Obesity and Diabetes: Understanding the Link

Obesity is obviously a growing epidemic throughout many countries including America. There is rarely a day that goes by where I do not hear some mention to obesity on the television or radio.  One of the complications which accompany this obesity is type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes occurs when our bodies stop responding properly to insulin. Insulin allows our cells to take glucose in and glucose is important because it is the primary fuel for our body.
Obesity and Type 2
A key step involved in the development of type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance. Insulin resistance often precedes the clinical onset of type 2 diabetes by ten to twenty years. It is caused by abnormally high circulating fatty acid levels, these fatty acids signal to our muscle and liver cells stopping the normal response mechanisms to insulin. This is what causes the rise in blood sugar levels.  An interesting fact about type 2 diabetes is that it can be reversed. Proper diet and exercise can lower blood sugar levels and in fact reverse the problems associated with insulin resistance. Not surprisingly, anti-diabetic drugs have been developed.  These drugs redistribute fat from the muscle and liver cells to adipocytes, or fat cells.
Insulin Restistance
Although considered to be largely a preventable disease, diabetes 2 has shown to have a genetic linkage. It is interesting to consider the effect that our food industry has had on the development of type 2 diabetes. There is no doubt that it is a disease which is on the rise. So is cancer but what is interesting when comparing a disease like cancer and diabetes is the age component. The incidence of cancer is rising throughout the U.S., but then again so is our lifespan. We expect to see more cancer with advances in medicine which extend our lifespan and treat other disease more effectively. This “excuse” is not present for type 2 diabetes. It does not have the strong age dependent correlation that cancer, heart disease and neurological diseases have.  So our food industry is producing food which raises our risk towards developing type 2 diabetes. There are healthy, organic options available throughout grocery stores.  I completely agree that there are disorders which disposition certain people towards developing obesity, and certainly some more than others. In many of these cases however I believe that simply exercising, and eating healthy could prevent or solve many problems.