Diabetes – Not Just Your Grandma’s Disease While many people think diabetes is one of those diseases your grandma gets, very few realize just how prevalent this metabolically and physically destructive disease is. First of all, type II diabetes affects approximately 18.2 million people in the US or 6.3% of the population. That’s either an impossible number of grandmas or it’s just a big portion of non-grandma population. In fact while type II diabetes used to be called “adult onset diabetes” because diabetes risk and appearance increase after the age of 45, more and more young people are diagnosed with this condition. At least 2% of the 20-39 year old crowd has type II diabetes with over 200,000 new cases diagnosed each year. So it should be clear that diabetes is something people, at any age should be aware of. Are You At Risk? What to know if you’re at risk? Well, if you’re Caucasian and over the age of 40 or are a Black or Latino over the age of 25, you’ve got an increased risk – especially if you aren't exercising or following PN. The other big factor is your body fat percentage. If you’re overweight, even if you’ve just got “a few pounds to lose,” you’ve got an increased risk also. What Is Type II Diabetes Anyway? After eating a meal, your body produces a hormone called insulin. Why insulin? Well, after eating, the amount of carbohydrate (or sugar) in your blood rises – even if you haven’t eaten sugar, per se. Since the body doesn’t like lots of sugar in the blood, the hormone insulin is released from an organ (your pancreas) in order to take that sugar out of the blood and store it in one of a number of places. This sugar can go to your liver, your muscles, or even your fat cells. Now, if your blood is constantly high in sugar, this is a bad thing as your body is constantly releasing insulin to clear that sugar out. And, after a while, your body starts to think that this high insulin state is normal. And insulin loses its effectiveness at stocking those sugars away in your tissues. This is what you’ve heard referred to as insulin resistance. Since sugars still need to be cleared away somehow, guess what needs to happen when we become resistant to insulin? If you said “more insulin is released”, you’ve got it. When insulin resistant, more insulin needs to be released to do the same job it would have done were you not insulin resistant. And when this happens, we’re in a diabetic, insulin resistant state. That’s Type II diabetes; when we’re in a chronic state of high sugar and high insulin. Why Is Type II Diabetes So Bad?
Diabetes is reported as the 6th leading cause of death in the US but really, it’s probably more serious than even this. You see, doctors are only now realizing that many of the deaths they see and attribute to other causes are really diabetes related. Some of the problems associated with diabetes include: Heart disease and stroke High blood pressure Blindness Kidney disease Nervous system disease Amputations Dental disease Pregnancy complications How Can You Be Sure You Don’t Have It? Even though about 12-13 million Americans are diagnosed with type II diabetes, the scary part is that at least 5-6 million have it and don’t even know about it. The problem is that diabetes is a progressive condition. In other words it doesn’t just appear one day – poof. Rather, there are early symptoms that your doc should be looking out for by typically doesn’t. Therefore it’s your job to make sure he or she does. Here’s what to do: The Test: Fasted Blood Insulin and Fasted Blood Triglycerides (fats) While a high fasted blood sugar (glucose) is the main diagnostic for type II diabetes, once high blood glucose appears, it’s too late. Some damage has already been done to your kidneys, organs, and other body systems. However, there are 2 great tests for determining whether high blood glucose is near. The first is a fasted blood insulin test. The second is a fasted blood triglyceride test. You see, the progression goes like this: high insulin leads to high blood fats leads to high blood glucose So go see your doc and get your fasted blood insulin, blood fats, and blood glucose checked. If any of these is high, you have a pretty good idea that type II diabetes is coming. What Can You Do To Prevent It? Fortunately type II diabetes is preventable, modifiable, and can even be reversed. The strategies laid out in this book are not only great for revving it back up and for helping you drop the pounds; they represent the most effective strategies for preventing and/or treating type II diabetes. You see, research has demonstrated that the following are necessary to prevent diabetes:
Daily physical activity including 30-60 minutes of exercise Strength training at least 2 days per week Weight reduction (yep, the actual loss of weight is a treatment for diabetes) Increased protein intake (when that protein knocks some carbohydrate out of the diet) An increase in high fiber foods (when those foods knock some of the sugary foods out of the diet). In fact, PN is one of the best prescriptions for decreasing type II diabetes prevalence and risk.