The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally

by Jason Fung

When we eat large quantities of

fructose, on the other hand, it heads straight to the liver, since no other cells can use or metabolize it. Consider what this means for an average person weighing 170 pounds. Sucrose provides equal amounts of glucose and fructose. Whereas all 170

this means that fructose is far more dangerous than glucose.

Fructose does little to activate natural satiety pathways that limit food intake, and no natural brakes exist to slow down the overproduction

of new fat. This explains why you can still eat sweet desserts even after a full

m...

Once the glycogen stores are full, the liver must find a different

storage form for the excess glucose. It transforms this glucose through de novo lipogenesis (DNL) into newly created molecules of triglycerides, also known as body fat.

THESE NEWLY CREATED triglycerides are made from the substrate

glucose,

not from diet...

This distinction is important because fats made by DNL are highly saturated. Eating dietary carbohydrates, not dietary saturated fat, increases saturated fat levels in the blood. Saturated fats in the blood,...

The two main activators of DNL are insulin and excessive dietary fructose.

Simply put, higher insulin levels and fructose ingestion produce

higher blood triglyceride levels. There’s just too much sugar.

As with all hormones, exposure creates resistance, so persistently high leptin creates the leptin resistance found

in

common ob...

and if you are eating too much sugar...

insulin...

When hyperinsulinemia persists, the pedal-to-the-metal production of new fat overwhelms the adipocytes. Fat backs up, causing fatty liver. Fructose is directly converted to liver fat and

leads to the next stage, insulin resistance.

If allowed to continue, the engorged liver will become distended and injured. The liver cell cannot safely handle any more glucose, yet insulin is still pushing really, really hard to shove more inside. The liver’s only opt...

and it develops as the body’s second line of defense against hyperinsulinemia. The liver feverishly tries to relieve the fatty congestion by exporting triglycerides, and bloo...

syndrome. Ectopic fat accumulates in other organs, such as the pancreas, kidneys, heart, and muscle. The predominance of fat around the abdomen becomes noticeable as an increase in waist si...

recently is being called a “wheat belly.” This abdominal, or visceral, fat is the most important predictor of metabolic syndrome.26 Surgical removal of visceral fat reverses insulin resistance,27 whereas remov...

fat accumulates within organs that are not designed

store it.

Ectopic fat clogs the pancreas and interferes with normal functioning, so insulin levels fall. When the fatty pancreas fails to produce the

High and rising insulin levels doubled the risk of developing hypertension in those who previously

had normal blood pressure.

Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes cannot cause metabolic syndrome because they are part of the syndrome. Hyperinsulinemia causes it. The very core of the problem is hyperinsulinemia from excessive fructose and glucose, but especially

fructose intake.

Obesity, insulin resistance, and beta cell dysfunction are all protective

mechanisms.

Obesity tries to prevent DNL from overwhelming the liver by safely storin...

the adipo...

Fat cells actually provide protection against metabolic syndrome rather than causing it.

Why? Because without adipocytes, fat must be stored inside the organs,

Similarly, insulin resistance is the body’s attempt to prevent fat from amassing in the internal organs

by

preventing it from ...

insulin resistance, which represents a second

protective mechanism.

The final line of defense lies in shutting down panc...

of in...

Blood glucose rapidly rises above the renal threshold and causes all the classic symptoms of diabetes. But this toxic load of glucose has been safely discharged out of the body, and is unable to cause further metabolic damage. The core problems of too much glucose and insulin have been handled, but at the cost of sympto...

dumping it out in the urine. All the condit...

were problems—obesity, insulin resistance, and beta cell dysfunction—are actually the body’s solutions to a s...

We need to get rid of the sugar and lower