EMOTIONAL DIABETES: IS IT REAL? WHAT ARE YOUR CAUSES? - ECONOMÍA - 2025

Emotional diabetes or emotive diabetes is a term used to refer to alterations in glucose metabolism that would be caused by psychological imbalances.

It would differ from normal diabetes disease by being caused by psychological factors rather than physical and biological factors. It is postulated that certain emotional alterations that people can experience in a multitude of stressful situations and events could produce imbalances in metabolism and originate the typical symptoms of diabetes.

This theory was consistently postulated by observing the metabolic runaways that occur in a person's body when they experience periods of instability or very intense emotions.

Physiological explanation of emotional diabetes

It has been shown that when we are stressed the body releases and increases the levels of substances such as cortisol, adrenaline or norepinephrine in the body.

When we live a period of stress or emotionally intense, the brain prepares the body to respond quickly and efficiently, and these substances facilitate the tuning of the body.

However, these mechanisms that are set in motion in emotionally intense situations, are configured to be of short duration and to activate only in specific periods.

For example, biologically speaking, these physical reactions would allow us to activate the muscles, sharpen our eyesight and stop the digestive processes in order to have the necessary energy to be able to flee or attack effectively in dangerous situations.

When the reaction is frequent

However, when the experimentation of these emotions becomes chronic, our mind releases the substances cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline in a constant way, and these affect the functioning of our body also in a constant way.

The increased release of cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine stimulates the liver in such a way that it releases glucose from its stores, thus increasing blood sugar levels.

As we have said, this is a normal physical phenomenon, since in a stressful or emotionally intense situation, what the body does is try to release all the glucose it can into the blood in order to have more energy to make an adequate response to such a situation.

However, when we experience intense emotions continuously, our body will begin to release glucose into the blood in an excessive and pathological way, a fact that can cause a lot of damage.

This is precisely what is known as stress, when a person has stress emotions permanently, regardless of the direct stimuli that they are witnessing.

Is there emotional diabetes?

As we have previously stated, there is currently considerable scientific evidence that shows that emotions have a direct effect on the body.

In addition, not only have emotions been shown to cause physical disturbances, but the experience of intense emotions is known to produce the main symptom of diabetes, hyperglycemia.

In this way, it could be interpreted that both diabetes of biological origin (the traditional diabetes that we knew until now) and "diabetes of psychological origin", produce an increase in glucose in the blood.

Do emotional states produce symptoms of diabetes?

However, is this fact sufficient to show that diabetes as a disease can be caused by both biological and psychological factors, and therefore emotional diabetes could be affirmed as a type of diabetes?

The answer to this question is currently negative.

In other words, the fact that emotional states produce symptoms similar (or equal) to those produced by diabetes does not allow us to affirm that both aspects make up the same disease.

Thus, due to the absence of proof or evidence to the contrary, today it can be said that emotional diabetes does not exist as a disease.

Differences between people with diabetes and normal people

To reaffirm that the physical consequences of emotions and the consequences of diabetes are not 100% comparable, it is possible to observe the results that are witnessed when both factors appear simultaneously.

That is to say: both a person with diabetes and a person without diabetes can experience intense emotions and periods of stress that cause the physical consequences that we have explained so far and increase the levels of glucose in the blood.

However, there will be a clear difference between both subjects when this happens:

While a person who does not have diabetes can easily control this situation and allow blood glucose not to rise to extremely high levels, a person who does have diabetes will not have it, so that in their body blood glucose could rise up to extremely dangerous levels.

Paradoxically, this main difference between an increase in blood glucose produced by emotions and an increase in blood glucose produced by diabetes, in turn demonstrates the main implication of emotions in the disease.

In this way, despite the fact that emotional diabetes could not be considered today a type of diabetes, it does play an important role in understanding, controlling and treating the disease, making the expression of emotional diabetes a term more how important..

What implication do emotions have in diabetes?

The fact that experiencing emotions raises blood glucose levels automatically makes it a risk factor for diabetes.

That is to say: a person with diabetes will have higher glucose levels in the blood due to their disease, causing the negative effects on the body that we have discussed.

However, if this person with diabetes also suffers from high levels of stress and experiences intense emotions frequently, the blood glucose levels will increase even more, and the negative effects of diabetes will increase.

Emotions-diabetes relationship

Until now, the treatment of diabetes has focused on following a specific diet and exercising to mitigate the consequences of the disease, and the very important role that emotional states can play has been overlooked.

In addition, it should be noted that emotions and diabetes develop a two-way relationship:

On the one hand, as we have seen throughout the article, emotions increase the release of glucose in the blood, so they can increase the symptoms of diabetes and make it a more uncontrollable pathology.

But on the other hand, diabetes constitutes a very important physical and functional impact, a fact that can cause difficulties in the person who suffers from it to cope with both their disease and other aspects of their life.

Thus, on many occasions, diabetes can act as a stressor, which can increase the experience of negative emotions.

In this way, the term emotional diabetes opens up a very interesting new path in the approach and management of diabetes.

References

1. Aikens, JE, Wallander, JL, Bell, DSH and Cole, JA (1992). Daily stress variability, learned resourcefulness, regimen adherence, and metabolic control in type I diabetes mellitus: evaluation of a path model. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60 (1), 113-118.
2. Beléndez, M. and Méndez, FX (1992). Application of the stress inoculation technique in insulin-dependent diabetes. Journal of Health Psychology, 3, 43-58.
3. Bradley, C., Moses, JL, Gamsu, DS, Knight, G. and Ward, JD (1985). The effects of relaxation on metabolic control of type I diabetes: a matched controlled study. Diabetes, 34, (Suppl. 1), 17A.
4. Delamater, A., Bubb, J., Kurtz, S., Kuntze, J., Santiago, J. and White, N. (1985). Physiologic responses to psychological stress in adolescent type I diabetics (IDDs). Diabetes, 34, (Suppl. 1), 75A.
5. Lépori, L, R. Diabetes. Editorial Científica Propesa SA, First Edition, 2006.

Rubin, RR, Peyrot, M. and Saudek, CD (1989). Effect of diabetes education on self-care, metabolic control, and emotional well-being. Diabetes Care, 12, 673-679.