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Struggling to manage your weight? Beware, obesity may give you type-2 diabetes

Struggling to manage your weight? Beware, obesity may give you type-2 diabetes
• Obese people are more than 5 times likely to develop type 2 diabetes in comparison to people with healthy body weight. ©Shutterstock

Weight issues have always been associated with lifestyle diseases like diabetes and blood pressure. What's with increasing weight or say obesity that puts you at an increased risk of getting type-2 diabetes.

Written by Sukriti Shahi |Updated : November 20, 2019 6:16 PM IST

Obesity and type-2 diabetes can impact the quality of life and life expectancy. These two have been strongly associated and doctors always ask to reduce weight in order to prevent diabetes risk. However, the cases of obesity leading to diabetes are on rise. In fact, healthcare professionals have now coined a new term for it diabesity.

Reasons why obesity leads to type-2 diabetes

It's not known why some people develop insulin resistance in body. There could be plenty of reasons for the same but sedentary life is perhaps the biggest one. Experts believe that being overweight and lack of physical exercise could make the problem of insulin resistance worse. And this could lead to type-2 diabetes.

While analysing and sorting out the issue of obesity, professionals also take in consideration where the excess body fat is stored. People who have excess body fat or weight around their abdomen are at higher risk of developing insulin resistance and eventually, type-2 diabetes. On contrary those who carry more weight around thighs or hips are not likely to be associated with insulin resistance.

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Why is it important to lose weight to avoid type-2 diabetes?

Experts say that being overweight also puts pressure on the cell membrane. When the network inside the cells have more nutrients to process than it can handle, it sends out a signal for the cell membranes to dampen the insulin receptors present on the cell membrane. This dampening of in insulin resistance in body. The insulin resistance results in high concentration of sugar in blood leading to diabetes.

The same thing happens when a person who over eats. It disturbs the cell network called endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Experts suggest to consider ER as a protein processing factory. When this gets overburdened or overworks, it sends out signal to dampen the cell membrane. This can also lead to cell inflammation which may result in heart ailments. This is ER's way telling that enough 'insulin is on board already'. However, there's a downside to it because insulin soon loses its power to process body.

What to do?

Moderate and continuous weight loss can lead to the better and improved insulin activity in body. It can get insulin level back on track to start processing the body sugar before the condition converts into Type-2 diabetes. This also helps in decreasing the level of fasting glucose concentration in blood.

Diet can play a major role in not only dealing with weight loss but also preventing the risk of diabetes. Overall lifestyle changes are important to lead a diabetes-free life. This way you are reducing the stress from the ER and boosting its strength once again as per normal. The risk of getting into obesity is lot more when the metabolism of the body gets slower. Therefore, that's when you should take care of your diet and check your weight fluctuations regularly. If you have any medical issue, make sure you check with your physician to chalk out a workout plan for you to keep obesity at bay.