Why does type 2 diabetes develop several decades after one puts on an unhealthy level of weight, and not immediately as a result of the pressure one is putting on one’s body?
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Diabetes type 2 usually develops over a long period of time due to a build up of insulin resistance.Your body is capable of adapting to a sugar rush in an given instance because you have insulin to control blood sugar to maintain equilibrium and homeostasis in the body.
So insulin is slightly irritating to your cells. So when you eat sugar and refined carbs constantly, you require more insulin to keep your blood sugar levels under control, which in turn irritates your cells and makes them become more resistant to that irritation. So eating very frequently, eating lots of sugar, or refined carbs causes insulin to be made and excreted very frequently and usually in higher quantities and so constant exposure to that insulin and irritation to your cells causes your cells to build up a tolerance effect to the irritating insulin.
So someone who is healthy and 20 years old and eats really clean, low or no sugar and no refined carbs might make for instance 20 units of insulin if they ate a donut and had a sugar spike to bring it back down to normal.
Someone who is 50 and overweight, Eats horrible and lots of sugar might need 80 units of insulin to bring a sugar spike down after eating that same donut because they’re so resistant to insulin.
Insulin resistance doesn’t occur overnight it takes years of constant insulin exposure and irritation to your body to build the resistance some people though are also genetically and ethnically more prone to developing DM2. Hope this makes sense, it was probably very redundant.
Just FYI, adult onset diabetes happens in people of all sizes. My father, brother, aunt, and ex-husband all developed it and none of them were overweight.
Insulin resistance is what leads to type 2 diabetes over time.
Some people put on weight as they become insulin resistant but it’s more like a side effect.
Some people develop type II without gaining weight at all.
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