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Asked by anon-255041 to Eva on 7 Jul 2020.
Question: Regarding type 2 diabetes, what causes beat cells to degenerate in the first place and how could people prevent this from happening?
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Eva Kane answered on 7 Jul 2020:
Great question! In a healthy person, insulin produced by the pancreatic beta-cells in response to sugar targets other organs such as the muscles and liver, and prompts them to take up and use that sugar for energy, or to store it for later. In a person with type 2 diabetes, those other organs become ‘insulin resistant’, so they need more and more insulin in order to produce the same response. Your beta-cells adapt to this at first by producing lots more insulin to keep the blood sugar at the right level. This stage is called ‘pre-diabetes’.
However, if they keep having to do this they become exhausted because they are producing much more insulin than they are supposed to. As a result, some beta-cells will die and some will lose functionality and stop producing insulin. At this point, the person has type 2 diabetes and will start to see increased blood sugar that they cannot control. This can cause lots of other symptoms, as the organs are unable to get the energy that they need.
There are lots of different small things that add up to a person getting type 2 diabetes, rather than one big thing. Two people with type 2 diabetes might have quite different symptoms from one another, and their disease might be caused by a different combination of factors. For some people, insulin resistance is caused by eating too much sugary food, because the organs get used to responding to lots and lots of insulin (remember, in a healthy person higher sugar intake = higher insulin levels). But some people can eat lots of sugary food and never get type 2 diabetes – and we don’t really know why! Likewise, some people get type 2 diabetes without having a really high sugar intake. Lots of scientists across the world are trying to find out why this is, and it probably has a lot to do with your unique genetic makeup.
Regardless, eating a healthy diet and doing some exercise that you enjoy is always good for you – not just for reducing your chances of getting type 2 diabetes, but also for your mental health and your heart!
Comments
anon-255041 commented on :
Thank you 🙂
Gabriela commented on :
Hi Kate. Great question and I agree with everything that Eva said. I’d just like to add a little about the genetics and some other emerging data on chronobiology. Scientists have looked for genetic variations that increase the risk for type 2 diabetes by conducting population wide screens called Genome Wide Association Studies and have identified many variations in the genome which are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes. To date, almost all of these variations are associated with the loss of beta cell function. The top risk variation, for example, is in a gene that is involved in the control of beta cell growth and development, and also beta cell responsiveness to a hormone from the gut that enhances beta cell function when faced with high blood glucose (e.g. after a meal). We have found in mice that when we lose the function of this gene, we lose the number of beta cells, and the beta cells that are present also don’t function properly. The population of beta cells we are born with is pretty much all we will have to last a lifetime so developing adequate numbers of beta cells in the foetus (which is affected by genetics and the womb environment) and being able to keep the cells we were born with healthy are both really important to prevent the development of type 2 diabetes.
Gabriela commented on :
Regarding chronobiology, it has been shown that our body has a daily rhythm (a clock) and certain bodily functions are better adapted for certain times of the day. For example, the efficiency of insulin secretion from the beta cells is different at different times of the day. There are data indicating that shift workers are more at risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. So better understanding of how the function of cells that are involved in controlling energy balance are affected by time of day, so that we can better adjust our daily activities to these rhythms (e.g. considering when we eat, not only how much we eat) may help with prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes.