Can Diabetes Be Reversed?

To understand how type 2 diabetes can be reversed you need to know a little bit about how your body works, and why your body has gone wrong.

Most people think diabetes is a problem of high blood sugar.

High blood sugar is symptom of diabetes, but when you take it back a step you find it’s actually a disease of excess insulin.

To answer the question ‘can diabetes be reversed?’ you need to know a bit about insulin.

What Hormones Regulate Blood Sugar?

Your blood sugar levels need regulating because they need to be high enough for you to function. But at the same time they need to be kept to a minimum, because sugar actually damages your body.

You have several hormones that increase your blood sugar. These are needed if you need to raise your levels, e.g. adrenalin quickly raises blood sugar in the ‘fight or flight’ response.

You only have one hormone – insulin that reduces your blood sugar.

Our ancient ancestors didn’t have emergency needs to lower their blood sugar, reflected in the fact they only had one hormone to do it. This is because carbohydrates were an extremely limited commodity back then.

It is eating carbohydrates that raises you blood sugar, forcing your body to produce insulin to deal with it.

Why Are Most Type 2 Diabetics Overweight

The hormone glucagon is required for the mobilisation of fat stores, and allows them to be burned for energy.

Glucagon doesn’t work in the presence of insulin. Body fat cannot be burned as long as insulin is present.

Being fat is a result of not being able to burn fat (rather than eating dietary fat). This is a direct result of relying on carbohydrates – sugars and starches, as your primary energy source.

Most unwanted body fat is made from dietary sugar and starch. They were converted to fat by insulin, and they are kept there by it too.

Can Diabetes Be Reversed?

With all that said, can diabetes be reversed?

The key to this is reducing your need for insulin.

By reducing sugar and carbohydrates (including bread, pasta, rice, beans, potatoes and sweet things) you reduce your need for insulin, because you’re not constantly pushing your blood sugar up to sky high levels.

It took time for you to develop diabetes. It’s going to take a bit of time to reverse it, but it can be done by eating what you body is designed to eat.

 

This is very easy to do in theory, and only difficult in practice because most people don’t know how to do it. The ‘how to’ involves 2 key areas:

1. Knowledge about nutrition
2. How to change habits, in this case your eating habits.

It’s all very well knowing what you should be doing, but it’s another entirely to do it. This comes down to your habits and mindset.

My online weight loss course covers nutrition in detail. It also takes you through the process of changing your habits – so you keep on track with your healthy changes long term.

If you’ve got any questions let me know.

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Have a fantastic week!

Dr Julie