Diabetes is one of the deadliest diseases known to modern man. It kills, disfigures, maims and tears apart families. It is one of the leading causes of early death. 24 million Americans have diabetes and about a third of them are unaware of it.
It is one of the leading causes of kidney failure, blindness and amputations. Every single day over 4,000 people find out they have the dreaded "D" disease: diabetes. To many, it means a lifetime of painful injections, drugs and a reduced quality of life.
I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be like that.
Now that I've got your attention, let me start by explaining what diabetes is.
What is Diabetes?
In simple terms, diabetes is the end result of a safeguard mechanism against the onslaught of carbohydrates introduced into the system.
Yes, your body is trying to protect itself from one of the most harmful substances: insulin. Let me explain.
Let's say you went to McDonalds and ordered a milkshake. Here's an overview of what happens from that first sip.
• You ingest the carbs (simple or complex, doesn't matter to your body).
• Sugar rushes into your bloodstream, unabated.
Your body MUST do something with this poison. Uncontrolled blood sugar is what causes many of the "symptoms" of diabetes: peripheral neuropathy, glaucoma, excessive thirst and urination and many others.
Here's where the pancreas comes in. One of its jobs is to monitor for excess carbs (glucose) in the blood and send out a special hormone in response. That hormone is called insulin.
But insulin is a poison and should only be used in an emergency. Too much insulin in your blood causes "diabetes" which, at its earliest stages, is another word for insulin resistance.
• Ideally, the hormone insulin works on your muscle and fat cells by allowing them to store the excess sugar that would otherwise cause you harm.
Oftentimes what happens, especially when we get to the beginning stages of diabetes, is your cells have become resistant to insulin's effects. See, insulin is damaging to your cells and this is their only mechanism of dealing with it.
The more sugar you eat and the more often you eat it (in all its forms – don't fool yourself into thinking that your banana is "healthier" than your friend's donut – to your body, a carb is a carb), the more your body has to pump insulin into your bloodstream.
The more this happens, the more your cells resist and the more insulin your pancreas must secrete to have the same effect. This is a vicious cycle and, as you can imagine, something must give.
That something is the pancreas.
we'll learn sure-fire, proven ways to not only prevent diabetes, but to reverse it (and many of the complications). If you follow my advice, you may very well never need to test your blood sugar again, or take a pill or inject yourself with insulin (remember what we learned about how insulin is a poison?
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