Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes....you are so sweet to be around.

Or, why fix something when we can just manage it....and very poorly at that!

Type 2 diabetes, (allow me to abbreviate: T2d) is a growing problem in America. The statistics show that 1 out of every 3 births since 2000, that person will become diabetic. That’s huge....and very preventable. We used to call it “Adult Onset Diabetes”, but since more and more children started developing it, the name did not apply well. (Type 1 diabetes is usually discovered in young children, and is an auto-immune problem. Insulin is the treatment of choice for them.)

So what is diabetes? Specifically, T2d? It is uncontrollable high levels of glucose in your blood. And it’s not insulin dependent. Insulin from your pancreas is secreted anytime you eat carbohydrates. These become sugars after they are broken down in your body. Insulin’s job is to put glucose into your cells and clear it from your blood. Insulin attaches to the glucose, looks for a cell with an insulin-receptor, attaches there, and dumps the glucose into the cell. Then insulin goes back looking for more glucose to deliver in this fashion. 

Simple....right? And it does so in a “lock and key” fashion. There exists a very specific cell receptor on your cell’s surface for insulin to “lock” into and deliver it’s payload...glucose. Then it goes on it’s merry-way looking for more glucose. It recycles itself, in a very “green-way” and does its job over, and over many times after you put any carbohydrates down your cake-hole!

However, have you ever had a lock and key you used over, and over, many times, over many years and the key gets loose in the lock? Then you have to “giggle it” sometimes to make it work? Eventually, you try it one more time and the key won’t unlock the door.....You can’t get in....

And there you have it: Type 2 Diabetes. The insulin (key) won’t fit on the cell receptor (lock) anymore. Your levels of blood glucose raise up and you develop hyperglycemia....elevated blood glucose levels in your blood. As the blood glucose levels raise up, many “wonderful” symptoms of T2d develop: peripheral neuropathy (dead nerves usually in your feet first), optic nerve neuritis (blindness), hyperlipidemia (high fats in the blood), heart attacks, strokes, and many others.

Why is the insulin not fitting in the receptor anymore? Well, why did your key stop working in your lock? That’s right....you used it too much. And that’s what happening with your insulin and your cells. You are using it too much by eating too many carbohydrates. You have developed an “insulin resistance” on your cell surface and its not recognizing your insulin any more. Repeated bombarding on the cell surface from insulin causes the cells to “down-regulate” its receptors and won’t allow anymore insulin to attach to the cell surface and thus glucose cannot get inside the cell. 

Most commonly found Type 2 diabetes today is not about a lack of insulin problem, its a problem of too much insulin. Anytime you consume carbohydrates, insulin is secreted from your pancreas. And, over a period of time, you develop insulin resistance in the body. It’s a huge problem in our country and getting worse and worse every year. Right now it costs the U.S. 5 Billion dollars every year in healthcare costs. In 10 years it will cost us 10 Billion dollars. It will cripple our healthcare system and the associated effects of T2d wide spread: obesity, heart disease, and cancers (cancers of the colon, breast, endometrium, pancreas, and liver), associated with T2d. 

Most of the treatment centers around, just manage the symptoms; not curing it. Sad but true. It is preventable, treatable, and reversible. Please don’t ask me why it’s not cured, and just “managed”....ignorance? unwilling? Money? Between doctors and pharmaceutical companies.....not my discussion here.

Or just simply a lack of education? This is my choice and yours. Educate yourself: here and elsewhere. Again, like I have said: Find someone who understands WHY T2d develops and then correct it. Why just manage it like it’s done in common diabetic clinics? For example: 

A typical blood test that I order is a fasting blood sugar. Usually you don’t eat anything overnight for 8 -10 hours, then blood taken first thing in the morning. (Don’t let your doctor do this if you have not been fasting for at least 8-10 hours). And I also would order the HbA1c (It tells me how much sugar has been in your blood in the last 120 days) and a fasting insulin test.

If the values of blood sugar are on the order of 120 mg/dl, the HbA1c over 7%, and insulin over 10 microU/ml then the diagnosis of diabetes is easy. You’ve had plenty of insulin secreted by your pancreas, but you have been doing it way too long, and thus eating way too many carbohydrates.

Now, what happens next depends on how smart your doctor is, and if he/she wants to manage your condition or cure it.

Manage: 

1. You will start drug therapy

You will talk to a dietician to follow the American Diabetes Assoc. (ADA) diet recommendations. This is a very high (60%) carbohydrate/sugar based diet. And the sugar is making you secrete more insulin.

 Cure:

Change your diet to a lower carbohydrate, and higher fat proportions. 

Reverse Type 2 Diabetes, without expensive drug costs and unsuccessful “diet-disaster” recommendations. 

This ridiculous ADA diet wants you to eat more carbohydrates with each meal. This will cause your blood sugar to rise further and cause more insulin resistance; making your disease worse. They also want you to cut fats, thinking they are harmful for you. That could not be further from the truth. Fats help curb your hunger, creating meal-satisfaction, and keep you from overeating. With that “diet disaster”, they are trying to make sure you don’t become hypoglycemic (low blood sugar). Don’t worry about that....you will always have plenty of sugar and insulin in your blood, making your insulin resistance worse and worse each year. And as an added “bonus” from the ADA diet, you will store all that sugar as fat! 

Then after 3 years, and at least 30 pounds of fat accumulation later, following the ADA “diet-disaster”, your doctor (The Manager), will then decide that you need more drugs....Actos, Januvia, (pills), then and injections of Byetta. The insulin injections are performed many times a day. Increased risk of thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, acid or sour stomach, belching, diarrhea, heartburn, indigestion, nausea, and vomiting can occur with Byetta. As the years pass, you start developing kidney malfunction with proteins leaking into your urine, nerves dying in your feet, and eventually you loose your eyesight from the high levels of blood sugar damaging the optic nerve.

Nice symptoms....all because you followed the ADA “diet-disaster” of abnormally high carbohydrate consumption recommendation. Don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault. 

So, you being the smart, discerning, skeptic, you ask your “manager”...err, doctor: “Wait a minute....I thought my problem was too MUCH insulin from all the sugars (carbs) I was eating, thus causing insulin resistence??? Why do I want more insulin???”

And your doctor says: “That’s how WE treat it, we manage it.”

Great.....more insulin making your condition worse. Remember my analogy about the lock and key? Your cell receptor just gets worn out with all the constant bombardment from the insulin on its surface. The cell then pulls the insulin receptor inside the cell and insulin is no longer able to attach and unload its glucose. Your blood sugar then climbs and climbs over months and years, damaging your body. 

How about curing it??? Ever thought about that? That’s what I do for my patients. Cure Type 2 diabetes, NOT manage it. Curing involves changing your diet to a more normal level of carbohydrate consumption; much lower than what is currently recommended by the ADA “diet-disaster” of 60% sugar/carbohydrate. Think about it...why put more sugar (carbohydrates) in your body when that’s what is causing the problem? Why “low-fat recommendation” when dietary fat is what signals your brain’s satiety center in the hypothalamus to inform you to stop eating? Eating a low fat diet will make you fat. Eating a high carbohydrate diet will make you diabetic. I’m going to say it again with feeling......

Eating a high carbohydrate diet will make you diabetic.

Too many, literally millions, of patients are poorly treated like this everyday. T2d is very curable and easily reversed. It’s curable....without a lifetime of drugs, disability, and high drug costs. There are many physicians dedicated to reversing and curing T2d. Physicians like Dr. Mary Vernon, M.D., is doing fantastic work with T2d. I highly respect her work. She is a bariatric physician who has a family practice in Lawrence, Kansas, as well as being the Medical Director of of the University of Kansas Weight Control Program, and the current president of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.

Being sweet, is a nice thing, but, having lots of sugar in your blood is not!