A type 2 diabetes diagnosis can feel like a death sentence.
There are a host of complications to consider — including heart disease, stroke, blindness, and amputation — and dramatic lifestyle changes that affect the rest of your natural life.
If your diagnosis was recent, there are likely dozens of thoughts running through your head. You’re probably wondering where to get started with maintenance and management, or what the rest of your life will look like.
But you don’t just have to manage type 2 diabetes.
In fact, you can cure it completely.
It starts with your metabolic health.
Understanding type 2 diabetes
Unlike type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes is largely preventable.
In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas is unable to make any insulin. Genetic factors and autoimmune reactions are the most likely causes, and patients are required to take insulin in order to manage blood sugar effectively.
Type 2 diabetes is another matter. The pancreas does produce insulin — just not enough to control current blood sugar levels. Cells become resistant to the insulin hormone over time, bathing the bloodstream in sugar and progressing into chronic disease.
This doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it can take years for diabetes to manifest completely.
The progression is a vicious cycle:
- When we eat carbohydrates, processed foods, and fake oils from vegetables and seeds, our body creates more insulin to handle the elevated sugars.
- Insulin directs this excess sugar to different locations around the body, commonly stored in fat cells around the arms, legs, and belly.
- When blood sugar levels reach extreme highs, fat begins to build up in areas where it shouldn’t occur — namely the liver and pancreas. The only way this can be seen is through an MRI.
- Fat building up in the pancreas begins an inflammation process within organs including the heart and liver. This ultimately damages the cells of the pancreas that generate insulin, reducing output, limiting cell responsiveness, and deregulating blood sugar.
What many people don’t realize is that type 2 diabetes can eventually lead to type 1, sometimes called LADA or type 1.5 diabetes. Cells that should respond to insulin no longer have the capacity to do so. And as more sugar adds more fat to the pancreas, insulin production falls dramatically.
Type 2 diabetes is a disturbing wake-up call about the lifestyle you’ve adopted. It’s also a disease that can be reversed.
How improved metabolic health reverses type 2 diabetes
The most common treatment for type 1 diabetes is injectable insulin. While it may be effective in that specific use case, millions of patients with type 2 diabetes are also put onto insulin therapy as a first line of defense.
But this is largely a part of the problem.
Instead of managing root causes, we are treating symptoms (high blood sugar) with band-aids (more insulin). This does not address sugar management, which is largely dietary in nature.
Given that injectable insulin is for the most part an ineffective and flawed strategy for healing, we are left with an alternative: improved metabolic health.
Science tells us that the best way to resolve type 2 diabetes is to stop consuming processed food.
In fact, before insulin was synthesized, the primary treatment for diabetes was a low sugar diet.
This causes the progression of diabetes to happen in reverse:
- If you stop eating processed foods, sugar, and heavy carbohydrates, sugar in your blood falls to appropriate levels.
- Inflammatory responses are reduced, allowing cells to respond to the insulin hormone.
- Fat around the pancreas and liver dissipates as the body requires fewer storage areas.
We have extremely accurate data showing the reversal of type 2 diabetes from improved metabolic health. Research indicates carbohydrate reduction and metabolically healthy diets encourage measurable blood sugar changes in two to three weeks.
For best results, your primary treatment for type 2 diabetes should consist of:
- A reduced intake of carbohydrates, especially processed foods.
- An increased exercise intensity to burn excess sugar in the blood.
- A regulated diet of whole, real foods and low glycemic meals.
Supplements, better sleep, and special diets can be helpful here, but they are not required to successfully reverse type 2 diabetes. The important thing is to be mindful of your food and sugar intake, and monitor your insulin response over time.
Getting started with type 2 diabetes recovery through metabolic health
Type 2 diabetes reversal is a process that takes time.
If you suspect you may be dealing with the earliest stages of diabetes, or have a recent diagnosis and don’t know where to start, I highly encourage getting in touch with a metabolic health coach.
These providers are experts in the field of blood sugar and insulin management, and can help you create custom recovery plans that push you towards personal health goals.
You’re welcome to read more about metabolic health in my book, Stay Off My Operating Table®, or chat with me face-to-face about your options.