What Is Type 2 Diabetes?
Diabetes- Type 2 is a chronic condition wherein your blood sugar can no longer be regulated. Now there’s a reason for this- the cells of the body become resistant to insulin. So Insulin works like a key to let blood sugar move out of the blood and into the cells where it is used as fuel for energy.
So when the cells become insulin resistant, moving sugar into the cells requires more and more insulin, and too much sugar stays in the blood. And over time, if the cells require more and more insulin, the pancreas can’t make enough insulin to keep up and begins to fail.
Now Type 2 diabetes is a lifelong disease that keeps your body from using insulin the way it should. People with type 2 diabetes are said to have insulin resistance. This is the most common form of diabetes mellitus, a group of diseases that are associated with high blood sugar, also called- hyperglycemia.
Type 2 diabetes used to be known as adult-onset diabetes, but both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can begin during childhood and adulthood. Type 2 is more common in older adults, but the increase in the number of children with obesity has led to more cases of type 2 diabetes in younger people.
Usually, there are no specific symptoms of the condition and it goes undiagnosed until routine blood tests are ordered.
Signs And Symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes
While in the early stages of type 2 diabetes, there often aren\’t any symptoms at all. All are sometimes more subtle but the major symptom is often being overweight. However, you should be aware of the symptoms and early warning signs.
- Oftenly Increased Hunger
- Major Increased Thirst
- Increased Urination
- Losing/Gaining Weight Unintentionally
- Unhealable Wounds
- Blurred Vision
- Numbness or Tingling in Hands or Feet
- Increased Fatigue
- More infections
Causes Of Type 2 Diabetes
Ordinarily, a combination of things causes type 2 diabetes. They might include:
- Genes can affect how your body makes insulin.
- Being overweight can cause insulin resistance.
- Metabolic Syndrome, is a group of conditions including high blood sugar, extra fat around the waist, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol and triglycerides.
- While your blood sugar is low, your liver makes and sends out glucose. Following that when you eat, your blood sugar goes up, and your liver will usually slow down and store its glucose for later. Except for some people’s livers don’t, they keep cranking out sugar.
- Seldom, do cells send the wrong signals or don’t pick up messages correctly. Meanwhile, these problems affect how your cells make and use insulin or glucose, a chain reaction that can lead to diabetes.
- So if the cells that make insulin send out the wrong amount of insulin at the wrong time, your blood sugar gets thrown off. And high blood sugar can damage these cells, too.
Factors That Raise Chances Of Having Type 2 Diabetes
- Diabetes (Gestational)
- HDL Cholesterol (Low)
- Onset of Prediabetes
- Overweight or Obesity
- Blood Pressure (High)
- Triglycerides (High)
- Blood and HeartVessel Disease
- (PCOS) Polycystic ovary syndrome
What is Insulin?
So Insulin is a hormone secreted by your pancreas and its main role of it is to regulate the number of nutrients circulating in your bloodstream. And while it is mostly implicated in blood sugar management, it also affects fat and protein metabolism.
While you eat a meal that contains carbs, the amount of blood sugar in your bloodstream increases. When this happens- the cells in your pancreas sense this increase and release insulin into your blood. And it then travels around your bloodstream, telling your cells to pick up sugar from your blood.
The process results in reduced blood sugar levels. Particularly high blood sugar can have toxic effects, causing severe harm and potentially leading to death if untreated. Nonetheless, cells sometimes stop responding to insulin correctly which is called insulin resistance.
Following this condition, your pancreas produces even more insulin to lower your blood sugar levels. That leads to high levels of it in your blood, termed hyperinsulinemia. Besides, your cells may become increasingly resistant, resulting in a rise in blood sugar levels.
Ultimately, your pancreas may become damaged, leading to decreased insulin production. Subsequently, if the blood sugar levels exceed a certain threshold, you may be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. So, Insulin resistance is the main cause of this common disease that affects about 9% of people worldwide.
Overview
- As it has been associated with a higher risk of developing heart disease, Insulin resistance may be part of the metabolic syndrome.
- Causes include both genetic (inherited) and lifestyle factors.
- No specific signs and symptoms of it.
- Majorly Leads to other medical conditions, including Fatty Liver, Diabetes, Skin tags, and PCOS in women.
Resistance vs. Sensitivity
Well, Sensitivity and Resistance both are two sides of the same coin. And if you have insulin resistance, you have low insulin sensitivity. Similarly, if you are sensitive to insulin, you have low insulin resistance. Although insulin resistance is harmful to your health, insulin sensitivity is beneficial.
Causes
Several factors contribute to it. Overeating, weight gain, and obesity are all strongly associated with it. And while this condition is more common among those with excess weight, people with low or normal weight are also susceptible.
More potential causes of insulin resistance include:
- Increased Inflammation- More oxidative stress and inflammation in your body may lead to this condition.
- Reduced Activity- While inactivity causes resistance, physical activity increases insulin sensitivity.
- Gut Infection. Data suggests that a disruption in the bacterial environment in your gut can cause inflammation that exacerbates resistance and other metabolic problems.
Raised insulin and blood sugar levels are key symptoms of insulin resistance. Additional symptoms include excess belly fat, high blood triglycerides, and low HDL (good) cholesterol levels.
This also leads to metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, which are among the world’s biggest health problems.
A Significant Way To Replenish It
Because of the prevalence of insulin resistance, how can one treat this common condition? FDA hasn’t approved any drugs to specifically treat resistance or pre-diabetes. Nevertheless, physicians may prescribe two classes of drugs normally used to treat type 2 diabetes- biguanides and thiazolidinediones- which sensitize muscle cells, liver cells, and other tissues.
This being said, the best way to treat resistance is to modify one’s lifestyle behaviors. So weight loss and exercise are the most effective methods in restoring the ability of tissues to properly respond to it.
Also, smoking contributes to resistance, so many physicians recommend reducing or ceasing smoking altogether. So in order to reduce secretion, dietitians also recommend lowering carbohydrate intake.
Given that the keto diet is an effective method for losing weight and lowering blood glucose, it can be utilized to lower resistance in the body.
What Is Blood Sugar?
Glucose or Blood sugar is the main sugar that lies in the blood. Your body gets glucose from the food you eat on a daily basis. The blood carries glucose to all of your body’s cells to use for energy which provides nutrients to the organs of the body, muscles, and nervous system.
Subsequently, when a person has eaten carbohydrates, glucose enters the bloodstream. Our endocrine system then helps keep the bloodstream\’s glucose levels in check using the pancreas. So then the pancreas produces insulin and releases it after a person consumes protein or carbohydrates.
Now the insulin sends excess glucose to the liver as glycogen and the pancreas also produces a hormone called glucagon. Glucagon does the opposite of insulin, raising blood sugar levels when needed. So these two hormones work together to keep glucose balanced.
If the body needs more sugar in the blood, the glucagon signals the liver to turn the glycogen back into glucose and release it into the bloodstream. The process is called glycogenolysis.
While blood sugar levels are high, your body can’t effectively transport sugar from the blood into the cells. If left unchecked, this can lead to diabetes. Knowing blood sugar level ranges can be a key part of diabetes self-management.
Understanding Blood Sugar Levels
Before a meal- 80 to 99 milligrams of sugar per dl and 80 to 140 mg/dl after a meal is normal. Most utmost adults with diabetes before a meal have 80 to 130 mg/dl before and less than 180 mg/dl 1 to 2 hours after commencing the meal.
Certain variations in blood glucose levels, both before and after meals, indicate the way that the body ingests and banks glucose. Later when you eat, your body breaks down the carbohydrates in food into smaller parts, including glucose, which the small intestine can grasp.
High Blood Sugar Levels
High blood sugar levels or Hyperglycemia can occur over time, producing too much glucose in your blood can cause severe problems. Also if you don’t have diabetes, seldom you may have problems with sugar that is too low or too high.
Having a regular schedule of eating, activity, and taking any medicines you need can help. So if you do have diabetes, it is very essential to keep your blood sugar numbers in your spot range. So you should check your sugar levels several times each day and keep reading for the same.
The blood test called an A1C helps you to check your average blood sugar level over the past three months. So if your blood glucose is too high, you may need to take medicines and/or follow a special diet.
Symptoms Of High Blood Sugar Levels
- Highly Increased thirst.
- Severe Headaches.
- Struggling in concentrating.
- Blurry vision.
- Constant peeing.
- Weakness.
- More than 180 mg/dL Sugar Levels.
Tips To Treat High Blood Sugar Levels
- Repress Your Carb Intake
- Pick Foods With a Low Glycemic Index
- Fulfill Portion Control
- Shot Loads Of Water
- Keep Your Blood Glucose Levels In Check
- Take Enough Quality Sleep
- Controlling Stress Levels
- Increasing Your Fiber Intake
- Trying To Exercise Regularly
Low Blood Sugar Levels
Low blood sugar levels or Hypoglycemia can be a serious condition. It can happen in people with diabetes who take medications that increase insulin levels in the body.
Getting too much medication, leaping meals, eating less than normal, or exercising more than usual can lead to low blood glucose for these individuals.
Outwardly enough glucose, your body cannot perform its normal functions. So in the short term, people who aren’t on medications that increase insulin have enough glucose to maintain blood sugar levels, and the liver can make glucose if needed.
Symptoms Of Low Blood Sugar Levels
- Shaky Feeling
- Nervousness or Anxiety
- Clamminess, Sweating, and Chills
- Impatience or Irritability
- Brain Fog
- Racing heartbeat
- Sensing lightheaded or dizzy
- Cravings
- Queasiness
- Sleepiness
- Having no energy
- Impaired/Blurred vision
Tips To Treat Low Blood Sugar Levels
Extremely low blood sugar can be an emergency especially when you have diabetes. And If you\’re feeling these symptoms for higher than 2 days, eat or drink 20 gms of any of the following carbohydrates:
- Soda
- A Cup of Juice
- Glucogen tablets
- Tablespoon Of Sugar (1)
- Salt Flavoured Crackers (5)
- Tablespoon of Honey (1)
- Pieces of Hard Candy (4)
Keto as a Treatment
High Blood Sugar and Insulin Resistance are extensive problems. Not handling them properly, can lead to pre-diabetes and ultimately type 2 diabetes. Fortunately, ample research suggests that mitigating one’s diet to a keto diet can help people reduce their insulin and blood sugar to healthful levels and may even help reverse resistance.
Collectively, these promising outcomes are defined by the evidence that the keto diet:
- Sustains a calorie deficit, which increases sensitivity.
- Losing fat decreases inflammation and the composition of indicating molecules that aggravate resistance.
- Reduces our glycemic load, which helps us regulate blood sugar levels.
- Spurs the creation and usage of ketones. This can, undeviatingly and indirectly, decrease resistance via recurring mechanisms.
What is a Keto Diet?
Keto Diet is a dining pattern that concentrates on foods that contribute a lot of beneficial fats, sufficient amounts of protein, and very few carbohydrates. The purpose is to get more calories from fat than from carbs.
When you eat fewer carbohydrates on the keto diet, it establishes your body in a metabolic state called ketosis, where fat, from your diet and from your body begins to burn. So your body then builds Ketones that are used by your body in the form of energy.
A Keto diet can help in the decline of blood sugar and insulin levels. This shifts the body’s metabolism beyond carbs and towards fat and ketones. Thus aside from being effective in weight loss, the keto diet contributes certain health benefits as well.
Keto Diet For Type 2 Diabetes
Some health benefits of the Keto Diet are right in front of you. It helps you lose weight, restrict and control type 2 diabetes and raised blood sugar levels, and much more. Keto also makes you look and feel younger all the while taking a natural diet.
The diet has been associated with advancements in insulin sensitivity and greater rates of weight loss which are both assertive factors in controlling type 2 diabetes completely. So it is unambiguous that the Keto Diet is not just a healthy diet but a healthy lifestyle too.
And as the diet helps the body to burn fat, it is advantageous when a person wants to lose weight, and it may be valuable for people whose excess weight has affected the advancement of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.
Did you know that our client, Pranay has worked really hard to commit to this new discipline? He has experienced a significant inch loss and lost 7 kgs in 2 months of Keto. Moreover, he was able to reverse his diabetes which is the best part! We’re so proud to have been a part of his amazing keto journey!
Takeaway
Keto essentially improves insulin sensitivity and improves blood sugar in people with obesity and type 2 diabetes. So if you are attempting to improve your sensitivity and control your blood sugar levels, contemplate starting a keto diet.
It can endeavor to help people with type 2 diabetes who have trouble managing their symptoms. So not only do countless people feel stable with fewer diabetic symptoms, nevertheless, they may also be less dependent on medications.
So if you decide to try a diet, be informed that it may be difficult to stick to on your own. To address it a success, it’s a good idea to consult an expert who is certified. So what better than a Keto Diet?
Here’s a 7-Day Keto Diet Chart For Diabetes that you can follow very easily with minimal preps. Enjoy!
Day/Slot | Breakfast | Lunch | Snack | Dinner |
Monday | Boiled Egg with Veggies | Chilli Paneer | Black coffee+ 5 Almonds | Grilled Chicken+ Veggies |
Tuesday | Spinach Omelette | Vegetable Soup | 6 Berries | Garlic Paneer |
Wednesday | Bharwa Parantha | Caulirice + Keto Veg Kadhi | Sugar-Free Jelly | Lemon pepper Paneer |
Thursday | Keto Veggie Poha | Malai Paneer Tikka | Lettuce Soup | Salad Sandwich |
Friday | Sunny-Side Up Egg | Mushroom Paneer + Almond Flour Roti | Bulletproof Coffee | Goan Fish Curry |
Saturday | Keto Upma + Veggies | Paneer Salad | Green Tea + 5 Peanuts | Anda Masala |
Sunday | Keto Oatmeal | Butter Chicken | Soda Mojito | Paneer 65 |
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