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Type 2 diabetes affects millions of Americans, increasing their risks of other medical problems, like heart disease. The good news is that weight loss helps undo the effects of Type 2 diabetes, sometimes even putting it into remission.
Nearly 40 million Americans have diabetes, and almost 95% of them have Type 2 diabetes, the type most commonly associated with being overweight.
If you have diabetes, you know the importance of watching your diet and exercising regularly. But did you know losing weight could help you reverse your diabetes diagnosis?
At Premier Physicians Weight Loss & Wellness in Las Vegas, Henderson, and Reno, Nevada, Dana Trippi, DO, and her team educate patients about diabetes so they can take steps to stay healthy.
November is National Diabetes Month, a great time to learn about the relationship between weight and diabetes — and whether weight loss could help reverse the disease.
The link between Type 2 diabetes and weight
Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disease where your body makes too little insulin or doesn’t use insulin efficiently.
Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar (glucose). When you don’t produce enough insulin or your body doesn’t use it properly, your glucose levels rise, leading to diabetes.
Fat tissue releases hormones and promotes inflammation, interfering with how insulin is produced or works. When you’re overweight, you can develop insulin resistance, a chronic problem that dramatically increases your risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Insulin resistance makes it harder for your body’s tissues and cells to absorb glucose, meaning more of it remains in your bloodstream, where it can reach unhealthy levels.
Your pancreas works extra hard to make more insulin to manage elevated glucose levels, eventually leading to pancreatic dysfunction and impaired insulin production.
That’s how excess weight can contribute to Type 2 diabetes. Fortunately, losing weight can help.
Weight loss and diabetes remission
Losing excess weight helps rebalance insulin and glucose levels, enabling your body to produce and use insulin how it should. The result could send your diabetes into remission — when you still have the underlying disease but don’t suffer its symptoms or require insulin medication.
It’s true, losing weight isn’t easy. The good news: Medical weight loss and weight loss medication can help.
Our team offers custom weight loss plans focused on each person’s goals, underlying health needs, lifestyle, and other factors, with results that can far exceed those with one-size-fits-all commercial diet plans.
With medical weight loss, we tailor your plan to address Type 2 diabetes and excess pounds. That helps you reduce not only your diabetes symptoms but other weight-related risks, including heart disease, arthritis, liver disease, and depression.
Best of all, you can get started right away to start reaping the rewards.
Managing your diabetes
Diabetes can’t be cured, but it can be managed — and sometimes even reversed. The earlier you take steps to reverse the course of the disease, the better your results can be.
To learn more about diabetes remission and how we can help you stay healthy, request an appointment online or over the phone today with the team at Premier Physicians Weight Loss & Wellness.