when I was back in college I had a physiology Professor that said if you live long enough you're gonna get diabetes Well it is estimated that over 530 million adults worldwide have diabetes and those numbers are also increasing in Children and adolescents so was this professor onto something or is there something else going on here so in today's video we'll definitely utilize the cadavers behind me to talk about what diabetes is and what causes it we'll also talk about things that you can do to reduce your risk of developing diabetes and if you already have it is there a possible way to cure diabetes it's going to be an interesting one so let's do this foreign diabetes or diabetes mellitus is often classified into one of two types now there is gestational diabetes but we're going to mostly discuss type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes and we'll talk about the various differences but whenever you have a conversation about diabetes you have to talk about the pancreas so let's take a look at a real human pancreas and just to orient you we're going to be looking in from the left upper abdomen so you can see coming in from the left side here here's the liver we'll reflect that away and then you can also see the stomach here we'll reflect that in posterior or behind the stomach you can see how amazing this pancreas is now this is the head of the pancreas the body and then moving on to the tail down here and I can lift that up so you can see that a little bit better now the pancreas is amazing for multiple reasons but one of the cool things about it is that it is both an endocrine gland as well as an exocrine gland endocrine glands secrete hormones into the bloodstream but the exocrine portion if we were to look at this or look at it under the microscope we'd find clusters of extra in cells that will produce pancreatic enzymes and those would be secreted into the small intestine specifically the duodenum right here and that's going to help aid in digestion but the endocrine portion of the pancreas is where we're going to focus on we'll talk about the exocrine pancreas in another video but the endocrine portion or those Endocrine cells within the pancreas those are going to produce various hormones and secrete them into the bloodstream and one of the main hormones that we're focused on in this case is insulin now insulin has various functions but the function we're going to mostly focus on is that insulin lowers blood glucose levels what many simply just refer to as blood sugar levels now we need to go into a little bit more detail on how this insulin applies to the different types of diabetes and in order for us to do that we're going to utilize my whiteboard picture so full disclosure I technically traced this pink pancreas as well as the first part of the small intestine when I don't trace things you guys get stuck with me creating human cells that look like smiley faces but for our purposes in this diagram this will suffice but you can totally tell the outside of this is representing this cell membrane and we even have surface receptors here these green receptors are representing insulin receptors which will be important in just a second so when we eat or ingest carbohydrates our digestive tract will break that down and eventually those carbs will get absorbed into the bloodstream as glucose and we have a blood vessel represented here in these black dots are representing glucose molecules which contribute to the blood sugar levels now the pancreas in response to those blood sugar levels increasing after the meal will release insulin and insulins represented in this blue triangle this will get into the bloodstream and so the insulin can then circulate and go to the various cells throughout the body and the insulin will bind to these insulin receptors and essentially we'll tell the cell this sugar or in other words take the sugar in and the cell obliges and that glucose goes into the cell so you can see how insulin would therefore lower the blood sugar levels by getting the sugar to go from the bloodstream and into the cells but what does this have to do with Diabetes Type 1 diabetes which is also often referred to as insulin dependent diabetes and that's because the pancreas is no longer creating insulin we get this autoimmune destruction of the beta cells and the beta cells are the specific cell type within the pancreas that actually creates the insulin so we no longer get this insulin and no longer can create this effect of the cell and so you can see we are not going to be able to shuttle that glucose from the bloodstream and into the cell and we might as well fix this part of the picture as well get this unhappy cell here now with type 1 diabetes it actually only accounts for about five to ten percent of the overall cases of diabetes and it typically happens in children and sometimes into early teenage years it can also sometimes happen later in life but most commonly in the younger years of life now what's interesting is we are going to talk about potential risk factors or things that you could do to reduce your risk of getting diabetes with type 1 diabetes we don't get a lot of control with that remember I mentioned this autoimmune destruction of the beta cells so we're essentially getting this combination of genetics and bad luck which is causing type 1 diabetes however that is a bit different when we talk about type 2 diabetes but before we go into the details of type 2 diabetes I want to take a second to say thank you to the sponsor of today's video athletic greens athletic greens is a nutrition company that makes an amazing nutritional drink called ag1 ag1 is more than just a green powder yes you will get your blend of greens but with 75 ingredients you'll also get vitamins minerals probiotics superfoods and adaptogens and this is super convenient I've been taking this for months now all I do get up in the morning take my scoop dump it in eight ounces of water shake it up and I'm good to go some of my favorite benefits of ag1 is that it can help support performance during exercise as well as aid in recovery afterwards it can also help boost your energy levels and since I don't take in a lot of caffeine any boost in energy is definitely a plus for me it's also NSF certified which means what's on the label is actually going to be found in the product so if you're interested in this go to athleticgreens.com human anatomy and they'll give our audience a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D as well as five free travel packets we'll also include that link in the description below so back to type 2 diabetes which is also often referred to as non-insulin dependent diabetes and that's because the pancreas still is actually producing the insulin so in other words we do have this insulin here let's get that back in there and so therefore insulin will still continue to have its effects on the cell here it's just in the case of if I can draw that triangle in there in the case of type 2 diabetes what happens is that the cells actually become insensitive or resistant to the effects of insulin so we have this insulin trying to get the cell to take in the glucose and the cell might do something like this and say to the insulin which is not very nice of the cell but you can see that because of this we get a very similar result that we saw in type 1 diabetes and that is the blood glucose levels will increase and get too high now what's interesting about type 2 diabetes in the initial stages the pancreas will actually secrete more insulin or almost overcompensate in efforts to almost kind of think of it as trying to wake up the cells especially with our cartoon drawing here you could think of it as trying to convince the cell to take the glucose in if it pushes it with more insulin but over time with diabetes especially type 2 if it's not well managed the pancreas will eventually start to wear out if you think of it that way and will not be able to secrete as much insulin to the point where if this continues and someone doesn't manage their type 2 diabetes Well they may have to start taking insulin similar to what someone with type 1 diabetes would have to do but back to this whole idea about this insensitivity or this resistance to insulin what is causing this well we're going to find that there are are some things that you don't have any control over but some things that you do have some control over so the risk factors that we don't have any control over mostly center around genetics so things like family history and even certain ethnicities have been shown to have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes so for example say you had a first degree relative so a parent or a sibling that had type 2 diabetes that would increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as two or three fold now that doesn't mean someone with a family history or certain ethnicities that are at higher risk are just doomed to get type 2 diabetes because there are some other risk factors that we do have control over one of those being the amount of adipose tissue as adipose or fatty tissue increases this strongly correlates with an increased risk of developing insulin resistance and therefore type 2 diabetes but you might be thinking well why what is it about this increase in adipose tissue that leads to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes caused by this insulin resistance well there's data in research that suggests that the adipose cells release these chemicals called adipocines and as adipose tissue increases we also get an increase in these chemicals the adipocines and these adipocines are these chemicals tend to make the cells throughout the body more resistant to that insulin what also strongly correlates or supports this correlation between an increase of Adipose and type 2 diabetes is that someone with type 2 diabetes as they decrease their adipose or fatty tissue or in other words lose weight they're type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance often improves So based on all this information you can probably see that yes we definitely can help prevent and reduce our risk of developing type 2 diabetes and you probably even have some ideas on how we can do this now some may simply just want to say hey let's lose the fat or the adipose tissue and yes that is true but there's a bit more to it than just saying hey lose the fat one easier said than done and two we do have to acknowledge that there are is a genetic component to how much adipose tissue one has but we also also have to acknowledge that we definitely have some control over this and most of us will think well we control this by the two things that we always hear about and that is diet and exercise now one of the interesting things about diet is that us humans sometimes fall into this Quest if you will this quest for the perfect diet maybe you got all excited in gung-ho about a keto diet vegetarian maybe the Mediterranean diet whatever the diet was you were so excited to be ingesting all of this healthy food you're going to be so healthy and be able to resist virtually any health condition cancer police diabetes get out of here oh and World Peace we've got you covered too because everyone throughout the world is going to be so happy about your diet rant over but the key point is there is not one Magic Bullet diet out there for everyone there are plenty of people that live long healthy lives reduce and mitigate their risk for things like diabetes with a variety of different diets are there general principles absolutely one being that the majority of our food should come from Whole Foods Source whole food sources to whatever those food choices are you want to make sure that we get all the proper vitamins and minerals to have proper physiological function and then also the macronutrients we want to make sure we have the proper proportions of those the macronutrients being carbohydrates proteins and fats and of course those proportions would have the ceiling of a total caloric intake and we'd want that total caloric intake to be in what we'd refer to as a calorie deficit meaning we're burning more calories than we're taking in especially if part of our goal here is to reduce weight or reduce the adipose tissue now I do want to acknowledge again that I did just go on this rant saying there's no magic bullet when it comes to diet but this is also true for our overall health and wellness there's no diet magic bullet or treatment option that's a Magic Bullet or whatever it may be but if you me pick a Magic Bullet or if we thought of it as what's the closest thing we could get to a Magic Bullet for our health and wellness that would have to be exercise and let me explain what I mean by that exercise is going to pay more dividends than just helping us decrease or lose adipose tissue when it comes to this type 2 diabetes discussion think of type 2 diabetes as this dysfunction of metabolism we have these cells that are resistant to insulin and so therefore cannot bring the glucose or the carbohydrates in so therefore the cells aren't processing utilizing metabolizing those carbohydrates properly and because of that dysfunction metabolism it's also going to trickle into how our body metabolizes the fats as well as the proteins but exercise changes our metabolism now one of the things that changes with exercise is that metabolic rate increases with exercise and that would mean we'd burn through more calories in that case which has its obvious benefits but you've probably started to gather that there's more to metabolism than just how fast we burn through carbohydrates or fats it also includes how effectively we process or utilize those carbohydrates fats and even the proteins let me give you some examples of how this improves with exercise we know that the majority of cells throughout the body need insulin to bring the glucose in including like a resting muscle cell but say that resting muscle cell starts to exercise and the overall muscle begins to exercise your exercising muscles can bring in glucose without the need of insulin which is pretty amazing to think about also there's this window directly after exercise where the muscle tissue becomes highly sensitive to the effects of insulin again remarkable to think about especially when we're comparing that to type 2 diabetes where the cells are less sensitive or resistant to the effects of insulin and it makes sense that an exercising muscle or a muscle post exercise would be sensitized because it's trying to replenish its glycogen stores which glycogen is just the storage form of glucose and those muscle cells are also ready to bring in protein for that rebuilding process now this is just looking at it from one isolated incident like meaning one day of exercise what about consistent exercise over the long term if you consistently exercise further changes will occur for example the number of mitochondria Within the muscle tissue will increase and you might remember from biology class that the mitochondria was nicknamed the PowerHouse of the cell because this helped create the energy currency of the cell called adenosine triphosphate or ATP we'll also see that the number of enzymes involved in metabolism will increase within the muscle we'll see cellular Transporters increase all of these things are essentially going to help us to process more carbohydrates and fats as well as the process and metabolize them more effectively and this is kind of like the opposite of the metabolism that's occurring with type 2 diabetes and this is what I was talking about as far as exercise paying more dividends we see more effective metabolism even increased insulin sensitivity within the muscle tissue and with that increased metabolism that can often trickle into just from frequent exercise to decreasing that adipose tissue which was contributing to insulin resistance and if that goes down insulin resistance often improves and finally let's talk basics of treatment as well as the size idea of can you possibly cure diabetes Well let's start with the treatment of type 1 diabetes now we haven't talked as much about type 1 because remember we didn't have as much control at reducing the risk of type 1 diabetes and because the pancreas isn't secreting insulin with type 1 diabetes we're left with one main treatment option and that is replenishing the insulin through injection and the amount of insulin corresponds with carbohydrate intake now type 2 diabetes we've actually talked a bit about a treatment option because that's similar to prevention which is diet and exercise but on top of diet and exercise people will often get initiated on a diabetic medication Metformin is the most common medication now we could do a video on multiple different types of diabetic medications so instead we'll just put some of the most common in the description below and kind of jump to this idea of can you possibly cure type 2 diabetes because people have come off of their diabetic medications through diet exercise and weight loss or sometimes people have done it through say like a gastric bypass surgery so you might be thinking well their insulin resistance is improved their blood sugar levels are where they need to be they're no longer on their diabetic medication they're cured well not so fast we don't usually use the word cure when it comes to type 2 diabetes the word that is used is remission and I think that's fair because we're talking about remission because this could come back say like adipose tissue came back or increased again diet and exercise started to falter on that and even aging can make us a little bit more at risk for developing this and so in that case remission is typically the word that is used but I think that's still really remarkable to think about that a person can improve so much that they can come off of their diabetic medications and maintain this with diet and exercise 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