More than 30 years ago Dr Kraft, a medical doctor and pathologist identified the real cause of Type-II diabetes as elevated insulin, that eventually becomes insulin resistance. His work is significant, because it provides an opportunity to identify the onset off this debilitating disease decades earlier than the current medical approach. Unfortunately, his work is still largely ignored by the conventional medical community.
What is Type-II diabetes?
Type-II diabetes is a disease where blood glucose levels become extremely elevated. The amount of glucose in our blood needs to be within tightly controlled ranges. When this becomes chronically high, it causes damage to our body and eventually death.
Insulin is a hormone that helps transport glucose out of our bloodstream and into cells that need energy. It does this by communicating to the cells through special receptors; think of these as a key unlocking a door. Insulin resistance occurs when these receptors no longer allow insulin to unlock the door and let glucose inside. This results in too much glucose in the bloodstream where it causes damage. Insulin is made in our pancreas. When blood glucose is high, our pancreas needs to make more insulin. Eventually it gets overworked and ultimately reduces how much insulin it can make. Sometimes it stops altogether.
The current treatment for diabetes focuses on getting the glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells. Medications are used to help the cell receptors become more sensitive to insulin, often insulin itself is used. But this is an attempt to reduce the symptoms without fixing the root cause of the problem. Diabetes is considered a progressive disease, where more and more drugs are prescribed, more side effects occur, and quality of life suffers.
There is a much better way to manage Type-II diabetes; but first we need to picture what is really happening in our cells.
What’s really going on?
To understand how glucose and insulin work together, imagine a train stopping to pick up passengers (glucose) at the different stations. Security guards (insulin) are present make sure all the passengers get on the train.
When there are more passengers than seats, the train becomes overcrowded. It gets more difficult to pack in passengers. The same thing happens inside our cells. Glucose is energy for the cells. When they have enough energy, forcing in more glucose makes them overfull and causes damage or death to these cells.
Now, imagine the security guards start pushing and shoving more and more passengers inside. As the train becomes overcrowded more and more guards are needed. There are no passengers left at the station, but there are a lot of security guards. This is what happens to our cells. When glucose levels in the blood are too high, the pancreas makes more and more insulin to force these out of the blood into cells. Our HbA1c looks normal on a blood test, but we have way too much insulin.
Another problem then happens. Some of the passengers want to get off the train, but the security guards don’t let them. When our blood glucose gets low, our cells want to release stored energy, but the high insulin prevents this. Instead of taking stored fat out of the cells, our brains get a message we don’t have enough glucose and trigger a response to eat. The cycle continues. Whenever you are gaining weight, your body is telling you that your cells cannot properly used the stored energy.
Eventually in our train analogy, there are no more guards are available. The guard training school can’t keep up with demand and the existing guards get overworked and quit. Now the trains are full, and passengers are being left at the station. The train and station are both damaged from all the overcrowding.
Medicine solves this problem with a diet that keeps pouring glucose into the bloodstream and drugs that force more and more glucose into cells that are already dying. Doctors are happy so long as there are no passengers left at the station – low HbA1c. It doesn’t matter how much damage is done in the meantime.
Diabetes is associated with every single chronic modern disease such as…
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Heart disease
- Kidney damage
- Nerve pain/damage
- Eye damage
- Skin conditions
- Depression
- Cancers
- Chronic inflammation
- Obesity
Anytime your HbA1c is normal, but you have symptoms of weight gain, brain fog, lack of energy, poor sleep or joint pain, it is important to dig deeper.
Susan Birch is an expert in the field of nutrition and specialises in cholesterol and diabetes. She works alongside clients to uncover the underlying cause of symptoms so they understand what’s going on and can make confident decisions about their health. She does this by analysing their test results and explaining these in a way they can understand and together decide on what to work on first.
If you’re unsure about a diagnosis and want a trusted supporter by your side, then contact Susan today.
Hi Sue, Ive read and heard people talking anout how type 2 diabetes can be helped considerably by a keto diet and ecercise; and in some cases there have been a few who claim they have lost all symptoms.
Is this possible?
Hi Gay, yes a change in diet can reverse the symptoms of type-2 diabetes. Both high-carb low-fat diets and low-carb high-fats have been shown to be effective. The first step is to remove all the processed foods that contain sugars, flours and vegetable oils. Low-carb ketogenic diets are showing considerable promise for many people. They tend to be easier to sustain with less hunger than low-fat diets. Remember the cause of diabetes is overwhelming the bodies ability to tolerate glucose. So the best way to reverse the disease is to reduce the glucose in the diet from carbohydrates. Thanks for the question.