Inflammation is actually the underlying cause for diabetes. inflammation is in fact, the underlying cause of many chronic illnesses. So that inflammation process can manifest itself as diabetes, or cholesterol issues, or heart disease, or Alzheimer's or cancer. So again, when we begin to understand the holistic picture of our wellness model, right, then we understand that what you're doing now is not only reversing your diabetes, pre diabetes, but it's helping to lower the risk that you have for all chronic illnesses. And that is great news for you that this is helping you on all fronts. So what happens really in our bodies is that Our insulin levels actually start to get higher and cause what's called insulin resistance, actually, before our blood glucose levels get higher.

So if we can understand how those insulin gets secreted more and more and more, and it gets higher and higher and higher, our insulin resistance begins to happen, which means now, our insulin, it's harder to act as the key to open the door to ourselves so that the glucose can get into ourselves, then that creates the high blood sugar levels, right? light bulb is coming on, right? So we need to actually focus on reducing that insulin resistance, because it also causes a lot of the issues that we're concerned about in terms of complications. So one of the things That now that we understand that we need to make sure our body is not having insulin resistance, how do we address that? The way that we address that is by looking at how our blood sugar levels ebbs and flows from some of the most important things we do like what we eat every day.

So, did you know that in the 1900s, we consumed about four pounds of sugar in one year. So if you've ever been to this store, and you've seen the small five pound bags of sugar, we used to consume that in a year. Now, latest research has shown in the 1990s and early 2000s that most Americans consume about 150 pounds of sugar A year. So we've gone from four pounds in a year to 150 pounds in a year. That's almost one of those bags every single week. Now you and I can look at each other and say I don't grab one of those bags and pour it down my throat.

So where is it coming from? It's coming from the hidden sugars and the processed foods that we eat every day, including sodas that we drink sugary drinks, all of that combined. So in the next module, when we start talking about food, you can actually see how all of that extra sugar that we're consuming is really going to do a job on the insulin that our body has to secrete every single day and every single week. Ah, we're starting to see the connection. Hi, it's One levels, insulin resistance, high glucose, right? So that's just one of the things.

We're also going to look at how we exercise and how muscles actually absorb that sugar into their muscle beds so that they can actually use that when we exercise. And that's why exercise becomes another component of our wellness model. When we think about how we sleep, are we getting enough sleep because when we don't get enough sleep, we actually increase certain hormones that make us feel hungry, and then we start eating to compensate for that lack of sleep. So I think you're starting to see the picture of how our lifestyle is really intrinsic to what's happening with our blood sugar levels, and how when we change our lifestyles, and we improve our lifestyle habits, we actually improve our blood sugar levels. More importantly, we include our overall health levels. So medications may be managing our blood sugars, and maybe managing our diabetes and pre diabetes, when we start changing our lifestyle, that's when we can start thinking about reversing and preventing our pre diabetes and diabetes medications only manage it, but if you really want to reverse it, if you want to talk about cure, then you have to look at your lifestyle.

And that is why you are taking this class. That is what's so exciting about this module. So in this handout, you're gonna actually see more information about what I just talked about and about insulin resistance. And this module is gonna set us up for our next module which is going to talk about labs, because the labs are an object effective way for us to be able to look at whether our lifestyle changes are making the types of significant reductions, which is what we want to get us back to our normal health and I'll see you in the next module.