Wei Liu: Reading Science Six Hours a Day to Fight Diabetes

                             Wei Liu, U. S. citizen, U. S. veteran, California, October 2025

        Diabetes has become a serious health issue in America. In the 2020s, among people over 65 years old, about 25% have diabetes and 50% have prediabetes (Mayo Clinic, 2018). In this essay, the Lagrange Multiplier Method is used to determine how much time a person should spend each day to prevent or cure diabetes.

        The Lagrange Multiplier Method is a mathematical technique for finding the local maximum or minimum of a function subject to a constraint equation. It is expressed as
L= f (x, y) + λ*g (x, y), where L is the Lagrange function (Wikipedia, 2025). The concept is illustrated in Figure 1 below (Drawing by the author). 

        Now, we use the Lagrange Multiplier Method to study how many hours a day one should read to prevent or cure diabetes. A human typically consumes about 2000 calories per day. Without any physical activity, the body uses approximately 1300 calories per day (Cleveland Clinic, 2023). Therefore, the amount of energy that must be burned daily is
2000 − 1300 = 700 calories.

        The human body naturally limits sustainable exercise. About 30 minutes of exercise per day should be considered the maximum, since excessive exercise increases the risk of muscle and bone injury.

        Here, the product of Exercise Hours and Reading Hours is defined as the Health Volume. Exercise burns about 200 calories per hour, while challenging reading burns about 100 calories per hour (Department of Health Service, Wisconsin, 2005). The goal is to maximize the Health Volume under these human conditions.

        Given the information above, a person needs to burn 700 calories per day while exercising no more than 30 minutes. We will find how many hours of challenging or difficult reading per day are needed to prevent or cure diabetes.

        Solution:

        L = E*R + λ (700—200*E—100*R) + u(0.5—E), with λ ≥ 0, u ≥ 0.

        Derivative of two dimensions = 0

        ∂L/∂E = R —200 λ —u = 0       1)

        ∂L/∂R = E —100 λ  = 0        2)

        Constraint Equation 1

        u(0.5—E) = 0        3)        

        By 3), assume one does some exercise a day even just a couple of minutes, then u > 0.

        0.5 –E = 0        E = 0.5 hour

        By 2), E —100 λ  = 0       0.5 —100 λ  = 0       λ = 0.005

        Constraint Equation 2 is below.

        200*E + 100*R = 700

        200*0.5 + 100*R = 700         100 + 100 R = 700         R = 6 hour

        By 1) R —200 λ —u = 0       6 –200*0.005 –u = 0        5—u = 0          u = 5

        To burn 700 calories a day to fight diabetes, one should exercise for 30 minutes and read six hours of challenging material each day. If chemistry feels easy but mechanical engineering seems difficult, then mechanical engineering should be chosen for reading, not chemistry. Assuming a reading rate of about 12 pages per hour, reading for six hours covers approximately 12*6 = 72 pages per day.

        By the end of reading, one should be able to at least find clues to solve most of the major problems within those 70 pages. If a reader frequently feels, “I have no idea how to do this problem,” then the reading is not intense enough to burn 100 calories per hour.

        Therefore, reading about 70 pages of science per day likely keeps a person active enough to stay away from diabetes. Watching television or YouTube does not burn sufficient calories because these activities are not mentally demanding. I mention reading science for six hours a day because science, including mathematics, is the most challenging field for most people. However, if a person finds literature or philosophy to be the most challenging field, then reading those subjects intensely for six hours a day can achieve the same health benefit. 

                                                           References

Cleveland Clinic. (2023). Here’s How Many Calories You Naturally Burn in a Day.

        https://health.clevelandclinic.org/calories-burned-in-a-day

Department of Health Service, Wisconsin. (2005). Calories Burned Per Hour.

        https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p4/p40109.pdf

Mayo Clinic. (2018). Life with Diabetes.

        https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/life-with-diabetes-what-happens-as-we-age

Wikipedia. (2025). Lagrange Multiplier.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_multiplier

The end