What is Type 2 Diabetes?
Insulin is a hormone that helps move sugar (glucose), from your blood into your cells, where it can be used for energy. Diabetes is a chronic condition where glucose levels build up in your bloodstream because your body’s cells do not respond to insulin as well as they should. In later stages of diabetes, your body may even stop producing enough insulin for normal biological function.
If left untreated, type 2 diabetes can cause chronically high glucose levels, which can lead to several severe symptoms, including:
- Hunger
- Lack of energy
- Fatigue
- Blurry vision
- Poor wound healing
Type 2 diabetes often develops slowly, so it may be difficult to dismiss mild symptoms. However, diagnosing diabetes early is key to successful treatment and possible reversal. It is important to know the possible causes and risk factors of type 2 diabetes to know if you may potentially develop this condition.
Causes and Risk Factors of Type 2 Diabetes
Your pancreas produces insulin naturally and releases it when you eat. It serves to transport glucose from your bloodstream to the cells throughout the body to be used for energy. If you have type 2 diabetes, your body becomes resistant to insulin, forcing your pancreas to make more. However, this process can damage your pancreas and even cause it to stop making insulin altogether.
While scientists aren’t entirely sure what triggers this process, there may be a genetic disposition and lifestyle risk factors that contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes.
Risk factors include:
- Being overweight
- Living a sedentary lifestyle
- Consuming a lot of junk food
- Family history
Traditional Treatments for Type 2 Diabetes
In most cases, commiting to a healthy lifestyle can actively work to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes. Healthy lifestyle changes may include:
- Exercising regularly
- Maintaining a healthy body weight
- Consuming a healthy diet
- Quitting smoking
- Limiting alcohol consumption
- Adopting a Keto lifestyle
How Ketosis Treats Type 2 Diabetes
Ketosis is a natural metabolic state that allows your body to burn fat for fuel. During ketosis, your body produces ketones from your fat stores, which can be used for energy when there are no more carbohydrates left to burn. Although you always produce a small amount of ketones, you can dramatically increase your ketones (and the fat you burn) by reducing the calories you eat, fasting, reducing carbohydrates in your diet, or increasing your activity with exercise.
When practiced regularly, entering ketosis has countless benefits, including weight loss, decreased inflammation and improved mental clarity. Maintaining a state of ketosis can even help reverse, treat and prevent type 2 diabetes.
While you should always speak with your healthcare physician before beginning any new diet or lifestyle change, there is some research that suggests ketosis may be an optimal treatment for type 2 diabetes.
In 2020, one meta-analysis showed that ketogenic diets were more effective in improving metabolic parameters associated with glycemic, weight, and lipid controls in patients who were overweight or obese, especially those with preexisting diabetes, as compared to low-fat diets.
Latest Research
Research on type 2 diabetes. Stay up-to-date on the latest studies that test how ketosis may affect diabetes.
