The real cause of type-2 diabetes
More than 30 years ago Dr Kraft, a medical doctor and pathologist identified the real cause of type-2 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-2 diabetes?
Type-2 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 to force the glucose into the cells. This normalises our blood sugar, but now our insulin levels are too high. This makes our cells resistant to insulin and then the viscous cycle of metabolic syndrome starts.
Eventually the pancreas gets overworked and ultimately reduces how much insulin it can make. Sometimes it stops producing insulin altogether.
Medical management focuses on symptoms not the cause
The current treatment for type-2 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. There are a new class of medications available, that are aimed at preventing glucose from entering the bloodstream. These can have serious side effects. When looking a diabetes through the medical model it is considered a progressive disease. More and more drugs are prescribed, more side effects occur, and quality of life suffers.
There is a much better way to manage type-2 diabetes by focusing the root cause, rather than treating the symptoms. First we need a clear 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. Eventually, there are no passengers left at the station, but there are a lot of security guards.
This is what happens in our body. When glucose levels in the blood are too high, the pancreas makes more and more insulin to force the glucose out of the blood, and into the cells. This makes our HbA1c looks normal on a blood test, but we have way too much insulin. Constant high levels of insulin are very damaging to our body.
Another problem then occurs. Some of the passengers want to get off the train, but all the security guards at the stations don’t let them. When our blood glucose gets low, our cells want to release the energy stored in our fat cells, 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 triggers 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.
A new treatment paradigm is needed
Medicine solves the problem of high blood glucose, by recommending a diet that keeps pouring glucose into the bloodstream and then using more and more drugs to force that glucose into cells that are already dying. Doctors are happy so long as there are no passengers left at the station – the symptoms are reduced, HbA1c is low. It doesn’t matter how much damage is done to the body in the meantime.
Diabetes is associated with every single chronic modern disease such as:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Heart disease
- Depression
- Kidney damage
- Nerve pain/damage
- Eye damage
- PCOS
- Skin conditions
- Cancers
- Chronic inflammation
- Obesity
Anytime your HbA1c is normal, but you have symptoms of high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, weight gain, brain fog, lack of energy, poor sleep or joint pain, it is important to dig deeper.
It’s reversible
Because type-2 diabetes is a life-style disease, it can be reversed with lifestyle changes. Yes, there are genetic components – such as each of us has an individual tolerance to how many carbohydrates we can eat. Ultimately, if your genes aren’t suited to eating carbohydrates, the solution is to eat less of these, rather than taking multiple toxic medications with serious side effects. There are other factors at play that need consideration, such as our response to stress, exercise and how much sleep we are getting.
Type-2 diabetes negatively affects our quality of life and our ability to reach our full potential. Imagine living your life with good health; where you could experience all the joy, passion and fulfilment you deserve.