There are multiple type of diabetes and no one is worse than another. Type 1 means your pancreas, an organ that produces the hormone insulin doesn’t work and it is managed by injecting insulin. The role of insulin is to convert the sugar (carbs) in your bloodstream into energy that your body can use. Sugar enters the blood stream from food and the sugar your liver naturally produces. Yes shots hurts, but not much. Yes, I can eat that cookie (as long as I take insulin) so don't police me. No, it is not hereditary and there is nothing I can do to get rid of it.
Type 2 means that your pancreas does produce insulin, but that your body isn’t very efficient in how it processes it. Type 2 is the most common accounting for roughly 95% of people with diabetes. Type 2 is often heredity and is exacerbated by excess weight, age, poor diet or even pregnancy (aka - gestational diabetes). The good news for Type 2 is that it can often be managed (effectively reversed) without medication through diet and exercise. The bad news is that people with Type 2 must be militant about their health and what they eat if they are serious about getting rid of their diabetes. That means no cookies or soda and yes to whole grains and gym memberships. In some cases people need to take pills or insulin to manage the disease.
It doesn’t have to be a death sentence, but you do have to be careful about what you eat and I believe someday there will be a cure. Until then, I am riding in the American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure in Napa to raise money for diabetes research. If you would like to support me, please click here.
Thanks again for humoring me and if you want to know more, all you have to do is ask, I could go on for days J
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