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Towards Reversing Type 2 Diabetes
Protective Responses
Over 50% of American adults are estimated to have prediabetes or diabetes. The twin cycles (hepatic and pancreatic) are not simply rare metabolic mistakes leading to disease. These responses are almost universal because they serve as protective mechanisms.
Protective? I can almost hear you gasp. Insulin resistance and beta cell dysfunction are protective? Yes. Absolutely. What do they protect us from? The very name gives use the vital clue. Insulin resistance protects the liver from too much insulin. Our body is resisting the excessive insulin, which is harmful.
Imagine the liver as a balloon that can be filled with sugar and fat, the two storage forms of food energy. Normally, when we eat, insulin goes up, storing some of this food energy. When we stop eating, during fasting, insulin levels fall, releasing some of the stored energy for the rest of the body.
When insulin levels stay elevated for a prolonged period, the liver fills up with sugar and fat, like an over-inflated balloon. The pressure inside the liver goes up and up, making it increasingly difficult to move sugar into this overfilled liver. This is insulin resistance. The liver simply cannot store any, so rejects the incoming sugars, becoming resistant to insulin’s normal signal. Glucose piles up outside the cell in the blood.
