Diet, Exercise and Diabetes

On Friday I went to see my endocrinologist for my 6 monthly check up to see how my Insulin Resistance is going, usually that involves me stepping on the scales to see if I've lost any weight but this time he got me to do a glucose tolerance test the week before.

A GTT is very boring, usually you rock up to the pathology collection centre feeling very hungry (on account of having to fast since 8pm the night before) and needing to go to the toilet. Once there you give a urine sample and the nice lady takes some blood out of your arm and outs it into little tubes. Then she gives you a glucose drink to finish in the next five minutes and you go sit in the waiting room.

An hour later she takes more blood, puts it into little tubes and sends you back to the waiting room, an hour after that she takes more blood and sends you out to find breakfast, which by then is practically lunch.

The purpose is to find out how your body reacts to being fed glucose (sugar), and if it processes it properly.

Anyway, it turns out that my body has become worse at processing sugar than it was 2 years ago when I first went to see Dr Kidson. Which is a bit depressing considering I take 7 tablets a day and have worked really hard at eating right and exercising regularly.

To be truthful though, I have been a bit slack with the whole diet and exercise thing lately so now I have a reason to get back on track.

Why is it so important? Well, insulin resistance means that my body produces insulin in response to when I eat carbohydrates (a pretty normal reaction) but instead of my cells using the insulin to turn the carbs into energy they get confused and don't do anything. The end result is lack of energy, crazy reactions from a number of other hormones and overproduction of insulin which will eventually tire out the insulin producing cells in my pancreas and they will stop producing insulin altogether ie. I will become diabetic.

Exercise encourages my cells to use the insulin (sorry don't know why) as it should be used, it also burns up fat - fat cells produce hormones that affect how insulin is produced and used (again, my biochemistry knowledge doesn't stretch that far)- so getting rid of fat is good. Eating healthily ie. low GI carbs (and less carbs in general) means I don't produce too much insulin and eating less fat means I grow less fat cells.

Simple isn't it?

I am telling you this so that those who know me can help me eat right and exercise and so that those who don't know me can learn more about insulin resistance. Believe it or not, this is just a summary of what it means to have this problem, there are lot more symptoms and struggles I could talk about.

Anyway, thanks for listening, apologies to any endocrinologists, biochemists and others who are cringing at my poor scientific explanations.