Overview
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when I was 12. At that time I didn’t know much about it and to be fair, my mum didn’t too. Everything we knew was that we had to lose weight and be on a diet where sugar was banned. My doctor didn’t do a great job explaining to us what was happening, and until 6 years ago there was still a lot of confusion into my head. I didn’t understand well what diabetes could do to my body and most of all, I didn’t know how to fight it. To fight your enemy, you really have to know it well: I started reading books, watching videos and listening to podcasts and today I know my body better than ever. Most of all, I know how my body copes with type 2 diabetes and what I can do to feel better and stay healthy.
What is type 2 diabetes: explanation and early symptoms
Type 2 diabetes or Diabetes Mellitus is a metabolic disease that causes high blood sugar levels. If untreated, diabetes can cause many complications like heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease, nervous system disease, dental disease. Diabetes usually begins with dysfunctional glucose metabolism and it can develop very slowly: most of the people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes had no symptoms at all. Symptoms might be mild and easy to dismiss at first and might include:
- constant hunger
- a lack of energy
- fatigue
- weight loss
- excessive thirst
- frequent urination
- dry mouth
- itchy skin
- blurry vision
Understanding type 2 diabetes
There is a key difference in people with and without diabetes: insulin. People with type 2 diabetes produce defective insulin, while people with no diabetes produces normal and working insulin. To understand it a bit more, let’s see what happens in our bodies when we eat food.
IN A NON DIABETIC SUBJECT
- food is digested and carbohydrates are broken into simple sugars (most of which is glucose)
- glucose moves into the bloodstream and as a result, the pancreas starts to produce insulin
- insulin accompany glucose through the body cells which need energy
- once glucose has reached the body cells, it needs a key to unlock them so it can enter and be absorbed
- the key glucose needs is insulin as it unlocks the door cells and allows glucose to enter
- once the glucose enters it can then be absorbed and used as energy (or be stored for later)
IN SOMEONE WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES
Insulin is still produced, but it’s defective and can’t unlock the door cells. This means that glucose can’t enter and stays into the bloodstream, raising sugar levels. In response to that, the pancreas produces more and more insulin. Meantime body cells – who are still waiting for that energy – send out emergency signals to the liver to release stored glucose (they were desperately looking for some!). As more glucose is released, the pancreas produces more and more insulin until it can’t cope anymore. Our body is now full of extra glucose, our sugar levels are high and we don’t feel great. What happens to that extra glucose then? Well, it’s stored as fat: this is why type 2 diabetes is often related to obesity.
How to prevent type 2 diabetes
What we can do to fight T2D then? Having a healthy lifestyle is key to prevent or fight type 2 diabetes: factors such as obesity, being overweight, lack of physical activity, poor diet and stress are very important to the development of type 2 diabetes and all we need to do is to improve those factors, one by one. This is what I did, and it worked for me. I switched to a plant-based diet years ago and I also started doing physical exercise every day: the results are amazing and today I feel better than ever.
Remission is possible, although it might not work for everyone, it really depends on your conditions and medical history. What is possible though, is an improvement. We can always do something for ourselves to feel healthier and better. It’s just a matter of will and patience. Start small, don’t worry and do not set goals that are too high. The key is to do things step by step, day after day 🙂 You can do this! 🙂