With most diseases, the mystery is the problem. If we could only figure out the how and why, we could do something about it. Fortunately, despite the seriousness and risk from type II (two) diabetes, we can follow the trail back to the start and discover some startling insight.
NOT to be confused with TYPE I (one) Diabetes, type II has been directly traced to weight gain, in general. One of the biggest clues to this fact has been the rise of this disease in young children.
Over the years it has been quite uncommon to see children developing a disease at a rate even remotely close to adults. When it becomes an epidemic amongst youth, we can no longer blame it on aging. So what’s really going on?
Like we said before, one of the kick-off points for type II is weight gain. But that’s not the whole story, and it would be unfair to leave it at that.
What happens when children (or anyone) gains weight? Let’s look at the how and why.
How: Of course, there are many potential factors. However, it only takes a simple glance at the food industry to see the correlation between the rise of sugar-laden, bad carb loaded foods in the market and type II diabetes becoming more common, more early in age.
One can make the argument that in the olden days, science wasn’t mature enough to discover the real culprit of such diseases. However, the rate of type II diabetes has increased so dramatically that it can no longer be blamed on misdiagnosis. In fact, we don’t even have to look that far back to see a significantly alarming change in society here in America. You only have to travel to the 1980’s, where the issue of misdiagnosis was history.
Something happened in the 1980’s that caused type II diabetes to spike, and not casually. We’re talking quadruple the previous years. That’s no coincidence. What changed?
A plethora of things changed, but there’s a great example in corn syrup. The mass production and use of corn syrup started in the late 1950’s. At this time, it was in no way used the same way it is today, but it was a start. From there, the use of corn syrup not only increased but challenged the use of other regular sugars, a competition the market is naturally keen to do. By the 1980’s, big companies like Coca-Cola switched to corn syrup in their beverage. You’ve likely heard it by now, but sugar can be more addictive than cocaine. Sugars cousin corn syrup is no different. In fact, studies are coming out proving that the two sugars are basically the same thing. Though they behave differently in the body, you receive the same result.
Obesity.
Cancer.
Cardio-vascular disease.
Type II Diabetes.
To be fair, sugar has been around for thousands of years and comes in many different forms. What’s the difference?
The market.
Here’s a great challenge. Next time you visit the grocery store, find the most unlikely of prepackaged products to contain sugar and check the ingredient list. You may be surprised at what foods contain some form of sugar.
To bring it back around to the start, it wasn’t the introduction of sugar into the common market. It was the sudden increase in use. And it wasn’t just the sugars. All food went through a dramatic change during the time frame from the 70’s to the 80’s. The fast-food industry boomed in the 1950’s and only became faster and faster. TV dinners took off when Swanson company started advertising heavily in the 1950’s.
So what’s up with the 1950’s? Weren’t we talking about the 80’s being the culprit? In the early days of type II diabetes, onset took a while. Especially if you consider that you have a society of people who spent the most formative years of their lives eating pie once a year at Christmas as a special treat.
The interesting part is that as you look at the history of type II diabetes, the time of onset becomes increasingly short. This brings us to children and type II, in a modern age where you can literally purchase a pie on the go and eat it for breakfast if you want. It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s available.
Mix that with the general busyness and lack of time for most parents these days, and you suddenly have the need for more kid-friendly cold cereals and breakfast pastries because the parents in the house have to go to work. Good old fashioned eggs and sausage simply takes too long.
We have a generation of children being raised on starting the day with massive amounts of sugar, carbs, bad fats, etc., compared to before when that same meal was considered a treat.
We get it. Food is hard! That's why we're in the business of making comfort foods easier, because we believe this can all change for the better.
Why: Science can tell us why all this is happening. Why do these foods cause such complications?
Insulin is an important hormone in the human body. You can think of it as sugar’s vehicle throughout the body, taking the sugar to all the places it needs to go. People with type II diabetes have insulin resistance. This is simply a way to say that the body has a hard time managing blood sugar levels.
But it’s not because of too much sugar, exactly.
There are many factors that play a role in type II diabetes, but the largest one is fat retention, otherwise known as being overweight or obese. Obesity comes with a variety of complications, many of which can contribute to diabetes.
While the field is still being researched and considering other factors as to why obesity contributes to the development of type II diabetes, there is one solid fact uncovered by Harvard researchers stating that, “…obesity causes stress in a system of cellular membranes called endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which in turn causes the endoplasmic reticulum to suppress the signals of insulin receptors, which then leads to insulin resistance.”
So you have a poor diet contributing to weight gain that can too easily end in obesity which stresses the body in more ways than one, potentially resulting in type II diabetes.
The best approach to eradicating a weed from your garden is not by trimming the leaves. You pull the whole thing up by the root. In the same way, you cannot simply eat less sugar to eradicate type II diabetes, but it’s a good start! Managing and even reversing something as serious as type II diabetes takes a whole-body approach.
Perhaps it is an approach that can be administered over a period of time, such as slowly replacing bad carbs with vegetables or cutting out or down on eating out.
Unfortunately, kids have shown us that type II diabetes can potentially have a lot to do with diet. They are the red flag, and we need to pay attention. The good news is that this is an easy habit change! You can change you and your kids’ lives by changing your diet.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317246.php
http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2010/aug/can-diabetes-symptoms-develop-suddenly.html
https://www.accupos.com/pos-articles/history-of-fast-food-in-america/
https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/history-tv-dinner.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133084/pdf/nutrients-08-00697.pdf
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug#2
http://earthsky.org/human-world/a-brief-history-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861591
http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2012/nov/more-kids-than-ever-have-type-2-diabetes.html
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=39840