Three ways to prevent diabetes with Professor Naveed Sattar

In today’s episode, we’re talking about a disease so widespread that it touches nearly every family in some way: type 2 diabetes. It’s not just a health issue, it's a rapidly expanding crisis. And many people don’t know that they have it.  In the U.S. alone, 100 million people have prediabetes, and more than 37 million have type 2 diabetes, a chronic condition with life-altering effects. Prof. Naveed Sattar joins us to shed light on preventing, treating, and potentially reversing type 2 diabetes.  Naveed is a medical doctor and Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He’s one of the world’s top 1% most cited clinical scientists, and he’s worked on many clinical trials of lifestyle changes and drugs to prevent and manage diabetes.  Learn your diabetes risk score: If you’re in the U.K. click here.  If you’re in the U.S. click here. Get the FREE ZOE gut health guide — download here Follow ZOE on Instagram Timecodes: 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Topic introduction 02:28 Quick fire questions 05:33 What is blood sugar and why does it matter? 07:15 What is insulin and what is its relation to blood sugar and diabetes? 08:48 Why doesn't the body allow sugar to increase in the blood? 10:45 What happens when somebody gets pre-diabetes or type 2? 14:34 What is HBA1C? 17:08 Why has there been such an increase in diabetes? 23:05 How does muscle mass have any impact on diabetes? 24:54 Are risks different between men and women? 27:08 How does ethnicity come into this? 31:04 What other personal risk factors are there? 32:29 What are the symptoms of diabetes? 33:53 When do these symptoms begin? 35:09 What should you do if you have concerns? 36:33 How to find out your own likelihood of risk 38:34 How can we avoid getting diabetes? 42:10 How can we combat genetic risk factors? 44:26 Is it possible to lower blood sugar and reverse the effects of diabetes? 47:18 What is the science behind the new drugs coming on the market? 49:20 Summary 53:39 Outro Mentioned in today’s episode: Primary care-led weight management for remission of type 2 diabetes (DiRECT): An open-label, cluster-randomised trial in The Lancet Is there a nutrition topic you’d like us to explore? Email us at podcast@joinzoe.com, and we’ll do our best to cover it. Episode transcripts are available here.