Unlike type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition, where the body cannot produce insulin, type 2 diabetes is 100% caused by lifestyle where the consequence of poor nutrition is too much insulin circulating and the body reaches a point of insulin resistance and it stops responding to insulin. As a result glucose rises in the blood stream causing the disease we're familiar with. As you can see, both type 1 and type 2 diabetes have the same symptoms, i.e. high blood glucose level, but the root cause is very different. While it makes perfect sense to treat type 1 diabetes with insulin to lower glucose, since the body cannot produce it, it does not make any sense to treat patients with type 2 diabetes, who already have too much insulin, with insulin or pills that increase insulin. Yet, this is the current standard of care. There is already an excessive amount of insulin in the body. Any person with common sense would agree that if the problem is too much insulin, then giving more insulin is asinine and will only exacerbate the situation. We've all seen patients with diabetes get worse over time and progressively increase medications and develop complications such as blindness, neuropathy, kidney failure, poor circulation, feet ulcers, heart disease, and dementia. Doctors have traditionally told patients that diabetes is a progressive disease. The sad truth is that type 2 diabetes is caused by lifestyle and can only be reversed with lifestyle. You just need the right advice.

 

If you read about obesity, you may notice that there are a lot of similarity with diabetes. In fact, the term diabesity was invented to describe both. We learned that obesity is primarily driven by chronic high insulin level causing persistent fat storage. Add insulin resistance to the picture and diabetes will develop. There is a lot of variability from person to person based on gender, race, other hormonal and genetic factors that determines the "fat threshold" before full blown diabetes develops. Some people develop diabetes after only a few pounds of weight gain around their belly, while others can gain 200 pounds and not develop diabetes. Obesity is the body's defense mechanism against diabetes. But once the body reaches its "fat threshold" and insulin resistance develops, the excess sugar and carbohydrates consumed cannot be dealt with and excess glucose spills into the blood stream leading to diabetes. Insulin resistance develops at the level of the liver and pancreas, primarily driven by fat accumulating in the abdomen and organs called visceral fat. The organs become congested with excess fat that was shoved in in a desperate move to remove toxic glucose from circulation. Eventually, the whole system fails.

 

This sounds scary and depressing, but the exciting thing is that the solution is simple. Applying the Pareto Principle, where 20% of the effort will lead to 80% of the effect, we only have to focus on lowering insulin, since this is the root cause. How do we lower insulin? We remove the food that is causing it to rise to begin with. Once the stimulus is removed, insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia will reverse course. The body is amazing at healing itself and will take care of the rest. We just have to support it with the right nutrition.