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with type 2 diabetes , your body doesn’t make enough insulin or use the insulin it produces as well as it should. insulin is the essential hormone that helps control the level of glucose or blood sugar in your bloodstream, sending it to your cells so they have energy to function. over time, if left untreated, the disease can put you at serious risk of complications like stroke, vision loss and kidney damage. you can also experience mental health issues, like depression and anxiety, referred to as “diabetes distress” from the ongoing stress of managing the disease.
according to 2022 numbers from diabetes canada , there are more than 11.7 million canadians living with diabetes or pre-diabetes, a condition that can develop into type 2 diabetes.
dr. ibrahim : diabetes is a condition where you have an imbalance of blood sugars or blood glucose and insulin in your body. what would normally happen if your blood sugar goes up when you have something to eat, for instance, then the pancreas would release insulin and tell your other cells, like your fat cells or your muscle cells, to just take that sugar out of the bloodstream and absorb it into the cells, and that would bring down the blood sugar. so there is a balance.
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dr. i.: it can actually vary person to person. what makes it a little bit tough is many individuals who have diabetes may present with no symptoms, they’re asymptomatic, but the trouble with these high blood sugars is they’re working in the background and they cause trouble to certain organs in your body that are more sensitive, such as your eyes, your heart, your kidney, your brain. sometimes these individuals don’t know until, unfortunately, a significant event happens such as a heart attack or a stroke.
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dr. i.: if you have one parent who has diabetes, you have a 50 per cent risk of developing it. if you have two parents with diabetes, we actually say the risk is 99 per cent. the chance of it being genetically connected is quite high. type 2 diabetes can also be medication-induced — so individuals who are on high doses of systemic steroids, for example. and then there are lifestyle factors such as a sedentary lifestyle or someone without any dietary restrictions may have an increased risk. there are also effects based on age, gender, ethnicity and other underlying medical conditions such as women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome, for instance.
dr. i.: there’s a lot to be said about lifestyle interventions. for individuals who are early in the course of diabetes, following safe lifestyle interventions can certainly prevent the progression of diabetes — even temporarily reverse it. i hesitate to say that you can reverse it 100 per cent because monitoring is still needed.
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dr. i.: general treatment is multi-faceted. it’s a combination of a healthy lifestyle, so diet or particular food choices, exercise or activity as well as medication. for people with type 2 diabetes, this can be oral therapy, injectables or it could be a combination of both.
dr. i.: highs and lows exist in all types of diabetes. hypoglycemia is low blood sugar. sugar is like fuel to the body. if you think of what gas means to a car, when you don’t have enough gas in the car, it stalls and then eventually stops. so, similarly, if you run out of that glucose energy in the body, it also has a stalling effect, especially if not enough sugars are going to the brain. we don’t have statistics or a percentage on hypoglycemia, but it is common.
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dr. i.: one thing i would say is that you’re not alone. a lot of times when patients receive the diagnosis, they very much feel that way. there are options in terms of lifestyle changes, and a lot of advances in science and tech in terms of medication options and way to monitor blood sugars to help make living a regular life doable. this doesn’t have to be a label you wear, right? it’s just a thing that is part of your day-to-day health management.
dr. i. : scientifically, you know the anatomy and physiology where things can go wrong with type 2 diabetes, how it shows up in terms of symptoms and what therapies might manage it. so you get to take all of that information, blend it, distil it, provide it, and when you see patients who are able to feel better, it’s so rewarding.
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for more information about type 2 diabetes , visit diabetes canada .
