The Trilogy of Diabetes (1)

I promised long ago to write a blog series on diabetes (Type II)*

which is of increasing significance to general public health nowadays.

Here, we are going to discuss about the true causes of diabetes
in a in-depth manner and hopefully could encourage readers
to do the appropriate preventive steps.
-- especially till today, many people have substantial misunderstanding
on the causes of diabetes.

Episode 1: The Myth of Sugar-induced Diabetes
In contrary to what most people believe,
diabetes although closely related to blood sugar,
is not a disease caused by too much sugar intake, technically speaking.

Blood sugar level happens to be a indicator of the severity of
the disease and hence it's easily mistaken to be the culprit
(in fact, it's a scape goat in the entire issue).

Excessive consumption of sugar may aggrevate the severity of diabetic condition,
but certainly, it's broad misunderstanding that excessive sugar induces diabetes.

There are a few points below to be reminded, in regards of sugar,
when we clarify about this misunderstanding:

(i) our body is design to be able to harmonise/normalise any dramatic
fluctuations of blood sugar level (via homeostasis/negative feedback loop),
to ensure stable blood sugar concentration for optimal bodily functions

(ii) sugar is critical for survival ever since human being started to walk on the Earth;
excessive sugar is very welcomed, as a backup for incidences
of starvation and emergency escape.
(Excessive sugar are happily stored in liver as glycogen and under the skin as fats)

(iii) high amount of sugar consumption doesn't necessary always
results in high level of blood sugar concentration,
depending on the type of sugar/carbohydrate (in term of digested rate)
and the presence of fibre to slow down the absoprtion of sugar through the GI track.

None of the scientific facts above support any solid path towards diabetes.

Diabetes which is truly a degenerate disease showing symptoms of the body unable to

to control the blood sugar level after a meal (or sugar intake),
is, strictly speaking, caused by the failure of insulin-system to function.
(and sugar has no reason to directly cause the insulin system to fail)

In the next few blog posts, we will delve into how actually this insulin-system fails,
and some may be surprised that the culprits of diabetes
don't quite look 'sugary'.


Well wishes,
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com


*Diabetes are categorised into two types: Type I which is rarer and happened to young children/newborn with impaired pancreas; Type II which is most common, preventable and diet-induced. In this blog series, I refer specifically to Type II diabetes. 


{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}