What is the underlying cause of type II diabetes? – Are cells protecting themselves against the reactivity of glucose?

Through the last couple of thousands of years, human food sources and availability have changed tremendously. Moving from a diet of hunter-gathers, consisting of nuts, fruits, tubers and meat, to the farmers' diet of vegetables, grains, milk and meat to this and last century, where among other processed foods there is the unlimited availability of refined sugar. This change in diet has been proposed as being the underlying reason for the dramatic increase in the prevalence of type II diabetes that we are observing worldwide in our time. The question is what is the underlying molecular cause of this disease? One possibility proposed here is that type II diabetes might be a consequence of our cells trying to protect themselves from too high intra-cellular concentration of the reactive compound glucose.