What is diabetes and how does it work?

A co-worker and I were talking today at work. There's a different co-worker who has type 2 diabetes, but told me they changed their diet and exercised, listened to their doctors advice, and became pre-diabetic. Anyway, we were then talking about, I said about if your body doesn't make insulin, then you need insulin shots, but my co-worker is thinking that the body has an incredible way of healing itself, or rehabilitating, but my thought was that, if your body no longer produces insulin, like you can't ever reverse that.

Then we were talking about, what exactly is diabetes? Like, do you have to watch what you can eat and drink, what your sugar intake is? And then my co-worker said, but, don't some diabetics get like in trouble if their blood sugar gets too low, then they need sugar? So I was left a bit confused.

I know I can just look all this up on google, but wanted an answer from someone who maybe has it or might know something more about it than I do.

Will update this post as needed.

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DeluxedEdition · 26-30, F

Yes, you are correct

diabetes type two is the type of diabetes that often occurs later in life. It happens because of the over consumption of sugar and carbs that break down into sugars. When the body is consuming so much sugar at that rate the body cannot produce enough insulin to keep up with the demand

Being overweight can also contribute to a higher risk of developing diabetes type two. Diabetics have a hard time losing weight because they can’t diet appropriately anymore due to the influx of sugar levels being too high or too low. Low blood sugar and high blood sugar can be detrimental

I have read many studies were they did tests on people in Italy where they made them eat a vegan diet and the people who were type two diabetics went into remission and became prediabetic. Those tests do not have any observable conclusions due to lack of testing. I blame the American diet for this mostly

Yes, you can improve your diabetes and go into remission if you lose weight and alter your diet.

It happens because your body does heal itself and also it happens because your body is able to process the decrease of sugar more easily. Sugar/ food is fuel for our body. Everything we eat, even non edible things like plastic or chewing gum (is actually indigestible ) all digest and go into our cells for cellular function which basically Carries out all of our bodily functions. When you’re consuming significant amounts in excess it creates a lot of unnecessary stress on your body because your body is working to break all of this sugar down

My reference is I have a pre nursing associates degree and took human nutrition and anatomy and physiology. I learned about the vegan diet trials though a reputable website called pubmed. It is a govt website that doctors and scientist post their findings and articles to. our college gave us at the time to use for research and I continue using it because it’s extremely interesting

I hope this helps and I hope I didn’t bore you too much haha

twiigss · M

@DeluxedEdition Oh no, not a bore at all! I read every single word of your post, and it's extremely informative. Thank you so much for the answer, I really appreciate it :)

I knew none of what you said. And I did do a google search, but your answer was better than google's was.

windinhishair · 61-69, M

@DeluxedEdition You are correct that type 2 diabetes can be reversable. I radically altered my diet and focused on eating almost entirely vegetables, upped my exercise and walking to five miles a day, lost weight, and was able to revert to a pre-diabetic state. It literally took years but then again, it took years to develop in the first place. I am in the best shape I have been since the 1990s.

DeluxedEdition · 26-30, F

@windinhishair I love that for you 🥳 congratulations on your reversal! That’s amazing!