Type 2 diabetes is one of three different forms of diabetes… type 1 diabetes is much less common than type 2 and is usually diagnosed in childhood and treated with insulin. Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition where your body becomes resistant to insulin. Gestational diabetes is similar to type 2 except that it occurs during pregnancy.

In type 2 diabetes too much fat sets the stage for insulin resistance by decreasing your body’s ability to use insulin in the way it was meant to be used. This means two things are going wrong with this process. First, your body is unable to keep up with the demand for large amounts of insulin. Second, because your body has become resistant to the insulin your pancreas makes, you are not able to use that insulin efficiently. Now you have decreased insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance… main features of type 2 diabetes. This means you have glucose or sugar building up in your blood instead of entering your cells via insulin.

Although type 2 diabetes can be prevented, extra fat is the result of taking in more calories or kilojoules than we burn, which means:

too much food, and too little exercise

are the big contributors to type 2 diabetes. Therefore, being overweight or obese is responsible for the rise of type 2 diabetes.

It is interesting to take a step backwards and look at the big picture. After all it’s not contagious although it is described as an epidemic. It is in epidemic proportions or widespread in industrialized countries where too much food and too little activity are pushing people with the tendency to develop type 2 diabetes, over the edge.

Evidence suggests switching to a healthier diet has a powerful influence on the workings of your cells. Often losing just ten or twenty pounds (4.5 or 9 kg) is enough, which means you don’t necessarily have to reach some ideal weight listed on a weight chart. And once you lose enough weight to lower your blood sugar, it will also mean less worry about heart disease… you will feel more energized because sugar will then be getting through to your body’s cells.

By: Beverleigh H Piepers

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healthdoc asked:

90% of type-2 diabetes cases develop after significant fat is gained in the omentum located in the abdomen. This creates insulin resistance effectively ‘gumming-up’ pores in body cells preventing sugar from being absorbed from the blood. As blood sugars rise the pancreas works harder by making more insulin. Years of stress and overwork causes the pancreas to fail prematurely leading to insulin fatigue and diabetes. Learn more about controling diabetes at: www.HealthDoc.org

vclutter asked:


I am a diabetic and now am taking insulin. What happens if I really didn’t need it? Am I now dependent on it? Has my pancreas quit working all together? What would happen if I stopped the insulin?

Insulin is a self-correcting hormone which ebbs and flows as the body needs it. Insulin is part of an exquisitely-controlled system that signals the cells when to use energy, the liver when to produce it, the hunger centers when we need to refill, and the nerves to insure that we stay calm and collected.

The insulin that diabetics have to take is a replacement for this smoothly-operating natural system. Although insulin-dependent diabetics must take insulin or they will die from their disease, the spikes in their insulin injections don’t correspond well to how their insulin system would work in a normal body. As a result, even diabetics who measure their blood glucose often during the day and assiduously take their insulin shots are at much higher danger of organ failure, circulatory disease and other diseases that are common to diabetics.

In order to understand why diabetes can be so problematic, it’s best to understand how the insulin cycle works in a healthy body.

The pancreas produces insulin, and it detects the amount of glucose and insulin circulating in the body. The two parts of the pancreas – glucose-sensors and insulin producers – work hand-in-hand to insure that the levels of insulin and glucose are in balance at all times.

What does the pancreas really measure when it measures circulating glucose? It’s primarily monitoring the amount of sugar uptake by the cells. When we are working hard on a math problem, for example, the brain’s cells require a good deal more energy in the form of glucose than when our brains are relaxed. The brain is the most sensitive of our organs to glucose levels – that’s why we can achieve a ‘sugar high’ after we eat a piece of candy, and a ‘sugar low’ when our blood sugar level falls. The symptoms of too much sugar are excitability (particularly amongst children), while the symptoms of too-low glucose in the blood are lowered temperature, thirst, shivering and bad temper.

Other organs also depend on the right glucose level in order to assure that they function properly. When you run, for example, your leg and other muscles use a good deal of the glucose circulating freely in the blood. If this glucose weren’t replenished quickly, you could end up hypoglycemic, which means with low blood sugar. The muscles would soon lose their ability to work at their top level, and you would slow down.

Fortunately, the pancreas detects this lowering of the blood sugar levels and responds immediately with insulin secretions. These secretions tell the muscles “request more glucose,” and tell the liver “produce more glucose.” The elegant system therefore relies on this feedback loop in order to assure that cells have exactly the right amount of sugar available to fuel their activity.

The insulin-dependent diabetic cannot rely on this fine-tuning method. He or she is forced to ‘spike’ their insulin by injecting it two to five times a day. Although they try to time their insulin injections around mealtimes, they are not able to duplicate the fine controls of insulin secretion in response to cellular needs.



By: Scott Meyers

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RedHead85 asked:


Case Study #1: Diabetes

Hannah is a 10-year-old girl who has recently been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. She is a 4th grade student at Hendricks Elementary School. Prior to her diagnosis, Hannah was very involved in sports and played on the girls volleyball team. Her mother is concerned about how the diagnosis will affect Hannah.

1. Discuss the patient’s diagnosis. Include a definition of the actual disease or condition.

Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus once known as “juvenile onset” diabetes or “insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus,” is a chronic disorder of carbohydrate, fat, and protein metabolism caused by inadequate production of insulin by the pancreas or faulty use of insulin by the cells. Insulin is a hormone needed to convert sugar (glucose) into energy. Although type 1 diabetes can develop at any age, it typically appears during childhood or adolescence.

2. Identify the factors which could have caused or lead to the particular disease or condition.

3. Describe the signs and symptoms which are associated with the disease or condition.

4. Discuss the diagnostic testing that is usually performed in order to formally diagnose the particular disease or condition.

5. Identify the appropriate treatment (including therapies, medications, etc) which the patient may be prescribed for his/her particular diagnosis.

6. Discuss potential barriers to therapy which the patient may experience due to their unique situation.

7. Discuss alternative treatments which may also benefit the patient.

8. Describe the typical prognosis for a patient with the disease or condition.

9. Identify patient teaching which would benefit the patient in your case study.

I have to do a paper for school and looking for a good website to answer these question.