Hey everyone! This is Andy Rogers, one of Dr. Rogers’ newest PA’s in the Johnson City Clinic. We see a ton of diabetics at Performance Medicine, and in this post I wanted to share a few things that I work on with our patients that I think will help a lot of you who are trying to lose weight.
I’ve spent a lot of time researching and writing about the autoimmune process of Type 1 Diabetes (I’m a Type 1 Diabetic myself), but 95% of the diabetes out there is in fact Type 2 Diabetes.
And I get the feeling that people don’t fully understand two things about Type 2.
- They don’t understand why it happens.
- They don’t understand how all the medications out there work.
This is what I love working on with patients. Helping them understand these two things. So today, I want to talk about what Type 2 actually is.
What is Type 2 Diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance. You have more insulin in your body that your body doesn’t know how to use appropriately. Your cells aren’t responding to it because your pancreas is pumping out so much insulin.
As Type 1 diabetics, we simply don’t produce the cells that make insulin. We’re insulin deficient.
A lot of insulin resistance is familial. It’s a genetic trait that’s been passed on.
I see a lot of young kids with prediabetes, and they have this trait that is an insulin resistant trait. It’s almost a survival trait. If they lived during the potato famine, they would have survived because they can survive without much food coming in.
Now that we’re in this time of plenty and we have a surplus of food, people with this trait are naturally going to gain and hold on to weight because their body doesn’t know they’re in 2019 and not the 1600’s.
There’s also an emotional concept to all of this. It often comes with guilt and shame.
The truth is that it’s not your fault!
As Dr. Rogers often says, life isn’t fair. Everyone is different. But you can overcome your genetics through your environment. For example, you can overcome some of your genetics by how you eat.
That’s it for this week’s post! Thanks for letting me take over the blog today. Next week we will share a Part 2 of this Diabetic State Of The Union, where I’ll go over what you need to know about diabetes medications.