Forty years ago, when I was a Physician Assistant Student with the Emory University program, the family practice group of students did our clinical year at the Medical Center in Columbus, Georgia with the family practice residents going through their training there. One of the teaching physicians was a specialist in endocrinology. I remember him telling us at that time, “if we can get type II Diabetics down to, or near, ideal body weight, they will not need any medication to control their diabetes, only diet and exercise control”.

I am now a retired Physician Assistant, but I still try to keep up with what is going on in the medical field. I recently read an article on Medscape.com written by Mitchel L. Zoler, PhD that says the same thing that we were told back then. The title of the article is “Primary Goal in Type II Diabetes Should Be Weight Loss”. His article states that if a Type II diabetic can lose 15% of their body weight, it would go a long way to maintaining control of their diabetes.

The basic problem with Type II diabetics is that with obesity comes insulin resistance. There is insulin available, but the resistance interferes with the insulin moving the sugar into the cells. Over time, the islet cells of the pancreas simply wear out, in layman’s terms. Then the patient has start insulin injections daily in order to control the blood sugar.

So, if you are a type II diabetic and don’t want to start taking insulin injections in the future, control your food intake, do your daily walk around the block, and lose the weight.