Diabetes

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a health condition where your body either doesn’t produce enough insulin or doesn’t use insulin correctly. Insulin is a hormone created in your pancreas that helps your body convert blood sugar, or glucose, into energy. There are three types of diabetes: 

• Type 1 diabetes occurs when your body doesn’t produce enough insulin. This type is typically diagnosed in childhood.
• Type 2 diabetes occurs when your body doesn’t use insulin properly. This type is typically diagnosed in adults, although it’s becoming more prevalent in children.
• Gestational diabetes develops in some pregnant women when additional hormones produced during pregnancy affect their ability to use insulin.

Over time, elevated blood sugar levels lead to many dangerous health conditions, including high blood pressure, numbness or weakness in your limbs, and blindness.

What causes Type 2 diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes is caused by a combination of your genetics and your lifestyle. While you are genetically predisposed to insulin resistance, your lifestyle can increase your insulin resistance and make your symptoms worse. 

For example, when you eat foods that are high in sugar or that are instantly converted to sugar during digestion, you flood your body with sugar a diabetic can’t correctly process. Being overweight or obese also affects the way that your body functions, including insulin use. A sedentary lifestyle further decreases your body’s ability to use insulin properly. 

What is the connection between diabetes and obesity?

While it’s well known that being overweight or obese increases your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, studies show that abdominal fat releases pro-inflammatory chemicals. These chemicals disrupt the function of insulin-responsive cells in your body and increase your insulin resistance. 

Obesity can also affect your metabolism and cause your fat cells to release chemicals into your blood that inhibit your insulin-responsive cells. 

How is Type 2 diabetes treated?

At Sound Medical Weight Loss, our weight loss doctors help you control and even reverse your Type 2 diabetes with changes in diet, weight loss, and exercise. Many patients find that with these changes, their blood sugar levels lower and their diabetic symptoms fade. 

Others benefit from medication to control their blood sugar levels. If you use medication to control your blood sugar, our providers will help you manage and adjust these medications along with your primary doctor as your decreases. Many of our patients who have lost weight with our diet and lifestyle changes, were able to decrease or eliminate multiple medications or have placed their diabetes into remission completely. 

Call or schedule an appointment online today to change your life and take control of your diabetes.