Type Zero Diabetes: It Ends with You

There’s a moment every night, somewhere between tired and wired, when most of us make the decision that determines our hormonal balance for the rest of the night, which then determines our sleep quality AND possibly whether or not we overeat the next day. 

It’s not what supplements we take.

It’s not even whether we worked out that day.

It’s what TIME we go to bed.

Most of us were taught that overeating and weight gain are simply battles of willpower. If we’re hungry late at night, we assume we’re just weak. If we wake up craving sugar, we assume we lack discipline. But if that were true, sheer effort would have cured diabetes by now.

We like to pretend sleep is optional. A luxury. Something we squeeze in between work and a half-hearted “one more scroll.” We say things like “I’ll catch up this weekend” as if the body keeps a tab.

But here’s the truth most of us were never told:

When we stay up past that window, our hormones don’t just get tired, they switch sides.

Not metaphorically, but biochemically.

• Melatonin tries to rise when sleep is delayed past the magic hour.  Melatonin production has already peaked or is beginning to decline, which can negatively affect sleep quality and duration.

• Ghrelin surges, the hormone that shouts “FEED ME,” even if dinner was three hours ago.

• Leptin, the hormone that should be saying “You’re full, you’re safe,” never shows up, so we never get the signal to stop.

• Cortisol spikes to keep us alert because the body believes late-night wakefulness must mean danger.

• Insulin gets confused if cortisol is high, the body assumes food is coming, and shifts into storage mode instead of fat-burning mode.

That’s how a “harmless midnight snack” or insomnia doom-scrolling becomes metabolic sabotage. That’s how normal-weight people wake up with pre-diabetic lab numbers after a week of poor sleep. That’s how exhausted but “healthy-ish” adults slowly slide into insulin resistance while saying, “but I don’t even eat that badly.”

Friends, we didn’t get here overnight. We got here one late night at a time.

Which brings me to the woman who drilled that into my soul, over a bowl of duck pho at VT Mania, a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese spot off Spring Mountain (I highly recommend this spot!)

THE HEALTHIEST WOMAN I KNOW—WHO STILL ENDED UP PRE-DIABETIC

We were sitting at a table that had probably seen two decades of spilled broth and quiet revelations. There’s little decor beyond a few Vietnamese wall hangings and the free Asian supermarket calendar. No pretense, just steam rising between us and the herby scent of ginger and green onion.

Across from me sat Dr. Mary Ann Martin. Most people know her as a board-certified endocrinologist, a hormone specialist, or these days, as Dr. Hormone Hacker on social media.

But long before she had a book or the nickname, she was just ‘MA’ to me: one of my very first friends when I moved to Las Vegas over a decade ago, one of my tennis partners, my weekly lunch buddy. 

MA is the most consistent person I know. She weight trains. She plays tennis and pickleball. She eats whole foods. She walks the talk. She’s married to Dr. Scott Martin, a well-known pain interventionist who used to treat suffering for a living. They are the kind of couple that makes you sit up straighter when they walk in because their habits, integrity, and standards are contagious.

So imagine my shock when she told me:

“My test results showed I was borderline pre-diabetic.”

Her. The most metabolically disciplined woman I knew.

That’s when she explained what most people miss:

Type 2 diabetes isn’t about discipline. It’s about rhythm. 

Mary Ann wasn’t overeating. She wasn’t inactive. She wasn’t genetically doomed.

She was just out of sync with sleep.

Too many late nights. Too many “just one more thing” moments after dark. Too many cortisol surges in hours meant for insulin sensitivity repair.

Her labs didn’t lie. Hormones don’t care how “healthy” you appear. They care how aligned you are.

That was her wake-up call.

And because Mary Ann isn’t the type to accept fate, she didn’t just change her habits; she changed the entire conversation.

SHE REFUSED TO BE TYPE 2—SO SHE BECAME TYPE ZERO

Most people fall into one of two camps:

• Type 1 — autoimmune diabetes, meaning the body’s immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that make insulin = no insulin factory.

• Type 2 — lifestyle-induced diabetes,  which means that the insulin factory is working, but the body’s not listening. This is often linked to lifestyle, stress, hormones, and genetics. Experts consider this a disease of CHOICE since it can be improved or reversed with the right changes.

But Mary Ann didn’t relate to either.

She wasn’t Type 1.

She refused to surrender to Type 2.

So she coined her own category:

“I am Type Zero.”

Meaning?

“It ends with me.”

Her grandmother died from diabetes.

Her aunt died from diabetes.

Her mother just recently died from diabetes.

That legacy stops with her.

It will not claim her.

It will not claim her daughter.

It will not claim her future granddaughter.

HABITS RUN IN FAMILIES FASTER THAN GENES DO

People often say, “diabetes runs in my family.”

But let’s tell the whole truth:

Dinner runs in families.

Bedtimes run in families.

Stress coping mechanisms run in families.

Late-night snacking runs in families.

Sitting after meals instead of walking runs in families.

We don’t just inherit DNA.

We inherit patterns.

We inherit habits. 

And most of those patterns (especially for women) are formed in the quiet hours of the night.

So when MA looked at her daughter, Ashlin, she didn’t wait for a diagnosis. She didn’t wait for lab work to turn red. She didn’t wait for “too late.”

She stepped in early, before the system, or even herself as a doctor, would have even labeled her at risk.

And here’s what struck me most:

Even without children of her own yet, her daughter Ashlin’s future line has already been rerouted.

Because all these habits and good choices aren’t just about the self, it’s about the eyes quietly studying us.

Sometimes those eyes belong to children, grandchildren.

Sometimes to younger siblings, nieces, students, or friends.

Sometimes, to the woman we used to be.

Whether we notice it or not, someone is taking mental notes on how we live and gathering courage from the proof that change is possible.

In Mary Ann’s family, the pattern didn’t end in an operating room. It ended with a decision. Hers.

That is Type Zero.

A decision with generational consequences.

THE ONE THING WE MUST FIX FIRST

If Mary Ann could only give one piece of actionable advice, it wouldn’t be “cut sugar.” It wouldn’t be “exercise more.” It wouldn’t even be “eat clean.”

It would be this:

“Protect your sleep window. Nothing changes until that happens.”

Because no diet can compensate for hormonal chaos.

No supplement can override a reversed circadian rhythm.

No workout can undo a pancreas that never gets to clock out.

Most of us don’t have diabetes because we eat wrong.

We have it because we live out of rhythm.

Sleep isn't a habit change. Sleep is an identity change.

We are either people who honor our biological clock or people who gamble with it.

And we’ve been gambling long enough.

SO WHAT NOW?

Deciding to become Type Zero requires a shift in you. The kind of shift that starts in the dark (literally), when no one is watching, with a single choice:

We put the phone down.

We turn the lights low.

We let the night do its work.

Because one day, someone in your future bloodline is going to say:

“We used to have diabetes in our family, until it ran into her.”

Let that woman be you.

Let that moment be now.

Let that sleep window be sacred.

You don’t need to overhaul your life tomorrow morning.

Just tonight.

Before 11 PM.

Want help turning that promise into practice? Contact Dr. Mary Ann Martin, Dr. Hormone Hacker (tell her I sent you!)

Website: drhormonehacker.com 

Find Her Book: The Type Zero Diabetic by Dr. Mary Ann Martin on Amazon.

(Read it. Annotate it. Hand it to your sister. Read it to your mother.)