Can You Reverse Type 2 Diabetes?
in today's topic, we will talk about whether or not you can reverse Diabetes type 2.
Diabetic type 2 means that your blood sugar levels are always elevated. This is a problem because chronically high blood sugar can cause a long list of other side effects, including nerve damage, vision problems, and heart disease.
As of 2019, over 450 million people have diabetes worldwide, with over 90 percent of cases being type 2 diabetes, and that number is expected to reach 700 million by the year 2045.
Having type 2 diabetes is not only harmful to your health but also to our health care system. Diabetes is being diagnosed in more and more people each year, and we see this disease manifest in people who are younger and younger.
Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes because it was only seen in adults; that is no longer the case. But why are type 2 diabetes rates skyrocketing, and is there anything we can do about it? Can type 2 diabetes be reversed?
Diabetes type 2 patients are told that it can only be managed and that the disease is progressive, but the truth is that type 2 diabetes is reversible when you address the root cause.
It is entirely possible to lower your fasting blood sugar, and there are hundreds of studies that support this claim, with participants being able to get off their diabetes medication entirely.
So in today's topic, we're going to clarify what causes type 2 diabetes and how it can be reversed?
Diabetes and type 2 diabetes specifically has become an epidemic, and the reason that type 2 diabetes is such a concern is that the risk of complications and developing other diseases is very high.
Type 2 diabetics are at a greater risk of heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, nerve damage, stroke, and more. If you have type 2 diabetes, it is really important that you address it before it progresses to these other diseases, and if you are pre-diabetic or insulin-resistant, you can address it even sooner.
We will begin today by talking about what causes type 2 diabetes and how to know whether you are at risk if you haven't already, and then we will get into some steps you can take to reverse it.
What causes type 2 diabetes?
As I mentioned earlier, type 2 diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar. To be diagnosed, you will have to have a fasting blood sugar reading of 7 millimoles per liter or 126 milligrams per deciliter.
For reference, a normal reading is below 5.6 millimolar per liter or 99 milligrams per deciliter; anything in between is an indicator of pre-diabetes.
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your diabetes and WHY it’s so dangerous.
Numerous factors can cause your blood
sugar to rise acutely and
this is completely normal high-intensity exercise stress, and certain foods can all cause blood sugar to rise.
And when blood sugar goes up, our pancreas releases insulin; one of the main rules of insulin is to keep blood sugar within a normal range, so our blood sugar goes up due to insulin, which then works to shuttle the excess sugar to our cells where it is used for energy.
As I said, this is all completely normal; there is nothing wrong with blood sugar rising acutely but where it starts to become a problem is when blood sugar is constantly being spiked up.
When blood sugar is always high, the pancreas is constantly pumping out insulin, and in a healthy individual, the excess insulin is enough to deal with the excess blood sugar.
so fasting blood sugar levels remain within the normal range while insulin is elevated. But here's the thing long before you become diabetic, you will become insulin resistant.
Insulin resistance leads to type 2 diabetes by on average up to 15 years, so diagnosing and addressing insulin resistance can stop it from ever leading to type 2 diabetes.
Yes, you wonder that right, if you do not address insulin resistance, it will eventually progress to type 2 diabetes.
Whenever insulin is high for a prolonged period of time, our cells start to become resistant to it; they start to become less and less responsive to the signals of insulin which mean they are accepting less and less blood sugar.
And there comes the point where the cells in our body become so resistant that the excess insulin being pumped out is no longer enough to manage blood sugar, and this is when we will start to see our fasting blood sugar levels elevate, and we will be diagnosed with either pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.
So if we know that we are insulin resistant, we can stop it before it ever gets to this point; the problem is that physicians do not routinely check insulin levels they routinely check blood sugar levels.
But as I already mentioned, blood sugar levels could remain normal even if someone has high insulin and is insulin resistant. Insulin resistance has a number of symptoms, including difficulty losing weight, skin tags, and excess abdominal fat.
In case you are insulin resistant, ask your doctor for a HOMA-IR test this will test both fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin and let you know if you are insulin resistant.
Okay, so this is all great, but what causes blood sugar and insulin to be elevated in the first place? Well, as I already mentioned, several factors can impact our blood sugar levels, but really, the most important one that we need to focus on in the context of reversing type 2 diabetes is the foods we are eating.
Our modern diets are loaded with foods that raise blood sugar significantly. The worst offenders have processed food and drink these foods are refined sources of carbohydrates, and these raise blood sugar levels significantly and quickly, and we are all eating so frequently.
We are constantly snacking on these foods between meals or grabbing a drink from Starbucks, and this means that our blood sugar levels and our insulin never have a chance to come back down to baseline during the day.
and when we look at what diabetes
medications are designed to do,
they are designed to lower blood sugar, so if there were other things you could do besides medication to lower your blood sugar, wouldn't you do them?
Finally, we will cover our final topic, which is how to reverse type 2 diabetes. As we have already discussed, the root cause of type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance.
When our cells resist insulin, our insulin levels remain high, and this will eventually lead to high blood sugar and type 2 diabetes, so by addressing insulin resistance, you can both prevent and reverse diabetes, but how do you do this?
Really the goal here is to keep blood sugar levels low and stable by doing this, you lower your body's need for insulin, and this means both the insulin your body is making as well as any insulin medication.
Now I want to make a quick note here, yes if you follow the steps, I am about to outline your need for diabetes medication will reduce significantly, and yes, this is a good thing, but because your need for these medications will reduce so rapidly if you continue to take them in the same amounts that could be dangerous.
So it is really important that you are working closely with your doctor and adjusting your dosage as needed.
In one study done on 28 participants with type 2 diabetes who ate a diet aimed at lowering blood sugar after 16 weeks, out of the 28 participants, seven were able to discontinue medication entirely, and ten were able to reduce.
The study concluded that this diet could be very effective at lowering blood glucose; diabetic patients using it should be closely monitored, or their medication adjusted accordingly.
That leads me to my next point, The foods that raise blood sugar and that raise insulin the most are carbohydrates; processed carbs are the worst, but even whole food carbs can have a significant blood sugar impact especially.
Since your body is already not managing blood sugar well, eating a low-carb diet is extremely effective for lowering blood sugar and reversing type 2 diabetes.
And we just saw that outlined in the previously mentioned study; after only 16 weeks, almost one-third of participants were able to get off their medication entirely, and these results have been replicated many times.
So the moral of the study is yes, type 2 diabetes can be reversed, and the most effective way to do this, as supported by hundreds of studies, is to reduce carbohydrates in your diet.
