Metabolic Health and Its Relationship to Type 2 Diabetes

Your food is used to provide energy for living such as protein synthesis, muscle contractions, maintaining body temperature and much more. This food also serves as building blocks for muscle proteins, hormones and enzymes. Some of your food will be stored for later use such as glycogen (a compact form of sugar stored in the liver), triglycerides or fats stored in fat cells. These processes are about breaking things down (like carbohydrates into simple sugars), also known as catabolism, or building things up (creating muscle tissue), also known as anabolism. The quality of the food you eat affects these processes and the end products.

These metabolic processes maintain balance in your system and keep you alive. For example, when your blood sugar gets too low, a hormone called glucagon is secreted to release more glucose into your blood stream so your nerves and red blood cells have the fuel they need to do their work. When your blood sugar gets too high, this suppresses the flow of glucagon and increases the flow of insulin which decreases the amount of blood sugar in the blood stream. This is just one example. There are many hormones, including thyroid hormones, that work to maintain a balance in your system.

When you eat too much food or foods that contain unhealthy fats or processed carbohydrates and proteins, the additional nutrients or ingredients can gum up the works.

Take carbohydrates for instance. These are the foods we often love and have difficulty reducing or stopping altogether. Type 2 diabetes is an intolerance to carbohydrates. Not all of them but the sweet, sugary ones like cakes, cookies, candy and the ones high in fat, especially unhealthy fat, like donuts or French fries. Those things are pretty obvious – anything you love and tastes delicious, right? Then we have whole grain products like breads, muffins, bagels and others. These too must be considered very carefully before eating. Even if they are gluten free, they are still carbs. Next, we have fruits and vegetables. Fruit has a good amount of sugar in it so eat this sparingly. Vegetables are your best bet. Especially the ones with a lot of fiber in them, like Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and others. Fiber does a lot of great stuff but most importantly, we don’t digest and absorb it so it does not affect blood sugar.

To keep your body healthy and your metabolism humming along, decide if you are up to taking your health into your own hands and make different choices.

Dr Elaine

Download my free 30 Day Guide to Manage or Reverse Type 2 Diabetes 

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or healthcare provider. Please consult your healthcare provider for advice about a specific medical condition.

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