Reversing Diabesity

22 Nov, 2011

by Mark Hyman, MD, via The Huffington Post,

Earlier I began a discussion about a modern epidemic, a deadly disease that one of every two of you have, a disease that’s making you fat, sick and will kill you, but 90 percent of you don’t even know you have it.

This disease is diabesity, the continuum of abnormal biology that ranges from mild insulin resistance to full-blown diabetes.

Now I want to explain the real causes of diabesity and provide eight steps you can take to reverse this disease starting today.

The Real Causes of Diabesity

The entire spectrum of diabesity including all of its complications — diabetes, elevated blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol — are simply downstream symptoms that result from problems with diet, lifestyle, and environmental toxins interacting with our unique genetic susceptibilities.

Those are the real causes of diabesity.

And the reason these dietary and lifestyle factors lead to diabesity is because they create a condition known as insulin resistance. Contrary to what most people think, Type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much, not too little, insulin. Insulin is the real driver of problems with diabesity.

When your diet is full of empty calories and an abundance of quickly-absorbed sugars, liquid calories and carbohydrates (like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes), your cells slowly become resistant to the effects of insulin and need more and more to do the same job of keeping your blood sugar even. Thus you develop insulin resistance. A high insulin level is the first sign of a problem. The higher your insulin levels are, the worse your insulin resistance. Your body starts to age and deteriorate.

In fact, insulin resistance is the single most important phenomenon that leads to rapid and premature aging and all its resultant diseases, including heart disease, stroke, dementia and cancer.

As your insulin levels increase it leads to an appetite that is out of control, increasing weight gain around the belly, more inflammation and oxidative stress, and myriad downstream effects including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, low HDL, high triglycerides, weight gain around the middle, thickening of the blood and increased risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression. These are all a result of insulin resistance and too much insulin. Elevated blood sugar is not the source of the problem.

And because insulin resistance (and diabesity) are a direct outcome of diet and lifestyle, the condition is 100 percent reversible in the vast majority of cases. Most people just need to eliminate the things that are sending their biology out of balance and include what’s needed to help the body rebalance itself. For most, the interventions required are extremely simply and extraordinarily effective.

Click here to read the rest of this article at HuffingtonPost.com.