From being too busy to simply being lazy, it is really easy to decide against cooking breakfast, lunch, or dinner and going out to eat instead. With McDonalds and Taco Bell being on every street corner, they are easier accessible and family cheap, this makes it way more tempting to eat out than to cook a nice healthy meal at home. On occasion this is perfectly fine, however overtime this can add up and cause all sorts of problems within the body. In today’s society, there is stress beyond belief coming from work, school, family, and friends, which pushes people to eat those unhealthy meals as well. These high fat foods make the body feel temporarily satisfied, which is rewarding and will condition people to continue to eat these foods.
So What is Happening in Your Body?
After having a high fat diet for a prolonged period of time, even after just 72 hours, the body starts to experience something called hyperinsulinemia. This is when there is an excess amount of insulin floating throughout the blood stream. This leads to stress within the brain, more specifically within the endoplasmic reticulum. Due to this ER stress, a couple of different pathways called Socs3 and JNK are activated which, in the end, leads to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when insulin produced within the body functions improperly and does not break down glucose. Since glucose is no longer being broken down as frequently as it should, this leads to high blood sugar levels which is a sign of type two diabetes. This process does not happen overnight, and can take years and years of a high fat diet for glucose levels to reach levels of being diabetic. So if you are worried about this happening, chances are its not too late to turn your diet around and reverse these changes.
Type Two Diabetes
Type two diabetes is diagnosed through a series of blood tests. These blood tests simply look at the levels of glucose within the blood and once it reaches a certain point a diagnosis of pre-diabetic or diabetic will be placed on the individual. Some of the symptoms of type two diabetes are increased thirst and urination, increased hunger, numbness or tingling in hands and feet, unexplained weight loss, and having sores that don’t heal properly. The main causes of type two diabetes are being overweight and obese, insulin resistance, the absence of physical activity, and genes. Since this is a genetic form of diabetes, it is possible to be diagnose with it, without being overweight or obese.
Sources:
https://moodle.cord.edu/pluginfile.php/625315/mod_resource/content/0/2013%20CNS%20insulin.pdf
