Type 2 Diabetes Isn’t Just a Disease of High Blood Sugar—Inflammation Matters Too

While diabetes is diagnosed on the basis of elevated blood sugar alone, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Until recently, inflammation has had a largely underappreciated role in the initial development of insulin resistance and the long-term progression of type 2 diabetes. There are two general categories of inflammation, acute and chronic, differentiated by intensity and duration.



Acute inflammation can best be described as the protective reaction your immune system has to infection or injury. Characterized by fever, swelling, and pain, it builds up promptly when needed and then drops back quickly when the healing is done.



Chronic Inflammation can be caused by a low grade disease like arthritis, but can also exist in people without obvious disease or symptoms. Patients with type 2 diabetes exhibit significantly higher inflammatory markers and symptoms than patients of the same weight that do not have diabetes.⁸ Furthermore, higher chronic levels of inflammatory markers like white blood cell count, C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) are early predictors of who will develop type 2 diabetes.⁹



So significant chronic inflammation is not just seen in those patients that already have type 2 diabetes—it is also predicts those patients who go on to develop type 2 diabetes, before their blood sugar (as measured by HbA1c) shows a diabetic elevation. Inflammation is one of the suspected causes of insulin resistance.¹⁰ Inflammation is also subsequently exacerbated by the chronically elevated blood sugar characteristic of type 2 diabetes.



Once you have type 2 diabetes, your level of inflammation is also strongly associated with the development and progression of comorbidities like heart attack and kidney disease.¹¹ If you have type 2 diabetes, it is likely that your doctor has already measured your CRP through a simple blood test.

