Intermittent Fasting And Type 2 Diabetes

Intermittent fasting has exploded in popularity in recent years, as scientists have discovered that the practice can have many health benefits. Not only could fasting help us to live longer and lose weight but it may even help to prevent serious diseases such as cancer and diabetes. 

Type 2 diabetes is unfortunately increasing in prevalence across the developed world at an epidemic rate. It is a complex disease affecting many parts of the body and can lead to serious illness.  

Not to mention that type 2 diabetes has also been linked with heart attacks and stroke. This disease has also even been associated with memory loss and dementia later in life. A poor diet high in sugar and carbohydrates, which has a high risk of leading to obesity, are known to be major causes of type 2 diabetes.

How diabetes develops

We naturally produce a hormone called insulin from an organ called the pancreas.  When we eat any kind of food, we produce more insulin, especially in response to sugary or high-carbohydrate foods.  This is because insulin is necessary for the sugar in the blood to get into our cells, where it is needed to produce energy.  But insulin has a lot of other effects too.  It stores excess glucose (sugar) as glycogen (a starchy substance) in our muscles – which can readily be converted back to glucose by another hormone whenever we need it.

Insulin also prevents the breakdown of fat to use as energy, and causes fat cells to take up glucose and store it as fat.  In other words, the more food - especially sugary food - we eat, the more insulin we produce, and the fatter we become. 

But it gets worse too as after a while the body’s cells become so used to being awash with insulin all the time that they stop responding to this crucial hormone. 

If not corrected, insulin resistance will almost inevitably lead to the development of type 2 diabetes, and the problems that go with that disease.

Downward spiral

In an attempt to overcome insulin resistance, the pancreas pours out increasing amounts of insulin, which has less and less effect. In the end the pancreas is completely exhausted and stops producing insulin altogether. Eventually the cells which make it will wither away and lose the ability to produce insulin.  At this stage a person with type 2 diabetes would then become dependent on daily injections of insulin. (Until this point their diabetes would be managed by diet and exercise, with or without tablets).