90 DAYS TO A.L.I.V.E.

The Summit will host a series of 40-minute interviews with 12 international experts,

including:

• Dr. Neal Barnard
• Dr. Michael Greger
• Brenda Davis, RD
• Julieanna Hever, MS, RD
• Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, and many more

Defining Diabetes Series #1

E4 Health & Wellness wants to help you understand diabetes.  We have started this series -  Defining Diabetes, to help you understand Diabetes, what it does to your body and how you can stop or reverse it, when possible.

What actually IS Type 2 Diabetes?

A good place to start any discussion is by defining the topic. Academic definitions of Diabetes can get very confusing as there are many more variations than commonly understood. Just this week in the medical journal,Diabetes Care there is a proposal to define 11 different types of diabetes based on beta cell function instead of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Since the traditional distinction and the core principles underlying what are generally referred to as type 1 and type 2 are still very useful to understand, we will begin with those and bring you more nuanced details as the series continues.

Glucose is the fuel your body runs on, just like gas for your car.  The basic, accepted definition of diabetes is that there is such a high level of glucose (sugar) in the blood stream that it can cause a number of disease conditions.

These conditions can be fatigue, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), stroke, heart attack, neuropathy, blindness, gout, kidney failure or hypertension (high blood pressure).  

With type 1 diabetes, the pancreas is not producing enough insulin to get glucose into a cell.  Insulin is like the “key” to open the door to your body’s cells. Normally, it opens the door and the glucose goes in and feeds the cell. But if there’s no insulin, the glucose can’t get into the cell to feed it.  With little fuel, the cell cannot do its work leaving you feeling lousy.

With type 2 diabetes, the pancreas is pumping out enough of insulin. It travels through the blood to your cells. It then “knocks on the door” of the cell walls, but your cells don’t recognize the “key”.  Your cells are resisting the insulin knocking on the door to let the glucose in. The door doesn’t open, so the glucose stays in the blood stream creating havoc.  This is called insulin resistance.

What do you do about it?

Here’s where the treatment options begin to split.  The American Diabetes Association publishes a book, Your First Year with Diabetes. Here’s a quote from the jacket cover, “If diabetes has left you feeling confused or angry, then it's time to get help and guidance. Your First Year with Diabetes will help you manage and deal with your diabetes.”

At E4 Health & Wellness, we don’t want you to manage your disease, we want to help you understand your reversal possibilities. And that is where understanding your pancreas health and insulin resistance come into play. If your pancreas is producing enough insulin and the main reason you have diabetes is the insulin resistance, then reversal is possible. Typically, this is the majority of people who have been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.

We think that if you understand the science, the nuts and bolts of Type 2 diabetes, you will be able to choose your next step to better health.

Please feel free to reply to this email with a question you would like answered about Type 2 diabetes.  Or join us on a special live Webinar / Q&A session with Dr. Wes Youngberg, DrPh to learn about the most important tests to determine your diabetes reversal possibilities and about our 90 Days to A.L.I.V.E. program and its 5 powerful steps towards diabetes reversal.

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