According to recent research studies, the obesity epidemic in
America has produced an alarming spike in the number of Diabetes II
cases. This is seriously bad news because diabetes is no joke. Diabetes
can kill through kidney failure and heart attacks. Moreover, quality of
life decreases dramatically with severe diabetes since this condition
brings blindness through cataracts and amputations. How does obesity
impact diabetes? How is insulin production impacted by obesity? How does
the body's intake of insulin impacted by obesity? Find out below and
get ready to make the lifestyle changes you need to lose weight and
avoid the
hard impact of diabetes II.
Excess fat means excess stored energy
When
you eat something, your body breaks it down into its components. One
key component is energy. Your body can do one of two things to the
energy you consume-it can burn it to support your body's operations, or
it can store it. Believe it or not, our bodies burn quite a bit of
calories every day. Every time you breathe, you burn calories. In fact,
every time your body functions work, it needs to burn energy to make the
functions happen. The problem is when we eat more energy than we
consume, our body can only store the energy. Humans, like other animals,
store energy in the form of fat. If you have too much stored calories
in your body, you become obese. Simply put, obesity is bad news. Why? It
can trigger all sorts of health conditions like high blood pressure,
heart disease, and Type 2 Diabetes. Talk about bad news. Obesity
triggers diabetes by increasing the amount of fat in the gut.
High fat in the gut impacts cell sensitivity to insulin
As
the body stores more and more fat, fat is distributed throughout the
body. However, most of it will be stored in the gut and waistline. High
fat concentrations in the blood makes cells less sensitive to insulin.
Insulin is a powerful chemical signal released by the pancreas which
tells the body's cells to let in sugar and burn it. Cells need to burn
sugar for energy. When there is too much fat in the gut, the body's
cells become less sensitive to the insulin signal. As a result, the
cells don't let in sugar to burn it. Instead, sugar builds up in the
diabetic's bloodstream. Too much sugar in the bloodstream causes damage
to blood vessels and organs. Think of shattered glass coursing through
your body-that's how much of a risk elevated blood sugar levels can pose
to your health.
Heavy fat in abdomen reduces insulin output
It's
bad enough that heavy fat concentration impacts the body's processing
of insulin, obesity also works to reduce the body's insulin output. As I
have mentioned above, the human body produces insulin to signal cells
to let in sugar and burn it as an energy source. Obesity also impacts
the organs that produce insulin-the pancreas. High fat levels affect the
pancreas to produce less insulin. Paired with impaired insulin
processing, the reduced level of insulin availability spells a lot of
trouble to the diabetic since this will only serve to skyrocket the
amount of sugar in the diabetic's blood.
