Diabetes: the Science and Your Health

Your body breaks food down into glucose to use for energy.

Starchy and sugary foods, milk and dairy products, and fruit are all broken down into glucose within our digestive system. This glucose then goes out into the bloodstream to be taken up by cells all over the body to use as energy.

When there is too much glucose in your blood, inflammation increases and your mitochondria get worn out - your body does not like high amounts of sugar.

To decrease your sugar level, your pancreas releases the hormone insulin to help bring glucose into your body’s cells and out of your blood.

Our glucose levels drop between meals. The liver and muscles can release stored glucose out into the bloodstream to increase our blood glucose levels.

The body wants to keep glucose at a certain level. This balance is achieved by the food we eat, insulin release, and glucose sent out by the liver and muscles.

But this balance can be disturbed. Over time, If we eat too much sugar, our bodies become resistant to insulin. It then takes more insulin to bring our glucose levels down. This is insulin resistance.

With insulin resistance, our glucose and insulin levels are both higher than our body prefers them to be. Over time, this increases the risk of developing diabetes type 2.

With diabetes, our bodies cannot use and store glucose effectively. This causes high levels of glucose in the body. All of our cells and organs are negatively affected if there is too much sugar present.