165: Type 2 Diabetes: What it is and What Causes It

Want to lose weight, get off medications, and finally feel great again? Check out my Essential step-by-step course that helps you get started to take control of your health using real food — not pills, not crash diets, and definitely not tons of time in the gym. You'll learn how to eat low-carb, boost your energy, and build a healthier lifestyle that actually lasts. Get signed up here before the price increase! Thrive Naturally Essentials Course In this episode, Dr. Steve breaks down type 2 diabetes in simple language and explains why almost everything we've been taught about it is backwards. He shares why insulin resistance—not "high blood sugar"—is the true root cause, how our modern food choices drive the problem, and why medications and "eat less, move more" usually make things worse instead of better. You'll learn the four key truths about insulin, glucose, and fat that can help you start reversing type 2 diabetes naturally with food and lifestyle.​ Big picture & why this matters Why Dr. Steve went into medicine—and why he left the hospital system after 29 years—because of the misinformation around type 2 diabetes.​ How type 2 diabetes rates have exploded worldwide and why this is tragic when the condition is preventable, reversible, and often medication-free within weeks.​ Type 2 diabetes as an "umbrella disease" driving kidney problems, liver disease, heart disease, dementia, and more.​ Key #1 – The true root cause The root cause of type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, not high blood sugar.​ High blood sugar is a symptom that shows up decades after insulin resistance begins.​ What insulin is: a hormone your body releases whenever you eat or taste something sweet to tell your body what to do with glucose.​ What insulin does with glucose Four main jobs of insulin with the glucose you eat: Uses a tiny bit for immediate activity right after eating.​ Refills limited glycogen "storage tanks" in the liver (about 10 percent) and muscles (about 1 percent each).​ Dumps extra glucose into the urine once blood sugar is too high.​ Turns most of the extra glucose into fat (triglycerides) and stores it in fat cells.​ Why "eating fat makes you fat" is a myth; high insulin from glucose is what forces fat into fat cells.​ Key #2 – Insulin decides fat storage or fat burning High insulin = your body stores fat and cannot burn fat out of fat cells.​ Low insulin = your body burns fat out of fat cells for energy and cannot store new fat.​ Why the real key to weight loss, energy, and diabetes reversal is keeping insulin low, not counting calories.​ What insulin resistance really is Insulin resistance explained as "stuffed fat cells" that can't take any more triglycerides.​ As more fat cells fill up all over the body, the body must pump out more insulin to force fat in, which is pre-diabetes and insulin resistance.​ After 10–40 years of this, fat starts getting stored around organs (liver, heart, etc.), and that's when major damage begins.​ Healthy, pre-diabetes, and diabetes (the progression) Healthy: low insulin, low glucose.​ Early pre-diabetes: high insulin, normal glucose—usually missed because insulin is almost never tested.​ Full diabetes: high insulin and high glucose after years of stuffed fat cells.​ Why common medical definitions of "pre-diabetes" (using A1C only) are late and driven by marketing, not true root cause.​ Key #3 – It's not about lowering sugar, it's about not raising it The only meaningful way blood glucose rises is by eating it (carbohydrates and sugars).​ You have very little stored glucose in the body (about two teaspoons in the blood, roughly 2,400 calories max in glycogen).​ Stress and cortisol can temporarily raise blood sugar by releasing stored glycogen, but glucose is meant only for short "fight or flight," not all-day energy.​ Why "eat less and exercise more" fails Exercise burns some calories but rarely reaches the stored fat in fat cells because glucose stores are usually full.​ Exercise often makes people hungrier when they are running on glucose as their main fuel.​ The real solution is to stop constantly feeding glucose into the system so insulin can stay low and fat can be burned naturally.​ Key #4 – It's not about calories, it's about fuel source Calories from glucose vs calories from fat act very differently in the body.​ Glucose: quick energy, limited storage, meant for emergencies.​ Fat: long-lasting energy, huge storage capacity, and also needed to build cells, hormones, and absorb fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.​ Being 10 pounds overweight means roughly 40,000 calories stored in fat that can be tapped when insulin stays low.​ Food categories and insulin Plant-based foods: always contain carbohydrates, and the basic unit of carbohydrate is glucose—so plants raise glucose and insulin to ...