Diabetes and Obesity

Obesity is one of the biggest generators of silent inflammation. Two-thirds of Americans are now overweight, this means that the epidemic of silent inflammation is also out of control. By the same token, our diabetes epidemic has grown by 33% in the last decade. It should come as no surprise these twin epidemics have worsened in recent years. They are intricately connected with a condition known as insulin resistance.

Diabetes is the breakdown or partial breakdown of one of the more important of the body’s autonomic (self-regulating) mechanism, and each breakdown through many other self-regulating systems into out of whack. There is probably not a tissue in the body that escapes the effect of high blood sugar of diabetes. People with high blood sugar tend to have osteoporosis, or a fragile bone. They tend to have tight skin. They tend to have inflammation and tightness at the joints. They tend to have many other complications that affect every part of their body.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the beta cells of the pancreas. Its major function is to regulate the level of glucose in the blood stream, which it does primarily by facilitating the transport of blood glucose into most of the billions of cells that make up the body. Insulin also stimulates centers in the brain responsible for feeding behavior, and it instructs fat cells to convert glucose and fatty acid in the blood into fat, which the fat cells then store until needed.

Insulin is essential for the growth of many tissues and organs. In excess, it can cause excessive growth. For example, of the body fat and cells that line blood vessel. Finally, insulin helps to regulate or counter-regulate the balance of certain other hormones in the body.

One of the ways insulin maintains the narrow range of normal levels of sugar in the blood is by regulation of the liver and muscles, directing them to manufacture and store glycogen, a starch substance the body uses when blood sugar falls too low. If blood sugar does fall too low, that may occur after strenuous exercise or fasting, thus the alpha cells of the pancreas release glucagon, another hormone involved in the regulation of blood sugar.

Glucagon signals the muscle and liver to convert their stored glycogen back into glucose (a process called glycogenolysis), which raises blood sugar. When the body’s store of glucose and glycogen have been exhausted the liver can transform the body’s protein stores, thus muscle mass and vital organs, into sugar.

Let me shortly talk about the other evil twin – obesity, thus obesity from a different view. It is not your fault you are fat. What if the epidemic rise in obesity in the last twenty years was not primarily due to the usual suspect (fast food, TV, junk food), but fueled by increased silent inflammation, which increases insulin resistance? This means that unless you reduce the underlying silent inflammation, any other approach to reduce obesity may be doomed to failure. This also means that simply restricting calories will not be enough to turn back our current obesity epidemic. Recent research revealed obesity starts with excess arachidonic acid. You can increase your arachidonic acid in the blood stream either directly by eating too much of it, by consuming too many high-glycemic load sugars and carbohydrates, which in turn increases insulin production.

As your fat cells become filled with more arachidonic acid, it causes an overproduction of pro-inflammatory bad fat in the adipose tissue. The bad fat induces the formation of new inflammatory mediators that spew forth from the fat cells into the surrounding circulation and generate systemic silent inflammation.

I want to emphasize that all fat is not equal. Some types of fat are far more harmful than others. It depends on their metabolic activity. Subcutaneous fat, the fat that collects on your hips, thighs, buttocks, and makes you look like a pear isn’t that harmful. It may not look too good but at least it will not kill you because your body is no rush to mobilize the arachidonic acid out of these fat cells. That is why this type of fat is considered metabolically inactive. It is primarily a storage depot. On the other hand, visceral fat can be a killer. This is the kind of fat that collects around the abdominal organs, such as the liver, the kidneys, and the gallbladder and make you look like an apple.

Visceral fat is very metabolically active and causes the constant release of stored arachidonic acid into the blood stream. Visceral fat is even more insidious because it also continually releases other inflammatory mediators in addition to arachidonic acid. Two of the worst are pro-inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factors (TNF), and interleukin 6 (IL6). The TNF is implicated in creating more insulin resistance, whereas IL6 triggers the liver to synthesize C-reactive protein. About a third of C-reactive protein circulating in your blood comes directly from visceral fat cells. This means the more visceral fat that you have, the more silent inflammation you generate. This is the smoking gun that links obesity with increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or Alzheimer’s.

Diabetes used to be very rare, but times have changed. Over the last twenty years it has become an epidemic. Type 2 diabetes (adult onset diabetes) has become epidemic, while type 2 (juvenile onset diabetes) still remains relatively rare.

Type 1 diabetes is caused by a condition in which the pancreas completely shuts down and fails to produce any insulin, causing the blood sugar level to spiral upward out of control. The more common diabetes type 2 (90% of all diabetes) occurs when the patient develops a long-term insulin resistance. Insulin resistance causes the pancreas to secrete more insulin (hyperinsulinemia) in an effort to reduce the blood glucose level. Eventually the pancreas (really the beta cells in the pancreas) just get tired and stop producing enough excess insulin. This is called beta cell burnout, or commonly called insulin resistance.

The result is that without enough insulin becoming secreted by the pancreas, blood glucose level raises to a dangerous level. The danger comes from two factors:

1. Excess glucose in the blood produces free radicals (oxidative stress).
2. Excess glucose is neurotoxic to the brain.

The ancient Greek describe diabetes as a disease that causes the body to melt into sugar water. When tissue cannot utilize glucose, they will metabolize fat for energy, generating byproducts called ketones, which are toxic at high levels and cause further water loss, as the kidneys try to eliminate them.

Type 1 diabetes typically occurs before the age of 45 and usually makes itself apparent quite suddenly, with such symptoms as dramatic weight loss, frequent thirst and urination.

According to The American Diabetes Association, more than 150,000 people die annually from both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and their long-term complications. According to The American Diabetic Association statistics, 90 to 95% of diabetics are type 2.

While the cause of type 1 diabetes is still somewhat mysterious, the cause of type 2 diabetes is so, As noted another name for type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance. Obesity, particularly visceral obesity, and insulin resistance, thus the inability to fully utilize glucose transporting, qualities of insulin are interlinked.

For reasons related to genetics, a substantial portion of the population has the potential when overweight to become sufficiently insulin resistance that increases demands on the pancreas burnout, the beta cells that produce insulin. Insulin resistance appears to be caused at least in part by inheritance, in part by high level of fat in the form of triglycerides. Insulin resistance by its very nature increases the body’s need for insulin, which therefore causes the pancreas to work harder to produce elevated insulin levels, which can indirectly cause high blood pressure and damaged circulatory system.

Fat in the blood feeding the liver causes insulin resistance, which causes elevated serum insulin, which causes the fat cells to build even more abdominal fat, which raises triglycerides in the liver’s blood supply, which causes insulin levels to increase because of increased resistance to insulin. It sounds circular, it is. The fat that is the culprit here is not dietary fat. High levels of triglycerides in the blood, which are in circulation at some level in the blood stream at all times, thus are not so much the result of dietary fat intake, as they are usually due to carbohydrate consumption.

The onset of type 2 diabetes is lower and more stealthy, but even in its earlier stage, the abnormal blood sugar levels, though not sky high, can cause damage to the nerves, blood vessels, heart, eyes, and more. Type 2 diabetes is often called the silent killer, and it is quite frequently discovered through one of its complications, such as hypertension or a defect in vision.

Type 2 diabetes is at the beginning, a less serious disease. Patients do not melt away into sugar water and die in a few month’s time. Type 2 diabetes can, through chronically but less dramatically elevated blood sugar, be much more insidious. It probably causes more heart attacks, strokes, and amputations than serious type 1 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a major cause of hypertension, heart disease, blindness, and amputation due to impaired sensation in feet with poor circulation that do not heal when injured.

• Cancer, as it turns out has a sweet tooth. Recent research shows that the consumption of a high amount of sugar and refined grains boosts the ad for cancers of the esophagus, kidneys, and pancreas.
• High blood sugar can soar your mood. Researchers found that people who drink two and a half cans of sugared soda daily are three times more likely to be depressed and anxious than those drinking less soda.
• Diabetes can literally drive you crazy. High glucose levels provide fertile soil for plaque-forming protein that can break brain neurons, increasing the odds of dementia, and then speeding it up once it begins.
• Elevated blood sugar levels correlate with greatly increased risk of heart disease, the number one killer of Americans. Diabetics are more than twice as likely as non-diabetics to suffer a heart attack.
• The prospect of having a stroke hangs over the head of everyone with diabetes. Even the young are more susceptible to this brain attack once type 2 diabetes takes hold. Diabetic stroke survivors also tend to face more crippling after effects than non-diabetics do.
• Your joints might ache and c reek prematurely. Insulin resistance is linked to rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritic inflammation has been associated not only with a decreased insulin sensitivity but also with other metabolic syndrome components.
• The kidney disease rate is 22% higher among diabetic men than among all men, and diabetes is the leading cause of irreversible kidney disease requiring dialysis or kidney transplant.
• Diabetes sky rockets the risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, as extra triglycerides produced from carbs overrun the organ.  Most people with this condition lack the obvious signs or symptoms and can be blindsided by liver cirrhosis or liver failure.
• If passing on a jelly donut seems difficult, imagine living without eye sight. In fact, nothing causes more new cases of blindness among 20 to 74-year-olds than diabetes. Say goodbye to 20/20 vision, since diabetics have a 50/50 chance of experiencing damage to the tiny blood vessels in the back of the eyes. The medical term for this is diabetic retinopathy.
• At least you will still have your hearing, right? A recent study revealed that diabetics are more than twice as likely as a non-diabetic to lose at least some hearing.
• Along the way, your teeth will rot. In part because too high blood glucose damages the salivary glands, diabetes raises the risk for gum infection.
• It does not take much to interfere with the complex hydraulic system of the blood vessels unnerved needed to hoist and maintain an erection, and you will be hard pressed to find a more culprit than high blood sugar. Diabetes accounts for 30% of all US erectile dysfunction cases. The problem still strikes 35 to 50% of diabetic men and onset typically occurs ten to fifteen years earlier in diabetics than in non-diabetics. Diabetes damages more blood vessels first. So guys, first your penis goes, then heart and brain follow. Do I have your attention yet?
• Women are not spared when it comes to the bedroom either. Diabetes tends to diminish their sex-drive, promotes vaginal dryness, and short circuits their orgasms.
• Women with diabetes have a narrower fertility window than non-diabetic women.
• Over time, diabetics often develop nerve damage and usually starting in the feet. Some diabetics would not feel a flame there, let alone an infection brewing.
• The stomach nerves are prone to be damaged. As a result, half of those with longstanding diabetes experience delayed stomach emptying.
• Diabetes sows its evil seed, then forces those normally restore our body to cut them apart instead.
• In the public mind, “diabetics” and “amputees” are nearly synonymous. The disease is responsible for the loss of about 84,000 limbs every year. Five out of every 1,000 diabetics will experience amputations and more than 60% of non-trauma lower limb amputations occur in people with diabetes.
• Blood sugar gyration can lead to insomnia and other sleep disorders.
• Which brings us back to the biggest killer of them all, heart disease. It kills three-fourths of all diabetics. Diabetes is a metabolic disease and a vascular disease, so coronary disease is implicit. Diabetes and heart disease often share a root cause, insulin resistance, its signature effect. Hyperglycemia, high triglycerides, low HDL, and hypertension are the leading risks factors for type 2 diabetes and heart disease alike.

To control these two evil twins, diabetes and obesity, the secret thus is to follow the Kadileatric Power Principle® Program.

If you’ve been kept in the dark too long by the conventional medical establishment, PICK UP THE PHONE NOW!……CALL 920-468-9442.

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