A wonderfully succinct explanation of glucose and T2 diabetes

Adys
2023-02-16T11:19:41Z

By Reddit user Vapourtrails89. I wanted to share this exceptionally clear explanation of the mechanisms of blood sugar and diabetes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/112yj0o/why_are_high_glycemic_index_foods_such_as_simple/

The higher the glycemic index, the faster the carbs are broken down into sugar and absorbed into the blood stream. Simple carbs absorb quickly, which means that your blood glucose level will rapidly increase. This causes the pancreas to release insulin so that cells will absorb the glucose out of the blood, to prevent hyperosmolarity (the blood becoming too sugary and sticky).

The insulin release will cause your blood sugar to crash, and be stored in the cells as glycogen. This has a dual effect. It will mean you get hungry again quickly, as your brain senses the low blood sugar and sends hunger signals, and you will likely crave simple carbs as you will have learnt to associate these with a quick rise in blood sugar, which in turn produces a reward signal in the brain. This leads to a cycle of eating simple carbs, getting hungry quickly, and over eating. Excess glucose in the blood can be converted to adipose tissue, which leads to obesity.

The cells start to reach their limits for glucose storage in the form of glycogen. At this point they start to resist the insulin signal. This is known as insulin resistance. The exact mechanism for insulin resistance is not known. It seems that the more excess adipose tissue you have, the more insulin resistance you will have. It makes sense as if you have excess adipose, your cells will likely be storing as much glycogen as they can, so they are unable to respond to the insulin signal by taking up more.

When your insulin cannot bring your blood sugar under control, you have diabetes.

Diabetes can either be a failure of insulin production (type 1) or a failure of cells to respond to insulin (type 2)

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