What causes type 2 diabetes?

What causes type 2 diabetes?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: What causes type 2 diabetes?; Does type 1 diabetes only occur in childhood?; Is one type of diabetes worse than the other? and more...

Type 2 diabetes is a set of genes that are present in the wrong environment. So 50 years ago, we weren't having an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes and yet 50 years ago, we had the same genes. So what's happened in the past 50 years? Well, food is incredibly abundant. Not only food overall but refined food. So we have all this excess of things that have white flour and white sugar and everything else that gets absorbed in our bodies very quickly and our bodies don't know how to deal with. The second thing is we are not exercising. It is not just that we are not exercising in our leisure time. In fact, leisure time activity has not changed that much but what we are not doing is exercising at work. Most of us when we go to work just sit at a computer or sit at a desk. Compare that to the turn of the century 100 years ago when people were very active in their jobs. So, we decreased exercise and we've increased caloric intake, so people are becoming more resistent to insulin and that starts to lead to Type 2 diabetes in people who are at risk. Now, let me point out that not everyone is going to get Type 2 diabetes. You can get really fat and not get Type 2 diabetes unless you are genetically prone to get it.