Silverlady,
I hope this may be of some interest so I thought I would follow-up my earlier post w/ a complementary and recent paper (2006) again from Smith and Singleton re: idiopathic neuropathy, prediabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...d469fd5964375c

I think the article is worth reading and I’ll try for a capsule synopsis:
The authors have a nice overview of the epidemiology of PN and cite some remarkable statistics about PN research, e.g. <100 research papers have been published re: PN which they estimate may afflict 15-20 million Americans of which ~1/3 are idiopathic whereas there are >4000 papers concerning Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which presents clinically in a more distinct manner but is much less prevalent.
The authors continue w/ a brief historical perspective of idiopathic PN beginning in 1981 and acknowledge the difficulties to recognize new causes of predominately sensory-dependent neuropathies. This gives them an intro to their own work which now focuses on “the Metabolic Syndrome”, the combo of obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and insulin resistance. They propose that many cases of idiopathic neuropathy result from insulin resistance and are frequently tied to prediabetes and Metabolic Syndrome.
As in their other work, they showed that in a small patient population that DIET and EXERCISE not only improved glucose control and reduced weight, LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels but that it improved small fiber function, increased intraepidermal nerve fiber density and improved neuropathic pain severity.
It seems that much of the very valuable and useful treatments described here by PN sufferers are now being “proven” clinically. One can hope this will stimulate significant research, future advances and pain relief for us all!
Alkymst