Type II Diabetes: The Start of Insulin Resistance

Diabetes is becoming a pandemic, crippling hundreds of thousands of Americans. There are many different views on how this came to be such a crisis, such as diet, lifestyle and genetics. The common underlying factor lies in the understanding that there is an imbalance in the blood sugar handling system within the body.

In a perfect world, when lunch time hits and we consume that meal, your body should break it down into tiny particles: protein, sugars and fat, that are able to be processed for energy. One of those little sugar particles is glucose. Glucose is a foundation for energy production throughout the body. However, it is only able to supply that energy to the body if it is able to cross over from the gut into the blood stream, and from the blood stream into the cells.

So after our lunch is swallowed, it travels down through the stomach and into the small intestine. Here, those tiny sugar particles are absorbed from the gut into your blood stream to travel throughout the body to different muscle cells where they will be used for energy. However, once they get to these muscle cells, they are locked out, not able to enter into these cells. This is when another famous player enters the scene, insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is in charge of ushering all of that glucose from the meal into your cells. Once inside the cell, glucose is transformed into energy molecules that the body is able to use as “currency” throughout the body. This is a process that progresses easily, without thought or care in the world. Or at least it should…

However, let’s say that we’re pretty tired and want a quick burst of energy and grab, say, a candy bar. This will be an exponential amount of sugar that the body now needs to process quickly to give that boost of energy that we are looking for. So our body releases an extreme amount of insulin to combat this wave of sugar coming in. This burst of insulin allows all of the glucose to enter the cells… however, over time, when the insulin receptors continue to be bombarded day after day, they become tired. So they start putting out “closed” signs and take the day off. This causes the sugar to stay out in the blood stream and increase the blood sugar levels. This is what is often classically seen on blood work. If this continues to be the case, and the blood sugar continues to rise, it will eventually spill into the urine as well.

This is the classic story for type II diabetes. It is a scenario that does not come up over night. It is a process that has taken years and years of lifestyle choices to come to that point. The same thing is true with treatment. Since it is often lifestyle choices that brought your health to that critical point, it can be assumed that lifestyle changes can turn your diagnosis around.

Diabetes is a condition that infiltrates to the deepest level within our system. It touches every organ and metabolic pathway, and dramatically affects the nervous system. Therefore, it is a topic that we are going to talk about in great depths in the blogs to come. We will be touching on many various conditions from high blood pressure and infertility, to obesity and chronic pain.

Be sure to follow along and join me as go through the vast impacts of diabetes and what we can do about it.