What Does Insulin Regulate Anyway?

Sorry about the acronyms.  A glitch in my new system.  I'll edit in later if I get a chance.

I hate semantics, and at the same time I can be a stickler for the notion that "words count" at times.  When I hear the word regulate, as in A regulates B, I substitute the word control.  So A controls B.  And this ultimately means that A determines what B is.  

Part of TWICHOO is that insulin *fundamentally regulates* fat accumulation.  What Taubes is saying is that insulin regulates fat tissue mass.  Insulin controls fat tissue mass, and ultimately that means that insulin levels determine how fat you are.  

To state his case, Taubes zeros in on the TAG/FA cycle that occurs continually in the fat cell, and the known fact that insulin regulates this cycle (to large extent).  This is not in dispute, although the relative weight of insulin's actions on the outcome may be somewhat argued in these circles.  The full TAG/FA cycle is pictured at right (from Reshef et.al. 2003) -- the version Taubes discusses in GCBC.  We see that triglycerides and free fatty acids are constantly cycling in the fat cells, and between the fat tissue and the liver and muscle tissues.  Some is taken back up again.  

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