Type 2 diabetes is not a sudden event. It does not show up overnight. It is a slow gradual ‘process’, with a series of subtle signals from the body, usually missed, dismissed, or misunderstood. This disease is primarily lifestyle-based and by 2035–36, direct care costs for Type 2 diabetes are expected to rise to £15.1 billion, while indirect costs may hit £20.5 billion, bringing the total economic burden to nearly £39.8 billion.
It’s also one of the most preventable and even reversible conditions we face in modern medicine. And the earlier we catch those whispers of imbalance (before they become full-blown blood sugar chaos), the more control we have.
This is what we teach at the New School of Nutritional Medicine: how to listen early, act wisely, and support the body before symptoms become diagnoses.
What actually is type 2 diabetes?
Simply, it is when your cells stop responding well to insulin, the hormone that helps move sugar (glucose) from your blood into your cells for energy. So your body makes more and more insulin trying to ‘force’ glucose into cells. Over time, this leads to high blood sugar, high insulin, and total metabolicMetabolism is not a calorie-burning furnace that sits somewhere near your belly button, deciding whether you can fit into last year's jeans. Metabolism is the set of chemical processes taking place inside your body every second of every day, keeping you alive. chaos.
But this chaos starts long before the diagnosis, known as insulin resistance.
Do you have signs of insulin resistance?
These are your early warning lights, or your body’s gentle alerts:
- Skin tags: Little fleshy growths, often on the neck or underarms. A signal of high insulin triggering skin cell overgrowth.
- Dark velvety skin patches (Acanthosis nigricans): Often mistaken for ‘dirty’ necks or armpits, it is a sign of insulin pushing growth factors into skin cells.
- Crashing after meals, also known as ‘carb coma’: That post-lunch drowsiness, it is not just pasta or jacket potatoes with cheese, it’s poor glucose control and an overcompensation by insulin.
- Weight gain around the belly: Belly fat is metabolically active and fuels the insulin resistance cycle. A waist-to-hip ratio >0.85 (women) or >1.0 (men) is a red flag.
- Mood swings, irritability, or anxiety between meals: Blood sugar crashing, leading to cortisol spiking, which leads to emotional turbulence.
- Constant hunger or poor satiety: Even after eating, you don’t feel full, this is often due to leptin resistance (more below).
- Waking up at 3 am: A subtle clue of blood sugar dips triggering a stress hormone spike.
- Brain fog: Cells ‘starved’ of glucose, which results in a slow brain, foggy focus and/or poor memory.
Functional Testing: What to check before diabetes shows up on your ‘standard’ blood test
Conventional medicine often waits until fasting glucose or HbA1c hits a certain threshold. But at the New School, we prefer to catch things earlier.
Key functional markers:
At the New School, we look at various functional markers, not just one or two, whether they are blood markers, gut test markers, a hair tissue mineral test markers or even cell membrane fatty acid markers.
1. HOMA-IR (Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance)
- A simple calculated score using fasting glucose and fasting insulin to estimate how resistant your cells are to insulin.
- The higher the score, the more sluggish your cells are in responding.
- Ideal: <1.9
- Concerned? >2.0 this is an indication that early insulin resistance is developing
2. Triglyceride:HDL Ratio
- A simple but powerful proxy for insulin sensitivity.
- Ideal: <1.5
- Red flag: >2.0
3. LDL particle size: Smaller, denser LDLs are more inflammatory and linked to insulin resistance. Ask for an advanced lipid panel if possible.
4. Fasting insulin
- Often elevated years before blood glucose rises.
- Ideal: 2–5 µIU/mL
- Caution: >8 µIU/mL = early resistance
5. Leptin
- High leptin with constant hunger? The brain is not ‘hearing’ the fullness signal.
- A leptin >12 ng/mL with hunger and fatigue is a sign of leptin resistance (which often precedes insulin resistance).
6. HTMA (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis)
- Blood sugar imbalances often show up as:
- Low magnesium (intracellular insulin helper)
- Poor calcium/magnesium and sodium/potassium ratios (stress, adrenal output, glucose control)
7. Full Fatty Acid Metabolic Profile Test
- Your insulin receptors sit in your cell membranes, and those membranes are made from fatty acids which are types of fats/lipids. The fats/lipids you obtain from your food. If the membrane is too rigid or too fluid (due to an imbalance of the fats in the cell membrane), the insulin signal can’t ‘get through’.
- What to look for:
- Omega-3 index (EPA/DHA)
- Omega-6 to omega-3 ratio
- Saturated and monounsaturated balance
- Levels of GLA, DGLA, and arachidonic acid
- Levels of oleic acid
The more resilient and responsive your cell membranes, the better your insulin receptors work. Fat quality can improve or hinder hormone communication.
At-home finger-prick tests
Don’t wait for a diagnosis , you can track what matters by learning to use a simple glucometer.
Timing: What to look for
Fasting glucose(on waking) Ideal: 75–85 mg/dL (4.1–4.7 mmol/L)
1 hour after meals Should stay under: 140 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L)
2 hours after meals Back to: <110 mg/dL (6.1 mmol/L) or within 20 points of your fasting level
Tip: Try a glucose curve, check before a meal, then 30 min, 1hr, 2hr.
What should happen?
- Glucose should peak by 45–60 minutes, then begin to drop.
- By 2 hours, you want to see your blood sugar trending back toward your baseline.
- A mild rise (e.g., <40 mg/dL from baseline) that resolves within 2–2.5 hours is normal.
Indications to check with a professional:
- If your glucose spikes more than 40–50 mg/dL above your fasting baseline after a meal, that is a sign your body is ‘struggling’ to regulate sugar.
- If your glucose is still above 110 mg/dL (or doesn’t return close to baseline) after 2 hours, this suggests delayed glucose clearance and possible insulin resistance.
Example: If your fasting glucose is 80 mg/dL and your 1-hour post-meal glucose hits 150, and is still 125 at 2 hours, that’s a sign to investigate further.
How to avoid becoming diabetic: A lifestyle that works
Eat to stabilise, not spike glucose
- Include proteinProtein is one of the three main macronutrients, alongside fats and carbohydrates, yet for many years it was often the forgotten member of the trio. More recently, protein has become something of a celebrity in the nutrition world, appearing in everything from snack bars and cereals to coffee and desserts. Whilst the marketing can sometimes get a little carried away, the truth is that protein is essential for human health. Every cell in the body relies on it. Protein helps build and repair tissues, supports immune function, forms enzymes and hormones, transports nutrients, and helps maintain muscle mass, particularly as we age., healthy fat, and fibre with every meal.
- Cut back on refined flours, sugars, and liquid carbs (juices, ‘sugared’ drinks).
- Try early time-restricted eating: finish dinner by 6–7 pm.
Balance stress which helps balance blood sugar
- Cortisol raises blood glucose, and cortisol is your stress hormone, and chronic stress ‘deafens’ the insulin receptors.
- Movement (this will vary depending on age, but you want muscle), breathwork, nature time, somatic tools, these are not just luxury, but blood sugar medicine.
Prioritise Sleep
- Less than 6.5 hours can increase insulin resistance the next day.
- Quality sleep regulates cortisol, insulin, and leptin. Leptin is the hormone that tells you when you’re full.
Heal leptin resistance
- Eat real food
- Avoid constant grazing (yep, that food noise needs some noise-cancelling ‘plugs’)
- Get morning light to regulate leptin and circadian rhythm
- Sleep deep
Feed your gut (and make sure you are absorbing what you eat)
When we talk about blood sugar, we have to talk about the gut. Because you can’t balance blood sugar if you are not absorbing your nutrients, digesting your proteins, or calming inflammation at the gut lining. Every bite of food depends on your digestive system being able to break it down, absorb it, and signal correctly to your immune system, hormones, and brain.
Gut health check:
Stomach acid and digestive capacity
- Low stomach acid is incredibly common in stressed, insulin-resistant bodies.
- Without it, you’re not absorbing key blood sugar helpers like magnesium, zinc, iron, and B12, and you’re not breaking down proteins needed for insulin receptor repair.
- Functional tip: If you bloat after meals, feel full too long, or rely on antacids, you may need to support stomach acid, not suppress it.
Mucosal health and gut lining integrity
- A leaky or inflamed gut lining can amplify insulin resistance through low-grade inflammation and immune stress.
- Support with glutamine, slippery elm, collagen, and anti-inflammatory nutrients (like zinc carnosine or deglycyrrhizinated licorice).
Microbiome diversity
- Your gut bacteria influence blood sugar via inflammation, short-chain fatty acid production, and hormone signaling (like GLP-1, which controls insulin release and satiety).
- Akkermansia muciniphila is a superstar here, it is linked to better insulin sensitivity, metabolic resilience, and lean body composition.
- But it is not the only one, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Bifidobacteria, and butyrate-producing species also matter.
Feed your gut microbes with:
- Polyphenols: berries, green tea, pomegranate, dark chocolate
- Prebiotic fibres: leeks, onions, garlic, artichokes, apples
- Resistant starches: cooled potatoes, green bananas, lentils
If you want to know who’s living in your gut, ask your practitioner for a comprehensive stool test that includes Akkermansia, Faecalibacterium, SCFA levels, mucin degradation, and diversity index. This is one of our fundamental functional testsIf you have ever been told, ‘your blood tests are normal’, not ‘normal’ or not yourself, then you have already discovered one of the reasons functional testing has become so popular. Functional tests are designed to provide additional information about how the body is functioning. They may explore areas such as hormones, digestion, nutrient status, fatty acids, the microbiome, genetics, metabolism, or stress physiology. Think of them as gathering more pieces of the health puzzle, ideally before a dis-ease ‘shows up’. Sadly, most people turn to functional tests, once they have a dis-ease. covered in the Nutrition Medicine curriculum.
Your New School prevention panel in a nutshell:
- Fasting glucose and fasting insulin
- HOMA-IR
- Triglycerides, HDL, LDL particle size
- Leptin
- HTMA (for blood sugar minerals)
- Comprehensive Stool Analysis (look for gut health markers, Akkermansia, Faecalibacterium, diversity)
- Sleep, stress, and journaling
- Movement
Type 2 diabetes doesn’t just ‘happen’, it develops. But so does health: one choice, one walk, one deeper night’s sleep at a time.
And with the right tests, the right foods, and the right support, the right state of mind, you don’t have to fear diabetes. You can outsmart it.
From the team at the New School Of Nutritional Medicine
Learn about the Founder & Principal of the New School of Nutritional Medicine, Dr Khush Mark PhD HERE.
