Let’s change it!!!
The chief substance in the body responsible for keeping blood-sugar levels in check is the hormone insulin. In diabetes, either there is insufficient insulin or the insulin simply doesn't do its job. Between 5% and 10% of diabetics has what is known as type 1 diabetes, where the body fails to make sufficient quantities of insulin. In the more common type 2 diabetes, there is usually plenty of insulin around — the problem is that the body has become resistant to its effects. The two types of diabetes are referred to as type 1 (insulin dependent) and type 2 (non-insulin dependent). Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disorder of carbohydrate metabolism.
Whatever the precise nature of the diabetes, eating a diet that helps to keep blood-sugar levels on an even keel is of obvious importance. Until recently, the traditional view has been that sugar, because it causes surges in blood-sugar levels, should be limited in the diet. On the other hand, starches such as bread, potato, rice and pasta are recommended by doctors and dieticians because of the long-held belief that they give slow, sustained releases of sugar into the bloodstream. Fruit is also recommended because it is believed the sugar fruit contains — fructose — also does not raise insulin levels.
And this approach shows better than anything just how little the diabetes establishment understands about diabetes — because, biochemically, it makes no sense whatsoever.
Here is a short chemistry lesson.
Sugars
The first and most important point to make is that all carbohydrates are sugars, although we do not normally call them that, but differentiate between those that taste sweet, which we call 'sugar', and those that don't, which we call 'starch'.
The simple sugars in foods that are most important to human nutrition are called sucrose, fructose, lactose, and maltose. But the body is only interested in the simple sugar called glucose, so these other simple sugars break apart in the digestion to become glucose.
Sucrose is the white granulated stuff we call 'sugar' and we use it on daily basis cooking. Sucrose is the form of sugar which we use for making tea and sweets. It is obtained from sugar cane, sugar beets, and the syrup from sugar maple trees. Whenever the word 'sugar' is used in conversation, it is usually sucrose that is being referred to. Sucrose is a disaccharide (meaning 'two sugars') which hydrolyses to glucose and fructose. It is also naturally present in some amounts in most fruits and vegetables, along with higher amounts of other sugars.
Fructose is the form of sugar which is found in so many things as in fruits, honey, and corn syrup etc. It is 1.7 times as sweet as sucrose. In recent times fructose, which is every bit as much a sugar as sucrose, has been added to processed foods so that the manufacturers can say on the packet that their product 'has no added sugar'. It's a loophole as fructose is a sugar. Fructose is a monosaccharide (meaning 'one sugar') which is absorbed intact and changed into glucose by the liver. Diabetics are told that they can eat fruit so; presumably fructose is thought to be all right.
Lactose is the sugar found in milk. A disaccharide, it is hydrolyzed into glucose and galactose. The galactose is changed into glucose in the liver.
Maltose is a disaccharide sugar Thus, for diabetics it seems to be the worst 'sugar' found in grains. It hydrolyses into glucose and glucose.
All sugars end in 'ose'. Anything you see on the label of a product ending with these three letters is a sugar. The only exception is cellulose, it has no nutritional value and passes straight through you. It used to be called 'roughage'; now it's been called fibre.
Dietary stupidity:-
Now we need to understand how the current recommendations are actually based upon.
Note:- The recommendations are to eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables every day and base meals and snacks on starchy foods.
Now this is why this is stupidity.
You are told to 'Cut down on . . . sugary foods' right?
The chemical name for sugar — the white granulated stuff you put in your tea — is sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide, which means two sugars. Its chemical formula, C 12 H 22 O 11, means that it is made up of twelve atoms of carbon, twenty-two atoms of hydrogen and eleven atoms of oxygen. When it is digested, it enters the bloodstream as the blood sugar, glucose, whose formula is C 6 H 12 O 6. In this process one molecule of C 12 H 22 O 11 ends up as two molecules of C 6 H 12 O 6. But you will notice that sucrose has only twenty-two hydrogen and eleven oxygen atoms, before it can become glucose, it must gain two hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom somehow. It does this very simply by combining with water whose chemical formula is H 2 O (which means it has two hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom — exactly what we need).
C 12 H 22 O 11 + H 2 O == 2 C 6 H 12 O 6
1 Sucrose + 1 Water == 2 glucose
The addition of the water molecule to the sugar molecule increases the total energy content. In this way, 100g of sugar, which you would think contains 400 kcals, ends up as 105g of glucose or 420 kcals.
'Base meals and snacks on starchy foods'
the situation is similar with starches. Dieticians call starches 'complex carbohydrates' or polysaccharides, which means many sugars. Our digestion also converts these into glucose but, in this case, the formula is a little different. Starch is made up of strings of thousands of sugar molecules fastened together. The formula for each of these individual sugar molecules is C 6 H 10 O 5 so, to make it into C 6 H 12 O 6, it again needs to find two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. So one molecule of water, H 2 O, is combined with each of the starch sugars. In this way:
C 6 H 10 O 5 + H 2 O == C 6 H 12 O 6
Starch + Water == glucose
But as the atoms from the water now form a greater proportion of the total in this equation, 100g of starch actually become 111 g of glucose or 444 calories. That's more than the sugar!
So if you are taking advice for weight loss and trying to reduce your calorie intake, basing meals on starchy foods doesn't look like a very clever thing to do.
This increase at such a time is NOT a coincidence — it is cause and effect.
The reason conventional treatment of diabetes fails is because authoritative bodies such as DiabetesUK and the American Diabetes Association promote the very diet that caused the disease in the first place — a diet that actually makes the condition worse.
Fortunately Type-2 diabetes is easily treated without the need to resort to drugs by:
A strategy that offers the prospect of cure or successful treatment for diabetes is one that limits hyperinsulinaemia by restricting carbohydrate intake — the exact opposite of the conventional approach.
WHAT IS HYPOGLYCEMIA?
Hypoglycemia occurs when the blood sugar levels are abnormally low. In some cases, hypoglycemia can cause a person to become aggressive or seem uncooperative, which can easily be mistaken for drunkenness by people who do not know about the effects of hypoglycemia. In extreme cases, hypoglycemia can cause a person to become unconscious. If this happens to someone you are with, seek medical assistance immediately and inform those providing treatment that the person has diabetes.
Type-1 can be induced by anything that causes the beta cells in the pancreas to malfunction. This could be a physical trauma, infectious disease, allergy, autoimmune disease or tumour. Generally, however, type-1 is believed to be an inherited form of the disease as it is more likely to occur in people who have close relatives with diabetes. But this seems unlikely, as type-1 diabetes is not found in the animal kingdom either in meat or plant eating animals, where those animals live in their natural habitat. Neither does type-1 diabetes exist amongst peoples who have not had extensive contact with the industrialised societies
As diabetes is wholly restricted to people of Western industrialised civilisation, it cannot have a genetic origin, except insofar as people with differing evolutionary backgrounds do have differing levels of the disease.
Maternal diet
Family dietary traits and lifestyle can play a major part in the appearance of type-1 diabetes within families. If a pregnant woman eats too much carbohydrate, this will raise her insulin levels. It is not thought that insulin itself crosses the placenta from mother to foetus. However, insulin produces antibodies that do. Once in the foetus these increase glycogen and fat deposits resulting in an abnormally large baby. It may predispose that baby to type-1 diabetes.
Birth weight is also predictive of future diabetes. A Norwegian population based cohort study by record linkage of the medical birth registry and the National Childhood Diabetes Registry looked at all live births in Norway between 1974 and 1998 (1,382,602 individuals). Over a maximum of 15 years of observation, a total of 8 184 994 person years of observation in the period 1989 to 1998, 1824 children with type 1 diabetes were diagnosed between 1989 and 1998. There was a direct linear increased incidence of type 1 diabetes with increasing birth weight. It was relatively weak but significant. The rate ratio for children with birth weights 4500 g or more was 2.21 times as many as compared with those with birth weights less than 2000 g.
Thus, the way an expectant mother eats can be expected to have an effect on the future health of her offspring. She — I say 'she' because mother usually controls a family's food — will also influence the way her children eat. They usually eat the way she does so it is important that mother sets a good example.
Conventional treatment
The medical profession generally regards type-1 diabetes is incurable. It is managed conventionally with a carbohydrate-based, low-fat diet. As the carbohydrates in such a diet inevitably put large amounts of glucose in the bloodstream, daily insulin injections have to be administered to bring these high levels of glucose in the blood down to normal. For the patient, this means walking a tightrope for life, as exactly the right amount of insulin must be given or it will either reduce glucose levels too much or not enough. As we saw earlier, insulin supplementation is a serious health hazard.
But the Type-1 diabetic rarely produces no insulin at all. Even in severe cases, at the time of initial diagnosis five to fifteen percent of the pancreas's beta cells usually survive to produce insulin. If these are relieved of the burden of continually having to reduce excessive levels of blood glucose, they can usually produce sufficient insulin for the variety of other metabolic processes that need it.
There is a better way
A Polish doctor, Jan Kwasniewski, has successfully treated type-1 diabetics for over thirty years merely by reducing their carbohydrate intake to 'an amount dictated by the insulin-producing capacity of the sufferer'. This amount, he says, typically equates to 1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram body weight for a growing child and between forty and fifty grams for an adult. With this regime, the main energy source is dietary animal fat. On such a diet, his type-1 diabetic patients no longer need to use insulin.
But is essential that this dietary treatment is started immediately as, if it is not begun as soon as diagnosis is confirmed, the beta cells will continue to deteriorate and, once they are lost, they never recover.
The basic principle is to reduce carb intake (and so reduce insulin requirement) and allow the body to burn fats as its primary energy source. But be aware that proteins as well as carbs can raise blood glucose levels. For this reason, the cut-back on carbs must be made up with fats — NOT proteins.
The type-1 diabetic is in quite a different position from the type-2. By definition, there will be little beta cell activity and all type-1 diabetics differ in their insulin output. Thus this dietary regime, just like any other, must be monitored carefully, at least at first until its effects are known. If there is some insulin being produced it may be possible to stop injecting altogether. If there is none, you will still have to inject — but you will inject less.
Diabetes may cause Impotence
Diabetes can adversely affect the sexual ability of both men and women- causing impotence or Erectile Dysfunction ( EDF ) in men.
Long standing high blood glucose due to Diabetes adversely affects the nerves, they lose their ability to properly conduct nerve signals. In a complication of Diabetes called Diabetic autonomic neuropathy, this may happen to nerves supplying the blood vessels of the male sexual organ - penis, hence even after appropriate sexual stimulation the corpus callosum ( a spongy area inside the penis which gets filled up with blood and causes erection ) does not adequately get filled up and erection does not take place- leading to impotence.
Approximately 50% of men with long standing Diabetes also have erectile dysfunction (impotence). In case of any such complaints efforts should be made to strictly control Blood Sugar levels and take appropriate treatment.
Erectile disfunction in men due to diabetes is often undiagnosed and left untreated. This becomes a major cause of depression in diabetes, leading to a setback in personal lives and affecting blood sugar control as well.
Diabetes and Infections
One on the common problems faced by Diabetics with high blood sugar levels are the common infections like, cold, influenza, sinusitis, Ear ache and discharge, pimples, abscesses, Gum infections and Urinary tract infections - which refuse to go.
Compromised immune system
Our body fights these infections through a variety of mechanisms, Either with help of specialized cells which first of all 'recognize' then 'catch' these disease causing agents, subsequently some chemical reactions- complement cascade- take place which finally neutralize these infecting culprits.
With high blood sugar levels immune system is affected at all levels. Macrophages are not able to engulf 'catch' bacteria or viruses as they generally would, complement cascade also malfunctions so the bacteria or viruses even if 'caught' may not be neutralized.
Glucose itself is a rich medium which promotes the growth of bacteria and virus, in fact it is used in all laboratories as a culture medium to grow bacteria. High blood glucose levels make us prone to infections.
Our body is actively fighting against infections all the time, even when we may not have any obvious symptoms. Most of the infections are healed by the body itself without any medicines or other interventions. Most frequent and common are viral infections like influenza (flu, grippe or common cold), cuts and scratches. If the immune mechanisms mentioned earlier are impaired, healing is delayed, illness prolonged and more severe.
H1N1 influenza or the swine flu is just another example of influenza which may become severe in and uncontrolled Diabetic.
Fungal infections
Occur more frequently in diabetics. Fungus is ubiquitous organisms present everywhere and always, they only need fertile soil to grow. The only reason normal human beings are not affected by funguses is due to the active role of our immune system, whenever it is impaired, as happens in uncontrolled Diabetes- fungal infections causing itching, or sores develop, especially in moist areas like between toes and fingers.
Boils and pimples are also frequent in Diabetes-
Reason again being the presence of causative microbes on the skin surface which are warded off by our immune system, but once it becomes weak as in uncontrolled Diabetes,
pathogens take over and run havoc with our skin.
Urinary tract infections
which cause pain and burning while passing urine or frequent urges to pass urine is also very frequent in uncontrolled Diabetes.
Thus, there’s one more reason for controlling Diabetes -To stay healthy and quickly recover from unavoidable common infections.
Non - Caloric Sweeteners
Use by diabetes allowed in moderation (10 -12 tablets per day); fear that its use may lead to cancer is misplaced, especially if used in moderation; each tablet contains 12 mg approx., permissible doses up to 500 mg per day in children and up to 1000 mg/day in adults; such high intake not advisable; non caloric; may leave a bitter after taste, avoid in pregnancy
FOODS to be avoided
Below is a list of foods to avoid. Some will be obvious – others less so.
• Sugar and artificial sweeteners, including honey. The only allowed sweetener is stevia. (Sugar is a problem as it is addictive. I suggest you cut down gradually until you can do without. The other option is to go 'cold turkey' and stop it altogether. This will give you withdrawal symptoms, just like stopping any other addictive drug. But this will wear off within about two weeks.)
• Sweets and chocolates, including so-called sugar-free types. (If you want a chocolate treat, say once a week, then eat Continental dark chocolate with 70% or more cocoa solids, not the British stuff where sugar is the first named ingredient.)
• Foods which contain significant proportions of things whose ingredients end in -ol or -ose as these are sugars (the only exception is cellulose, which is a form of dietary fibre)
• "Diet" and "sugar-free" foods (except sugar-free jelly)
• Grains and foods made from them: wheat, rye, barley, corn, rice, bread, pasta, pastry, cakes, biscuits, pies, tarts, breakfast cereals, et cetera.
• Starchy vegetables: potatoes and parsnips in particular; and go easy with beet, carrots, peas, beans, et cetera and packets of mixed vegetables which might contain them
• Beans with the exception of runner beans
• Milk (except in small quantities)
• Sweetened, fruit and low-fat yogurts
• Cottage cheese (except in small amounts)
• Beware of commercially packaged foods such as TV dinners, "lean" or "light" in particular, and fast foods, snack foods and "health foods".
• Fruit juices, as these are much higher in carbs than fresh fruit. (If you like fruit juices as a drink, dilute about 1 part fruit juice with 2-4 parts water.)
There is nothing left to eat?
there are some foods you can eat:
• All meat — lamb, beef, pork, bacon, etc
• include the organ meats: liver, kidneys, heart, as these contain the widest range of the vitamins and minerals your body needs (weight for weight, liver has 4 times as much Vitamin C as apples and pears, for example);
• All poultry: chicken (with the skin on), goose, duck, turkey, etc. But be aware that turkey is very low in fat, so fat needs to be added.
• Continental sausage (beware of British sausage which usually has a high cereal content.)
• All animal and meat fats – without restriction – never cut the fat off meat.
• Fish and seafood of all types
• Eggs (no limit, but avoid "omega-3 eggs" as these have been artificially fed which upsets the natural fatty acid profile)
• All cheeses (except cottage cheese as this has a high carb content and very little fat)
• butter and cream (put butter on cooked veges instead of gravy; use cream in hot drinks in place of milk)
• Plain, natural full-fat yogurt
• Vegetables and fruits as allowed by carb content. (See tables below)
• Condiments: pepper, salt, mustard, herbs and spices
• Soy products are allowed but, as many are toxic, I don't recommend them
