Causes of Diabetes

You have just been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, and the key question is what to do, when to do it and who to listen to. The disease if left untreated can undermine many of your bodily functions, and destroy your quality of life......and the life of your family. There are many avenues to take, and no perfect expert.

Other than the genes you inherited, there are several primary causes of diabetes:
1) Long-term diet that has been high in carbohydrates
2) Nutritional deficiencies.
3) Stress

Your body breaks down carbohydrates into sugar (glucose) which then enters your blood stream. The more carbohydrates you eat, the higher your blood sugar goes. In response, your body produces insulin. Insulin's job is to push the blood sugar into the cells. On the surface of the cells in your body are insulin receptors, which act like little doors that open and close to regulate the inflow of blood sugar.

After many years of consuming a high-carbohydrate diet (including potato chips), your cells have been bombarded with so much insulin that these doors begin to malfunction and shut down. With less doors open, your body needs to produce even more insulin to push the glucose into the cells. More insulin causes even more doors to close and as this vicious cycle continues, a condition called "insulin resistance" sets in. The insulin resistance can get so bad that your body can no longer produce enough insulin to push the blood sugar into the cells. The blood sugar then rises out of control resulting in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is simply an extreme case of insulin resistance. The key point for you to understand is that your energy, wellness and longevity are primarily dependent on improving the sensitivity of your cells to insulin.

Stress? Researchers are slowly zeroing in on the long-suspected link between stress and type-2 diabetes, which accounts for 90 percent of all diabetes cases. Anxiety is now believed to exacerbate diabetes by raising levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which regulates insulin and blood-sugar levels. Obesity and a sedentary lifestyle remain the most treatable factors associated with type-2 diabetes, but stress management can also be very effective. Subjects who completed stress-management training, in which they were instructed in deep breathing and muscle relaxation, had significantly lower levels of hemoglobin. Click here for more information on stress.

Comments

[Gladys]

This is an intriguing site with information I could not find anywhere else. This bitter melon sounds like a "wonder" vegie and I will try it out. I also plan to look into some of the other things listed to assist in bringing my sugar under control. Why isn't this more commonly known on the information highway??
Thanks.