Have you ever wondered if you are destined to end up with type 2 diabetes? It is not an unusual thought, since so many people these days have type 2 diabetes. It might feel as if a diagnosis of diabetes is inevitable, especially if you have other members of your family who already have it. You don’t have to be discouraged, even if your family tree has multiple members with diabetes in it. The truth is that it is possible to avoid type 2 diabetes. It is not a given that you will develop the condition, even though many people just like you do, as they get older.
Type 2 diabetes likes to sneak up on most people. It can start as insulin resistance, which is kind of an in-between area where the person does not have diabetes, but their body is not functioning optimally either. For some reason, their body decides to begin to resist using the insulin which is made by the pancreas. Insulin is used by the body to break down the food we eat. The food that is eaten is broken down into simple sugars, which are used by each and every cell in the body. The cells use the sugars as fuel to perform their jobs inside the body. No matter what their job is, each cell needs the sugars as fuel. But each cell is also kind of like a locked door, and the insulin created by the pancreas acts like a key and unlocks the locked door so that the sugar can get inside the cell.
When a person’s body begins resisting the insulin, more of the cells stay locked, so to speak. This means that the cells are starving and have no access to their fuel source. This makes them less effective at performing their jobs inside the body. Sometimes it makes it completely impossible for the cell to do its job. That is just a single cell, but can you imagine how many millions and millions of cells are inside your body? Imagine if a portion of them just stopped working.
You would feel so unwell, and you probably wouldn’t have an explanation for the feeling either. You’d likely just feel miserable, and might not even be able to pinpoint the source of the illness. You’d just know that you didn’t feel good overall, and once it lasted long enough to concern you, you would make an appointment to see your doctor. The good news is that the first thing a good doctor does is to run a few tests to figure out what’s going on inside the body. Simple blood tests can quickly tell your doctor that you are experiencing insulin resistance, or prediabetes, or that you have developed type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes is where your blood values are higher than they should be, but don’t quite meet the definition of full blown diabetes.
This sounds overwhelming but the truth is that these blood tests don’t necessarily have to mean bad news. If you are told that you are resisting insulin or that you have prediabetes, the doctor can give you advice on how to get back on track with nutrition and activity. With hard work, it is possible to avoid type 2 diabetes.