Type 2 Diabetes.
In type 2 diabetes blood sugar levels are too high, and the body is no longer able to bring them back to a normal range. High blood sugar levels are toxic - damaging the brain, eyes, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels.
To understand diabetes and how to best treat it, we need to understand how the body regulates blood sugar.
Insulin
A hormone called insulin is released when blood sugar levels increase. It’s role is to bring blood sugar levels back to normal. It does this by instructing cells to take up the sugar from the blood. The cells burn some sugar fuel and store excess sugar as fat.
The hormone insulin regulates blood sugar levels.
High insulin
Releasing insulin is a normal and healthy response to occasional blood sugar levels rising, but if blood sugar levels go very high (“spike”), a large amount of insulin is needed to bring them back to normal.
If we regularly eat foods that spike blood sugar, insulin levels remain high, forcing more sugar into the cells of the body. Eventually the cells become so full of sugar (stored as fat) that, to protect themselves, they stop responding as well to insulin - this is called insulin resistance.
To keep blood sugar levels normal the body now has to make even more insulin. There comes a point when insulin production can no longer keep up with the amount of sugar in the diet, and blood sugar stays high despite very high insulin. We call this type 2 diabetes.
But I’ve stopped eating sugar…
Most people with diabetes know how important it is to avoid sugar, and work really hard to limit it in their diet. However, many are unaware that lots of savoury and natural foods also contain sugar, or break down quickly to sugar in the body, also raising blood sugar levels. More on this later.
Think of your body like a bowl of sugar.
Once it’s full, sugar starts spilling over into the blood. This is type 2 diabetes.
Medications can force more sugar into the bowl, but to fix the problem (and reverse diabetes) we need to stop adding sugar.
Weight.
People with type 2 diabetes are often above a health weight. However, some people develop diabetes despite being a normal weight. Where the body stores fat, and the amount of fat that can be stored before someone develops insulin resistance, varies significantly from person to person.
Reversing diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes used to be considered a progressive condition, but we now know that by changing our diet to reduce the amount of sugar coming in, diabetes can be put into remission. This also helps to prevent the many complications of diabetes including blindness, amputations and kidney failure.
Type 2 diabetes can be reversed by changing your diet.
Learn more.
Avoiding foods which spike blood sugar, lowers insulin and enables the body to once again regulate its own blood sugar levels.
This means, to reverse diabetes, we need to know which foods spike blood sugar.
Although there are some obvious ones (think lollies and chocolate!), some of the other foods may surprise you!
The science.
Read the high-quality evidence, from scientific studies, supporting dietary intervention for type 2 diabetes.