Four Reasons to Reinvent Yourself: #2 Diabetes (type 2) and Obesity
[Go here for Parts 1 and 2 of 5. Tomorrow, look for: “Part 4: Brain Degeneration and Obesity”.]
Type 2 Diabetes -- Too Much of a Good Thing
DIABETICS LACK the ability to use the hormone insulin . This disorder prevents body cells from taking up glucose from the blood.
Those with “type 1″ diabetes are typically born with this insulin problem or develop it early in life.
Those with “type 2″ develop it primarily through behavior (such as over eating the unhealthy food, and being too sedentary) that over time compromise the binding capability to the cell receptors for glucose to be absorbed. Wasting of tissues occurs as glucose-starved cells consume their own proteins.
In addition to cancer, diabetes is the cause for blindness, kidney failure and amputation in adults.
Almost 90% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight, says The Obesity Society. Coincidence or causality? Causality would mean that being overweight caused, or contributed to, diabetes; whereas coincidence would mean that 90% of diabetics are overweight is chance.
Which is it, do you think? If you chose “causality”, science agrees.
The crazy thing is, unlike those born with it, those who suffer with type 2 diabetes usually don’t have to keep jabbing themselves with insulin shots as they dread the day when the grim reaper prematurely comes calling.
Type 2 diabetes is often reversible! It requires some learning and a change of behavior. Of course it’s worth it, but there’s the imposing hurdle presented earlier in Part 1 of this five part series. That hurdle is the emotional complexity that put someone on the self-destructive path to begin with. For the majority of us, destructive behaviors are deeply embedded and intertwined in some physical/emotional/mental complex, and few are equipped to dig it out alone.
Build a team of helpers, medical and personal, to assist you with your goal. You’re going to need support to reverse type 2 diabetes, but it can be, and is being done.
Those who want to overcome type 2 diabetes can start by educating themselves about what to eat. Check out the Mayo Clinic’s diabetic eating plan, and while you’re here loitering on this site, click on “Diet” under “Topics” in the sidebar on the right hand side of your screen. There are several helpful posts listed there that can help you create a new way of eating.
Have you kicked obesity, or reversed diabetes? Please share your story in Comments below.
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Related posts:
- The Seriously Serious Problems of Obesity, Part 4 of 5
- The Seriously Serious Problems of Obesity, Part 5 of 5
- The Seriously Serious Problems of Obesity, Part 2 of 5
Published on November 21, 2009