Belly Fat, Visceral Fat, Insulin Resistance and Type 2 Diabetes!
Type 2 diabetics are especially likely to be overweight...
but that doesn't mean that being overweight is the diabetic's fault.
If you have Type 2 diabetes, you suffer a condition known as insulin resistance.
Cells all over your body have developed a defense mechanism that protects them from receiving too much sugar.
The problem is, this defense mechanism also guarantees that they will absorb fat.
And even if you are only 'prediabetic', this same cell-protective metabolic change ensures that it will be easy to gain pounds and hard to lose them.
All fat, however, is not created equal.
The fat around our midriffs is both especially hard to lose and especially detrimental to health.
Most people tend to gain excess body fat in one of two places.
Fat accumulates either on the lower body, on the hips, buttocks, and thighs, or around the belly.
Belly fat is the fatty tissue that is fed by insulin resistance.
Why We Get Fat Cells: The storage of extra food on the body as fat is a natural survival method...
fat is stored for hard times when there isn't enough food to provide sugar for energy.
When the fat is needed (when glucose levels run low), the sympathetic nervous system signals fat cells to break down.
Of course, today, a large percentage of people living in the civilized world have more than enough to eat, and are not very active...
meaning that fat cells are in abundance.
However, when food is eaten, insulin carries glucose into the muscle cells where it can be stored and used as energy.
At the same time, insulin tells visceral fat cells they do not have to release stored fat for the body to feed on.
This forms a vicious cycle, because the visceral fat cells are more likely to listen to the nervous system telling them to break down than to the insulin telling them to stay put.
How Fat Can Lead to Insulin Resistance? When blood sugar levels fall, these fat cells start releasing fatty acids into the bloodstream.
As the level of free fatty acids in the bloodstream rises, the liver releases more glucose into the blood.
Blood sugar levels start to rise and the pancreas jumps into action, releasing still more insulin...
which is also ignored as the fatty acids signal the body needs to burn all available fuel immediately, straight from the bloodstream.
Eventually the cycle develops into insulin resistance.
Every time blood sugar levels dip, more fatty acids are released.
Even if the pancreas is delivering enough insulin to deal with glucose in the blood, the muscle cells don't recognize the need to let the insulin carry the glucose into the cells to be stored, and the glucose remains in the bloodstream.
V is for visceral, and also vicious: The kind of fat that plagues most Type 2 diabetics is around the waist, but it's not the 'jelly-belly' kind of fat that is found in overweight people who do not have diabetes.
This visceral fat interferes with circulation to and from the heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys, and is involved not just with Type 2 diabetes, but also high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and long-term risk of even cancer, and dementia.
but that doesn't mean that being overweight is the diabetic's fault.
If you have Type 2 diabetes, you suffer a condition known as insulin resistance.
Cells all over your body have developed a defense mechanism that protects them from receiving too much sugar.
The problem is, this defense mechanism also guarantees that they will absorb fat.
And even if you are only 'prediabetic', this same cell-protective metabolic change ensures that it will be easy to gain pounds and hard to lose them.
All fat, however, is not created equal.
The fat around our midriffs is both especially hard to lose and especially detrimental to health.
Most people tend to gain excess body fat in one of two places.
Fat accumulates either on the lower body, on the hips, buttocks, and thighs, or around the belly.
Belly fat is the fatty tissue that is fed by insulin resistance.
Why We Get Fat Cells: The storage of extra food on the body as fat is a natural survival method...
fat is stored for hard times when there isn't enough food to provide sugar for energy.
When the fat is needed (when glucose levels run low), the sympathetic nervous system signals fat cells to break down.
Of course, today, a large percentage of people living in the civilized world have more than enough to eat, and are not very active...
meaning that fat cells are in abundance.
However, when food is eaten, insulin carries glucose into the muscle cells where it can be stored and used as energy.
At the same time, insulin tells visceral fat cells they do not have to release stored fat for the body to feed on.
This forms a vicious cycle, because the visceral fat cells are more likely to listen to the nervous system telling them to break down than to the insulin telling them to stay put.
How Fat Can Lead to Insulin Resistance? When blood sugar levels fall, these fat cells start releasing fatty acids into the bloodstream.
As the level of free fatty acids in the bloodstream rises, the liver releases more glucose into the blood.
Blood sugar levels start to rise and the pancreas jumps into action, releasing still more insulin...
which is also ignored as the fatty acids signal the body needs to burn all available fuel immediately, straight from the bloodstream.
Eventually the cycle develops into insulin resistance.
Every time blood sugar levels dip, more fatty acids are released.
Even if the pancreas is delivering enough insulin to deal with glucose in the blood, the muscle cells don't recognize the need to let the insulin carry the glucose into the cells to be stored, and the glucose remains in the bloodstream.
V is for visceral, and also vicious: The kind of fat that plagues most Type 2 diabetics is around the waist, but it's not the 'jelly-belly' kind of fat that is found in overweight people who do not have diabetes.
This visceral fat interferes with circulation to and from the heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys, and is involved not just with Type 2 diabetes, but also high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and long-term risk of even cancer, and dementia.
Source...