The whole thing,
in one view.
Every piece on this site, and how it fits together. One keystone at the centre; the machinery beneath it; the diseases where the fire surfaces; the tools for reading health claims; and the way out. Start anywhere — but this is the shape of the whole.
If you read one thing, read this. It's the house; everything else is a room.
The Invisible Fire
Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, high blood pressure and more, usually treated as separate illnesses — shown to be one fire, surfacing in different places. Insulin resistance: the most profitable disease nobody is testing for.
Where most people start.
The accessible front door — the everyday version of the whole idea, and the drugs used against it.
It's All Sugar InteractivePlain
How everyday food becomes disease — and why the drugs manage it while food can address it. Flood the bloodstream, watch the doorman break, then turn it off.
Type 2 Diabetes & the Drugs InteractivePlain
What metformin, the newer glucose drugs and the weight-loss injections actually do — and what turning off the flood does that none of them can. A drug simulator.
The deeper floor beneath every room.
Foundational, fully-referenced pieces — the pathways in molecular detail, every claim graded. Written at a clinical level, honest where the seeing outruns the proof.
The Insulin Switch InteractiveGoes deeper
The master switch of metabolism — the one signal that decides whether you store or burn. Two gauges, one watched, one not.
Fat as an Endocrine Organ InteractiveGoes deeper
The largest hormone-making organ you have — leptin and leptin resistance, adiponectin, and the overflow model. Fill the warehouse past your personal fat threshold and watch it spill into the organs.
The Control Room InteractiveGoes deeper
Weight is a set-point the brain defends like a thermostat. How inflammation jams the leptin signal and resets the dial higher — the mechanism behind "it's not willpower." Push below the set-point and feel it fight back.
The Two Fuels InteractiveGoes deeper
Glucose and fat — kindling and logs — and the insulin switch between them. Why you can't burn both at once. Flip the fuel switch.
The Brain Runs on Fuel InteractiveTechnical
The hub of the brain strand: 2% of the body, a fifth of its energy — and two fuel lines, not one. Glucose, ketones, and brain insulin resistance. Jam the glucose line, then open the ketone line.
The Cholesterol Road InteractiveGoes deeper
The molecule you were taught to fear is the mother of every steroid hormone, plus vitamin D and bile. What it's actually for.
The Phenylalanine Road InteractiveTechnical
From the protein on your plate to skin pigment and brain neurons — through a copper enzyme switched on by sunlight.
The Mineral Map InteractiveGoes deeper
Minerals are the tools the enzymes use — the cofactor layer beneath every pathway, and beneath it, the soil.
The Tryptophan Road InteractiveTechnical
The scarcest amino acid, branching into serotonin, melatonin and the kynurenine pathway. A switch inflammation throws.
The Glutamate Road InteractiveTechnical
The body's busiest molecule — accelerator and brake of the brain, the antioxidant shield, the fuel of gut and immune cells.
The same root, in named diseases.
The fire followed into specific conditions — each usually filed as its own separate disease, each the same metabolic root in a different place. Honest about where insulin resistance is central and where it's only part of the story.
Fatty Liver (MASLD) InteractiveGoes deeper
The commonest liver disease on earth — a large share of the fat made by the liver itself, out of carbohydrate, on insulin's orders. Renamed from NAFLD in 2023. Open the three taps.
PCOS → PMOS InteractiveGoes deeper
Named for the ovaries, driven from elsewhere: high insulin raises androgens and frees them by lowering SHBG — a double hit. Officially renamed PMOS in 2026.
Gestational Diabetes InteractiveGoes deeper
Pregnancy is a metabolic stress test; gestational diabetes is what it reveals — insulin resistance already present, and a sevenfold warning of diabetes to come. Measure the insulin, not just the glucose.
Menopause & the Metabolic Shift InteractivePlain
Why insulin resistance so often arrives at midlife — not a switch thrown, but a protective hormone withdrawing. The mirror image of PCOS.
Gout InteractivePlain
Filed as a disease of rich living — but two of its three levers are metabolic: insulin makes the kidney keep uric acid, and fructose manufactures it. Push the levers past the crystallisation line.
Your Arteries, Plainly InteractivePlain
The gentle front door to heart disease: the trouble is in the wall, and a heart attack is a spot bursting, not a pipe blocking. Grow a spot, then inflame it, and see which one turns dangerous.
The Arteries (Heart Disease) InteractiveGoes deeper
The disease the statins are aimed at, seen from its own side. The cholesterol particle is causal; the fire shapes it and inflames the wall. Apply a statin, see the residual risk.
Erectile Dysfunction — the canary InteractivePlain
Often the earliest visible sign the blood vessels are in trouble — the small vessels clog first, years before the heart. From embarrassment to early warning, with its own cure attached. The warning window, used or wasted.
Type 3 Diabetes? (the brain) InteractiveGoes deeper
Some researchers nickname Alzheimer's "type 3 diabetes" — held most carefully. What's settled, what's an open question, what's an overclaim, including the trial that disappointed. Sort the claims yourself.
The Storming Brain InteractiveTechnical
A century of a ketone-based diet quieting drug-resistant epilepsy — proof the brain's fuel changes how it fires, no insulin resistance needed. The anchor the frontier is roped to. Tip the brain into a storm, then calm it.
Metabolic Psychiatry InteractiveTechnical
The frontier, held most carefully: mood & serious mental illness (a deep but unproven hypothesis, 20-year paper trail) and reward & addiction (firmer, RCT-backed). The strongest safety line on the site. Sort the claims into their tiers.
Skin Tags & Acanthosis InteractivePlain
One of the few places the fire shows on the outside — a visible marker of high insulin. Honestly tiered: a sign, not a disease. Raise the insulin, then try removing the tags.
Cancer & the Fire InteractiveTechnical
Cancer as partly a terrain problem — the metabolic soil is one of the few parts a person can tend. Risk and prevention, never treatment. Seed and soil: what you can move, and what you can't.
Not diseases — lenses.
Some pieces hand you a way of reading health claims, or an understanding of the body, that the rest lean on. Read these and the rest lands deeper.
How Risk Is Sold InteractivePlain
"Cuts your risk in half!" — what that actually means. The one question that sees through nearly any drug, test, or health headline.
Why the Cure Isn't the Product InteractivePlain
Why root-cause approaches get a fraction of the research money — not conspiracy, arithmetic. The investor's desk, the Goldman note, the hepatitis-C curve, and the GLP-1 counter-example.
Cholesterol — the misunderstood molecule InteractiveGoes deeper
Not sludge in a pipe, but one of the most essential molecules your body owns. The ground you need before anyone talks statins.
Statins — the drug & the fire it never touches InteractiveGoes deeper
They genuinely help after a heart attack — and the same headline sells them to millions who gain almost nothing. Honest, and conceded where due.
Blood Pressure — the salt hormone nobody measures InteractiveGoes deeper
Insulin is a salt hormone: it tells your kidneys to hold sodium, and pressure follows. Why so much high blood pressure is quietly metabolic.
The Warburg Lineage InteractiveTechnical
A hundred years of cancer as a metabolic problem — Warburg's 1931 Nobel, the overreach, the resurrection, and the oncometabolite drugs. History, not advice. Companion to Cancer & the Fire.
The Metabolic Front InteractiveTechnical
The deeper companion to the cancer chapter: cancer's metabolism as mainstream oncology sees it now — the FDG-PET scanner, the approved metabolism-targeting drugs, the insulin growth signal. Prevention and terrain only.
Once you've seen the fire, the obvious question is how to put it out. This is the practical map the whole series builds toward.
Putting Out the Fire
What to measure, what to change (concretely), what to realistically expect, and how to do it all safely alongside any medication you take. The drugs were always bailing water. This is turning off the tap.