About NBDC
The framework
Network Based Diabetes Care
Seven biochemical pathways that decide where sugar goes, what it damages, and how quickly it can be brought under control. Tap any node to see what drives it.
The main road
Glucose consumption · GCN
The pathway that burns sugar for ordinary energy. When it backs up, everything downstream starts to fill.
1
The engine room
Citric acid cycle · TCA
Where fuel becomes usable energy. What this engine can handle sets the ceiling for everything else.
2
The repair shop
Pentose phosphate · PPP
The supply line for antioxidant defense and rebuilding. High sugar drains it faster than it refills.
3
The overflow drain
Polyol pathway · POL
The route sugar takes when the main road is full. It runs through nerves, eyes, and kidneys.
4
The tagging system
Hexosamine pathway · HBP
A labeling process that quietly changes how cells read insulin’s signal.
5
The switchboard
Protein kinase C · PKC
An amplifier for messages inside the cell. Overdriven, it turns a metabolic problem into a blood-vessel problem.
6
Quality control
Unfolded protein response · UPR
Catches damaged proteins before they accumulate. When demand outruns it, the cell shifts from managing stress to signaling distress.
7
Why “against the network”?
Most diabetes advice targets a single node: a diet, a drug, a step count. NBDC argues that durable outcomes require reading the whole network at once. When one node shifts, the others respond. Understanding those responses is the difference between managing numbers and changing trajectories — which is why the first volume in the series is called Eating Against the Network.