Understanding Diabetes
Need another reason to eliminate refined sugar from your diet?
Everything you eat is broken down into simple sugars, mostly glucose, which are then added to your bloodstream. This happens at a different speed, depending on the type of food. However, your body won’t use the glucose unless it receives a signal to do so.
That’s where insulin comes in. Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas, which tells the cells in your body to absorb the glucose.
This process regulates your blood-sugar levels. After a big meal, lots of sugar is available and so your body is signaled to use it. During exercise, your insulin levels drop so that you conserve the energy.
Diabetes is a disorder of this mechanism, where glucose is added to your bloodstream but never used by your cells. This leads to high blood-sugar levels, low energy, and a range of long-term health problems. There are many different causes of this disorder, and many of them are not well understood, but we do know that there are two main types of diabetes which result.
Type 2 is the most common, and is interesting because it’s linked to lifestyle factors. Everyone has a different risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, based on their genetic traits, but the condition must be “triggered” by poor diet and low exercise. Once you have this disorder, it can be managed but not cured.
You’ve probably heard that being overweight is linked to this type of diabetes – but scientists are unsure whether this is a direct cause, or if being overweight is merely a symptom of the real cause: poor diet.
To find out, a number of recent studies have tested the direct effects of obesity-causing foods. Number one on that list is sugary soft drinks. Astoundingly, one study determined that drinking a can per day increases your diabetes risk by 22%!
Most cases of Type 2 diabetes are preventable, and you can take action by improving your lifestyle. The first step is to kick the sugar habit.
We’d love to teach your staff about cooking with coconut oil and recognising added sugars. Our healthy eating program options include Nutrition Seminars.
