ve read enough to think that my frequently expressed hypothesis that there is something fundamentally different about the brains of people with type 2 diabetes, something that seems to blunt their affective responses and lead to generalised apathy, is not so out there after all. You can see this blasé approach to life even in very young patients before they have an official diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. I work with them every single day, and I still find their impenetrable lack of passion for, well, anything just as disconcerting as the first time I encountered it. There has to be some sort of genetic mutation endemic to the type 2 diabetic population that accounts for this.

Not for nothing do we sometimes refer to Alzheimer’s as “diabetes mellitus type 3.”

The friend thinks the man is asking him if he wants to give the man fellatio, and the friend says yes, but he asks the man not to punch him in the face first.

In reality, of course, the man is asking the friend if he wants to get fellatio from the gorilla.