I must admit for me right now this is way over my head - but I do have a question which has been on my mind for a while.
If T2 is a cycle of insulin resistance, then eventually the pancreas stops producing insulin (or drastically reduces) then should we not mix up our diet a bit to include foods which stimulate some insulin response - because the problem now is we are not producing enough - isn't it? I genuinely don't know.
I actually found on holiday that if my BG went up - I would have a little cheese - fat protein and I had read it causes insulin and as a result my BG fell. Mistake?
The OGTT tests that
@bluetit,
@bulkbiker and myself all did, illustrate that we are all producing insulin sufficient to deal with a high carb load. For all of us our blood glucose fell to slightly lower than our start point at some stage before finally balancing out at out "normal levels" . What was abnormal was that our blood glucose rose to higher levels than it should in the intervening period presumably because the insulin we were producing didn't respond quite as quickly as someone with normal response.
I have no clue on is at what stage the pancreas " stops producing" insulin but I and @bulbiker had Hba1C at well over 80 at diagnosis. .
I seems like your response was entirely similar to mine.
I know there is certainly a stage where its not producing " enough " for it's needs - but whether that is because its not enough for normal needs or not enough for the extended needs that come from having created the insulin resistance and how long one has to be an uncontrolled diabetic for for that stage to be reached I've no idea. I have read instances of T2 people being able to come off insulin when following a successful diet strategy after as long as 14 years.
Dr Fung claims to have reduced/ removed insulin injections for many of his T2 patients via his fasting methods - clearly that wouldn't work if the pancreas had just packed up altogether.
My current thoughts on the subject as a total layman would be that it might be quite useful to stimulate the /insulin glucose response now and again and that will indeed cause insulin levels to go up and that may well be a good thing for insulin sensitivity.
The trick for me would be to make sure that either I exercise or leave a long gap between that and the next meal to enable the levels of insulin to fall back down to a fasting state before I do it again That would also accord with both the 5:2 diet theory and Dr Fung's intermittment fasting - feasting/fasting hypthesis.
From my readings so far, I don't see it as a problem that insulin spikes to deal with blood glucose, that seems entirely normal and natural. where it becomes a problem seems to be if it happens in such quantities and so often that the body never gets a chance to go back to it base level so that eventually you are starting off with high numbers then adding to them and getting insulin resistance as result.
The study showing people with an entirely normal fasting insulin of 5 whilst having a 45 BMI which I posted elsewhere does seems to suggest that some people really can eat vast quantities of food and have their insulin levels go right back to normal. Just that for many of us it doesn't.