Is there a strong connection between stress and type 2 diabetes?

When thinking of type 2 diabetes and its causes, the condition with poor diet or sedentary lifestyle is usually associated.

But science has been finding data on a less known factor that turns out to be very important in the development of the disease: stress.

"In my clinical practice, stress is the most determining factor in the results of type 2 diabetes that we see in people," Victor Montori, endocrinologist and principal researcher of the Investigation Unit in knowledge and evaluation of knowledge and evaluation of knowledge and evaluation of knowledge and evaluation ofThe Mayo Clinic, in the US

During his career, this doctor of Peruvian origin has dedicated himself to studying diabetes for more than twenty years, but also how to improve health systems to deliver quality care to patients.

In recent years, he says, it has been discovered how stress contributes to worsening type 2 diabetes, in which glucose or blood sugar levels are too high.

“Chronic concern has a neuroendocrine effect that lifts blood sugar.Being more stressed, it is also likely that more fatty deposits at the waist, which makes you have a more difficult diabetes to control, ”explains Montori.

As he says, there are several scientific studies that have found a strong relationship between concerns, stress associated with complex living conditions and the development of this type of diabetes.

One of the most categorical, says, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and was based on a follow -up to three groups of people from a vulnerable US community.

"The first group maintained its conditions, the second had the possibility of moving to an area with a better quality of life, much less dangerous, and the third in addition to going to that better place, received help to achieve it," says Montori.

And he continues: “In the end it was analyzed what had happened with the health of the people and only the third group had moved.In them there was a strong reduction in depression, obesity and diabetes.This, without educating them or giving them recommendations on how to live, but that the simple change of a less stressful environment, where there were no shooting at night, would have induced metabolic changes. ”

as in the caves

The way in which mental state contributes to type 2 diabetes would have to do with failures in the hormonal system, explains the doctor.

“When you are suffering, the body's response is something we learned in the caves.Basically, given the danger of one tiger or another animal, our hormonal system went out because we did not need to reproduce, but survive.But in today's life, one is in a permanent state of alert.We live with permanent pressure on the normal physiology of people, ”he says.

Thus, the body responds with hormonal uncontrolled, adds Montori.And makes diabetes appear more difficult to treat.“For something this is a condition that occurs more in the city than the countrypoverty".

The doctor is emphatic at a point: healthy eating and physical exercise are still important to prevent and control the disease.

"We tell patients to try to lose weight, do physical activity at least 150 minutes a week and reduce high foods in carbohydrates and fats, the risk of progressing to diabetes tends to reduce," he says.And he adds: "But it is important to find an activity that helps to handle stress, and use that instead of eating more or drinking alcohol."