Well - me too massively interested in the DP, and the liver dumping stored sugar because of signalling system gone bung.
And the more I read up on it myself, following threads and links online to understand it more - the more complex it seems to get. It isn't a simple equation of too much sugar in the blood = the DP. If there was ever a case of confusing cause and effect - I think it is if one tries to explain the DP in diabetics this way. Well - you can! But that, in my understanding, is not really the truth. (I say this as someone who really wants to understand how it works so I can, if I can, figure out a way to orient my own treatment. As one of the fellow diabetic DPers.)
I had had a 'got it' moment when I read that the bung signalling is because we don't have enough insulin, too many dead and dying beta cells to get enough insulin out there to give the liver the right signal (the 'got it' moment was realising the liver cells read insulin levels - not the glucose levels) - care of the wonderful Jenny Ruhl in Blood Sugar 101.
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046621.php
Then, through wanderings in this forum, I came across this link (I didn't watch it but skipped to reading it instead)
http://www.jci.org/articles/view/60016
About the role of glucagon (regulating hormone) - and realised - well - with all the peptins and alyses (and what-not!), and now apparently this hormone has a lot to do with it, and the DP - my 'got it' has gone by the wayside!
. And I think, oh dear, this is too complex for me to really understand - as far as I can go - I can't or don't want to keep these processes in my head to understand the liver dumping.
And I like the idea that all we really need to know is low-carbing seems to work a treat! Along with IFing/Fasting a la Fung etc. Or at least, can help our bodies adapt to having a bung signalling system.
Because now I know that my body seems to make a lot of insulin still (from my C peptide reading, if I have understood the science and the numbers correctly) - it's my cell receptors and insulin resistance that is still a big obstacle to lovely BG regulation. So then if I do have enough insulin, then it the other regulators that are bung in my liver - the liver cells and all those peptins and alayses and so on (I won't even bother finding out what they are exactly) - I just know they are still very very bung, due to high FBGs.
I do keep in mind, after reading Ruhl, that those things, and Prof Unger (whatever hormones and - well - other regulators etc) may be permanently damaged. (And I mean how the hell could we or do we try and suppress glucagon? Without medication? If and when there is medication for it.) And if they (a and b cell receptors) may be able to regenerate. (Hard to find out online - if anyone has info on this - do post links!) Who knows? (anyone?) This is where I end up seeing my own body and life as a 'case in point', an experiment in time low-carbing, and experimentation with levels of low carbing, to see when, if ever, the DP let's off , lowers, to allow me personally, to have near normal or normal BG levels. Over time. And I am not alone, I gather, in that. And this is the place where diabetics are most fully pooling their information, in English at any rate.
Apologies for my usual long way of saying something simple about something that seems to be way-complex. BG homeostasis/regulation is about way more than simply levels of sugar in the blood. (Did I read once that there are 40,000 genes that affect BG regulation? 40,000!) It may come from, ultimately, too much glucose from the diet that messes up that regulation system, in tandem with genetic factors (or what determines our 'fat storage pathways' - ie fat stored on the liver and pancreas, and other parts of the regulation system that can become damaged in the process Ruhl writes about) - but it isn't just about that once the system is damaged - is it? Or, what degree of damage. Otherwise my poor brain would not be screaming when faced with all those acronyms for liver/BG regulators that I cannot keep in there.
When I did a Very low- Low Calorie diet last year to see if I could knock my diabetes on the head significantly, I became very interested in the different dieter's post diet physical reactions and responses - as the variation is huge. (I didn't really understand the role of properly lowering carbs then. It took me following a fat-bomb diet group to really get my head around that.) Now I tend to think about is as degree of damage. (Ruhl's and Bernstein's work tend to point in this direction.) Degree of low-carbing. (Thank goodness for hope! Thank goodness for good control.)
But very keen to see how much we can, if that is possible, affect that liver dumping of blood glucose during the last stages of sleep before waking.