A possible cause for NIDDM

The other day I was watching the news and there was a report about how gastric surgery and lap banding were cures for Type II Diabetes (NIDDM), then it hit me that NIDDM might a type of storage disease.
NIDDM is a strange disease because it has a genetic linkage, but it can be controlled through diet and exercise. In certain populations metabolic processes seem to have been optimized to a particular diet. If these people eat a Western diet (high fat, and high refined sugar) they get NIDDM at rates well above normal and at body weight well below what is expected.
The mechanism of insulin resistance could be nothing more then the body’s metabolic regulatory pathways putting up a no vacancy sign for glucose and lipid uptake once the body has gone above its acceptable storage limits. The body is trying to prevent over storage, by leaving the glucose and lipids in the blood it gives the muscle cells increased access “top quality fuel” which in an active person would quickly be burned off. But resistant part of insulin resistant comes into play if the fuel is not used, since it will eventually be stored. Then the next time the body will try harder to prevent storage, and the insulin resistance will increase.
In dieting you see the opposite effect, where the body will resist going below a certain storage level (weight), by increasing storage even as caloric intake is decreased. In both cases your metabolic pathways are just trying to protect you.

Now I haven’t researched NIDDM in a while so my proposed mechanism might be common knowledge or it could have been debunked. I’m just not sure.
An interesting possibility for losing weight and countering some of the insulin resistance could be cooling the blood on the way to the brain. (Please remember while I am a Dr, I am not an MD, and I take no responsibility for the outcome if anyone tries this.) One of the ways your body sets the basal metabolism is by monitoring the temperature of the blood in the brain. If the temp is too low it up basal metabolism, if it is to high it reduces it. Fat is insulation, which prevents the loss of heat, so the body doesn’t have to work as hard to maintain the optimal temperature, so basal metabolism is suppressed. However, the blood for the brain passes close to the surface in your neck where it is cooled. (With the purely aerobic metabolism of the brain, it is very hot in your head.) So by applying a heat sink (cold towel, etc) to the sides of the neck the brain can be fooled into thinking you are not as warm as you really are, so it will increase the basal metabolism to “warm” you up. The increase in metabolism would allow the muscles to clear glucose and lipids from the blood, which would help reduce the symptoms. Plus by artificially raising your basal metabolism, the weight wouldn’t exactly melt of, but if everything stayed the same just by being cooled you would lose weight.
A possibly interesting side effect of this therapy would be a significant increase in blood flow to the extremities. This could be a welcome side effect for many people with NIDDM, since poor circulation is a common problem. A possible mechanism for this effect would be while your brain might think you are cold the rest of the body would be hot, and when you are hot, blood is sent to the parts of your body that lose heat quickly (fingers and toes). People with heart conditions should definitely not try neck cooling!