“No matter how serious your diabetes might be at diagnosis, it is unique among the serious chronic diseases in that it is the only condition where you, the patient, with only a small amount of help from your doctor and no heroic medical interventions can achieve normal health.” Borrowed from the very beginning of this book, this quote poses two very important questions: Can you trust the professionals (Doctors, Organizations, and etc…) and more importantly, can you trust you (!)?
So how can sugar cause such reckless and seemingly endless consequential symptoms? Is it the doctor, is it because you’re obese due to a sedentary lifestyle, or is it because of the mad world we have created? Here are Jenna’s feelings: “You didn’t cause your diabetes through reckless overeating and criminal laziness… diabetes is not caused by obesity”; “Unless you have damaged genes, you can eat until you drop and though you may get very fat and develop quite a few other health problems, your blood sugar will remain functional and you will never develop diabetes.”
Agree or disagree? You do not have to decide now, but you will, and I myself will uncover my decision shortly.
INSULIN
Type 2 diabetes results from receptors not responding appropriately to the hormone insulin. Insulin is responsible for opening the cell’s front door and letting glucose (sugar) enter. Normally, cells accept glucose when they need it for energy purposes or it can be stored for later use as glycogen in our muscles and liver. When the dead bolt is jammed and insulin is incapable of transferring sugar into the cell, it builds up in the blood, your organs began to fail, and you die (<- Long story short, you don’t actually die after nine syllables).
Insulin is produced by the beta cells of the pancreas. Unfortunately, the pancreas is also responsible for the release of digestive enzymes which aid in chemically eating your food. Unfortunately because this is one area I would have to disagree with Jenna. Our bodies are very interconnected, especially when one organ is responsible for two very important functions. If one were to fail, do you think that would affect the other? It most certainly would, hence why overeating and consuming the wrong foods and beverages can overwhelm your pancreas and inadvertently overwhelm the beta cells too.
PHASES OF INSULIN RELEASE
There are two phases of insulin release:
The first phase keeps a small amount of insulin in your blood stream at all times.
Lost in pre-diabetes – Losing this function does not make you diabetic, clinically speaking.
The second phase is the real time release – when you eat
Phases out when you officially become diagnosed.
In a three year study performed in Mexico City, blood sugars were shown to change rapidly to dangerous levels without previous history of such levels. These changes, averaging 108mg/dL/surge, were masked by levels that were consistent with the levels of those whose levels remained normal throughout the study. How can this be?
ENERGY RESERVES
Your body knows when you need energy and your body knows how to interpret the signals in order to achieve wellness within. If these signals get messed up—cells not getting sugar due to insulin malfunctioning—your body kick starts its internal generator. Keep in mind, if insulin is unable to get glucose into the cell, the glucose remains in your blood. The generator consists of the liver and your muscles. It is here that stored glycogen (stored sugar) can be transformed into a usable energy and released into the blood stream, and then insulin takes over…but (?)…
Eventually, even your stored glucose can run out, but your body has methods to get around this too. Protein from food can be converted to sugar, and if that runs out, protein from your muscles will be utilized. It is a vicious cycle that ends in death after a late diagnosis.
LATE DIAGNOSIS
“Only when your beta cells can’t bring your blood sugar down to near normal levels after eight hours will you be diagnosed as diabetic by a doctor who relies on the fasting blood sugar test. Unfortunately, it is this fasting blood sugar test alone that most doctors use to screen for diabetes. This means you may actually have had diabetes for up to a decade before your doctor gives you a formal diagnosis.”
BETA CELLS
Infections, toxic chemicals, pesticides, drugs, and pancreatic tumors can all cripple your beta cells, but obesity is often being labeled as the prime suspect. Obesity has its health hazards, but a Mayo Clinic study with autopsied pancreases from patients whose medical histories were known, tells a slightly different story. Each autopsied patient was obese but each autopsied patient revealed something different depending on their blood sugar levels:
Normal levels: 50% more beta cells than normal – grew new ones
Prediabetic levels: lost 40%
Diabetic levels: Lost 63%
These results do not paint an image of being obese as a worthy opportunity, they paint a picture of our bodies being able to adapt to their environments. Be warned, over-adapting downgrades your health and will eventually overwhelm you.
GENETICS & OBESITY
“They are finding that to develop diabetes, you need to have at least one of many different metabolic flaws. Most of these flaws appear to be genetic in origin. Some are inherited, but others are caused by exposure to chemical toxins.” The twin studies are available to clearly distinguish whether diabetes is genetic (it is), but does that mean bad habits are not to blame in these studies (Jenna believes so)?
A lot of bad habits involve putting our bodies into compromised situations by indulging in the foods we eat and the lifestyles we lead. The actions we take and the meals we chew do indeed affect our genetics, thus our environment affects our genes. We then unzip these freshly battered and abused genes and pass them on to the next generation.
In a study comparing lean individuals with insulin resistance to lean individuals with normal insulin sensitivity, glucose was found to convert differently. Those with insulin resistance converted it into triglycerides, a trend leading to abdominal obesity. As for the non-resisters, they converted it into glycogen appropriately. Here is where Jenna incorporates her belief that low carb diets lead to weight gain, not fat. David provides statistics that shed some light on this: “Between 1976 and 2000, America has decreased its fat intake by 11% and its calories by 4%, yet obesity is up an astounding 31%!”
TOXINS
As for environmental toxins, they too have been found to influence diabetes. In an Indian study where subjects of equal body sizes were compared, PCBs in the blood translated to 4x more diabetes, and pesticides translated to even higher numbers.
A CDC study found that 92%, of the 2,500 subjects tested, had BPA in their urine—animal studies have shown that BPA reduces insulin sensitivity.
Some drugs linked to diabetes:
Beta-blockers
Antipsychotics
Steroids
Chemotherapy
Anti-rejection
SSRIs
FOOD
A diabetic diet is geared towards lowering blood sugar and reclaiming stability within the body. Jenna starts out by offering three ways to effectively lower blood sugar:
Diet
Carbs should be lowered.
Fat doesn’t affect blood sugar.
Protein can affect blood sugar, but it takes roughly seven hours for it to be converted by the liver.
Portion control
It is vital that you know what you are eating while avoiding the temptation to overdo it, an activity no body should have to adapt to.
Add Low Carb Veggies & Berries
Shown to improve blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides.
CARBOHYDRATES
When you begin to reduce the amount of carbs that you will be eating, your body will resort to fisticuffs. Your body became all too well acquainted with your previous dietary habits and relies on you for that continued activity. When you lower your carb intake, your body will feel starved, even though it most certainly is not, and will signal your brain to urge you into eating more, like you used to. Cravings are born and one can even experience false hypoglycemic events.
During these times, when people have their brains playing tricks on them, Jenna recommends low carb snacks and this advice: “We do this knowing that an occasional spike is not going to kill us as likely as we are meeting our blood sugar targets most of the time.” She is referring to off-meals or planned cheating, which she believes is okay once in a while and terms it a “safety valve.”
SAFE CHEATING
The only thing effective about “safety valve” eating is the guarantee that you will never overcome your cravings and you will continue to eat yourself to death with unsafe blood sugars. Jenna has been on a low-carb diet for six years and she still has cravings! Her belief that self denial of carbs should not be monk-like is her rational for why cheating has become okay in her life. She believes eating the things that you have always eaten and have always loved is vitally important to maintaining this diet.
Honestly, how can a diet be effectively modified if one is only modifying around the current diet to make it work? There is no compromising with disease, you cannot work around its edges and expect it to remain dormant and never conquer our richly disease-promoted bodies. Cravings can be tough, but they can also be eliminated. Diets fail because they always aim to work around the edges of the current dietary choices. Jenna believes a “restrictive” diet will lead to a failed diet and binges of the bad foods, but cravings are the culprit, and if you maintain them, they will thrive.
It is also important to recognize that most of the foods consumed today, did not exist many yesterdays ago. We created them. We developed cravings. We fell in love with the killer. And to say that these foods are a necessity and a past-time is completely untrue.
LOW BLOOD SUGAR RAISING FOODS
Jenna does offer the benefits of low blood sugar raising foods:
You stop feeling hungry after a couple of weeks.
Your cravings begin to disappear.
Never completely, unless you choose that path.
Your sense of taste changes.
Vegetables taste better and sweets can become unpleasant.
FAT
Another area that is quite misleading: Jenna claims she lost 18% of her body weight on a low-carb diet and this was driven by her belief that no one should worry about fat because it is not evil. Jenna falls into the category that motivated me to gather all of the interconnections among diseases, especially the lifestyle modifications that have proven to be successful. She comes off as believing that curing diabetes with a low-carb diet is the only problem. Yes, this book is clearly diabetes focused, but diets should be focused on the whole of the body because it is the whole of the body that entertains the ability to eliminate disease.
“A healthy low-carb diet should not be a low fat diet, nor should it be a high protein diet.” This is extremely crucial information, but only if read correctly. Eat the healthy fats—she writes about how most people get 60-70% of their calories from fat—and avoid marketing ploys that present protein as healthy only in abundance.
GRAINS
When eaten with a lot of fat, carbs tend to digest at a slower rate. This holds true for pizza and ice-cream which can display deceptively good readings on your glucometer. Pastas, which seem to be resistant to digestion, even the low carb variety, will raise your blood sugar four to five hours later. “Healthy whole grains,” when compared to sugary cereals, do win the fight outright, but they still raise your blood sugar to dangerously high levels.
SUGAR-FREE & ARTIFICIAL FOODS
As for those sugar-free foods and ones containing sugar alcohols, they are just a bunch of lab created carbs. Lab created does not mean perfect and it most certainly does not mean human ready or even capable. These carbs break down into glucose within our bodies, but only if we have the enzyme to do so. Those lacking this enzyme have to deal with bowel symptoms such as diarrhea and gas (enjoy!). Artificial sweeteners have also been shown to increase appetites in both humans and rodents (MSG mentioned).
SUPPLEMENTS
Jenna starts this section with a very important topic: The regulation of supplements. Unfortunately, supplements often contain fillers, non-nutritive white powder, metal, etc…, and only receive regulation upon lethality. When people die, supplements can get recalled and replaced by new ones the next day. Personally, I cannot believe I can go into a store and purchase papaya enzyme extract pills and avoid the true source of this supposed enzyme.
Jenna mentions some additional supplementing downfalls:
Soy has been shown to be toxic on the thyroid glands and to make users more susceptible to allergies.
Cinnamon studies have not revealed any true effectiveness against diabetes.
Chromium has shown little or no effect on diabetics and non-diabetics.
Selenium has been shown to increase the risk for diabetes.
The best by far, dark chocolate has been shown to lower blood pressure, by two systolic points.
The participants in this study had constant blood pressures in the upper 140s and the endorsed chocolate group showed drops so lacking in benefit, that the patients remained at damaging levels. Unfortunately, the news takes these stories and swindles them into success stories and rationals worthy of a chocolate binge.
FRUCTOSE
Jenna also mentions fructose and purports that all fructose is bad for diabetes. Fructose is found in all fruits, honey, and most notably in products that contain high fructose corn syrup. She writes that fructose enters the body then “beelines for the liver” and becomes fat, a process that leads to increased insulin resistance and decreased leptin, a protein responsible for the regulation of appetite and body fat levels. Although she recommends low carb berries, she rather recklessly groups all fructose-containing foods together. With a little common sense, one can see why a piece of fruit and a manufactured product high in high fructose corn syrup should not be grouped together.
EXERCISE
Exercise increases our muscles’ sensitivity to insulin both during and for a few hours after the activity. As an added benefit, exercise builds more muscle which in turn can become even more sensitive to insulin. This is absolutely amazing, but everything needs to be balanced.
Jenna writes about the importance of:
Being Safe
Protecting our Joints
Not Overdoing It
Not Overstimulating our Hearts
Both walking and swimming are effective means of exercise and both can eliminate many of the problems associated with exercise. Those with diabetes often have tendon thickening which causes compression of the nerves (pain), thus the importance of adequate but safe exercise. Jenna also recommends avoiding sports drinks when exercising because they tend to skyrocket your blood sugar.
DIABETES WITHOUT LIFESTYLE MODIFICATIONS
NEUROPATHY
“Neuropathy did not correlate to any particular fasting blood sugar level, nor did it correlate to any particular A1C level (some believe A1C just measures at two weeks rather than three months)!” The length of pain experienced by the patients did however correlate with how high over 140mg/dL they were—140mg/dL is considered a “mildly elevated level” or pre-diabetic level, but nerve damage occurs after two hours of being at or above this level.
Sadly, most have it when they are finally diagnosed with diabetes, even those without the diagnosis tend to operate with some diabetic symptoms. Nerves are responsible for a lot more than pain…
Bood pressure
Heart beat
Sexual response
Movement of food through the digestive tract
Immunity
INFECTIONS
If there is one thing diabetics are known for, it is their ample ability to harvest infections like a preschool classroom. This interference with the nerve-brain connection does lead to infections and often amputations or organ failure. Jenna writes that amputations are the result of the inability our nervous system in signaling that an attack is taking place while there is a clogging (excess glucose) of the vessels supplying the much needed nutrients to the nerves. In short, the nerves die while vessels clog almost simultaneously and then you get the big chop!
SAFE BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS
In another study performed by a doctor within an acute care setting (intensive care unit), he was able to reduce the patient death rate by 29.3%. He achieved these results by utilizing insulin to keep their blood sugars below 140mg/dL, at all times. Kidney failure and their stay times within the ICU were also reduced. Imagine if their blood sugars were kept at much lower levels, no where near the currently accepted pre-diabetic levels.
110mg/dL is another level considered to be within acceptable limits, even more so than that mentioned above. Apparently levels where beta cells start to die off is considered normal. Apparently it is okay to promote death within our society. It does depend on how long we are exposed to these levels, but should we be exposed at all? A rat cell study in accordance with this study found that if the failing rat beta cells were taken out of high concentrations of sugar and placed in lower concentrations, they could revive (we can too).
RETINOPATHY
In a large study among pre-diabetics, it was revealed that one in twelve had retinopathy changes (vision changes). They developed “diabetic” retinopathy despite the fact that they did not reach those diagnosing levels.
A Swedish study that consisted of 64,597 participants, for duration of ten years, found a link between cancer and diabetes. When blood sugar levels were over 110mg/dL or over 160mg/dL after a glucose tolerance test, there was a very strong increase in cancer. No one can hide, as evidenced by the fact that body weight did not play a role in these results, but everyone can find it in themselves to make healthier choices.
According to the Framinham Heart Study, LDL nor total cholesterol predict heart attacks, triglycerides and the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL are the true predictors. Handcrafted sugars have been linked to heart attacks and seem to be the reason why half of all people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels. How about at the “normal” pre-diabetic levels? Your risk more than doubles!
A1C
I briefly mentioned the A1C above and I bring it up again in order to make a few more studies and their results a little more significant. This test measures the amount glucose carried by red blood cells and translates the results into how well you are managing your diabetes over a longer period. A blood cell’s lifespan is typically around 120 days and this test is used to measure your average levels within a three month span. As I mentioned earlier and although this method is considered a go-to gold standard, it is still debated as to how effective it really is, but this method needs to be understood for your own health and wellbeing.
Independent of…
Age
Body Mass Index
Waste-to-Hip Ratio
Systolic Blood Pressure
Serum Cholesterol Concentration
Cigarette Smoking
History of Cardiovascular Disease
…one study found that the A1C is more effective at predicting heart attack risk. Those with an A1C of less than 5% had the lowest risk (more on percentage levels soon). Another study found that 4.6% showed the lowest risk and risk only doubled with every one percent increment. A 4.6% A1C is thought to translate to an average blood sugar of 86mg/dL.
DIABETICS DESTINED TO DETERIORATE?
Within the text, Jenna brings up a toxic myth claiming that you must deteriorate. A huge study, the UKPDS (UK Prospective Diabetes Study) “proved” that we indeed must deteriorate and that there is nothing we can do. Unfortunately, doctors rely on this information and use it as rational for not recommending lifestyle modifications to their patients. This study monitored glucose control and found that no matter how well the participants controlled their levels, they all deteriorated.
I forgot to mention—doctors also forget to read this too—the “good control” in this study was an A1C level of 7.0%! What was it that I said before (?), risk doubles every one percent increment and this is a two point four percent increment! The “good control” on this commonly called upon study translates to an average blood sugar somewhere around 172mg/dL! Jenna brings some amazing insight here: remember that this is an average level and does no justice to the ranges experienced. Blood sugars can be spiking over three hundred for a couple hours and drop to seventy, resulting in the previously mentioned average (this is an extremely scary notion).
“Think of it this way: How would you feel if your doctor said that most patients who quit smoking develop lung cancer—after defining ‘quit smoking’ as smoked fifteen cigarettes a day?”
A Japanese study very similar (very) to the big UKPDS study found different results. They carried out their research by keeping the A1Cs of their participants steady. By lowering post meal blood sugars (stabilization), the results revealed little or no deterioration. The average A1C achieved in this study was 7.0%, just as in the UKPDS. I do not feel I need to say any more…
CONCLUSION
Chronic diseases such as diabetes take time to develop. Time consists of micro-damages adding up and compacting into more widespread damage. This damage can often be termed with the prefix “pre”, or as we know it, not that important right now. Unfortunately, these prefixed terms are often misplaced and cause more than enough damage and destruction within the lives of many. We do not need to be relegated to a lifestyle fixated in impossibilities and safety zones that provide only the premise of protection. It is so hard to find your way through life in a manner that is both healthy and enjoyable. Even those that have found much success often get lost in the confusional mess and lose their way. Evolve your life around being healthy and avoid placing habits and addictiveness at your center. It is you that needs to be maintained and cared for, not some silly external factors.
Diabetes: Type Avoidable
After reading: Blood Sugar 101: What They Don’t Tell You About Diabetes By Jenny Ruhl
“No matter how serious your diabetes might be at diagnosis, it is unique among the serious chronic diseases in that it is the only condition where you, the patient, with only a small amount of help from your doctor and no heroic medical interventions can achieve normal health.” Borrowed from the very beginning of this book, this quote poses two very important questions: Can you trust the professionals (Doctors, Organizations, and etc…) and more importantly, can you trust you (!)?
So how can sugar cause such reckless and seemingly endless consequential symptoms? Is it the doctor, is it because you’re obese due to a sedentary lifestyle, or is it because of the mad world we have created? Here are Jenna’s feelings: “You didn’t cause your diabetes through reckless overeating and criminal laziness… diabetes is not caused by obesity”; “Unless you have damaged genes, you can eat until you drop and though you may get very fat and develop quite a few other health problems, your blood sugar will remain functional and you will never develop diabetes.”
Agree or disagree? You do not have to decide now, but you will, and I myself will uncover my decision shortly.
INSULIN
Type 2 diabetes results from receptors not responding appropriately to the hormone insulin. Insulin is responsible for opening the cell’s front door and letting glucose (sugar) enter. Normally, cells accept glucose when they need it for energy purposes or it can be stored for later use as glycogen in our muscles and liver. When the dead bolt is jammed and insulin is incapable of transferring sugar into the cell, it builds up in the blood, your organs began to fail, and you die (<- Long story short, you don’t actually die after nine syllables).
Insulin is produced by the beta cells of the pancreas. Unfortunately, the pancreas is also responsible for the release of digestive enzymes which aid in chemically eating your food. Unfortunately because this is one area I would have to disagree with Jenna. Our bodies are very interconnected, especially when one organ is responsible for two very important functions. If one were to fail, do you think that would affect the other? It most certainly would, hence why overeating and consuming the wrong foods and beverages can overwhelm your pancreas and inadvertently overwhelm the beta cells too.
PHASES OF INSULIN RELEASE
There are two phases of insulin release:
In a three year study performed in Mexico City, blood sugars were shown to change rapidly to dangerous levels without previous history of such levels. These changes, averaging 108mg/dL/surge, were masked by levels that were consistent with the levels of those whose levels remained normal throughout the study. How can this be?
ENERGY RESERVES
Your body knows when you need energy and your body knows how to interpret the signals in order to achieve wellness within. If these signals get messed up—cells not getting sugar due to insulin malfunctioning—your body kick starts its internal generator. Keep in mind, if insulin is unable to get glucose into the cell, the glucose remains in your blood. The generator consists of the liver and your muscles. It is here that stored glycogen (stored sugar) can be transformed into a usable energy and released into the blood stream, and then insulin takes over…but (?)…
Eventually, even your stored glucose can run out, but your body has methods to get around this too. Protein from food can be converted to sugar, and if that runs out, protein from your muscles will be utilized. It is a vicious cycle that ends in death after a late diagnosis.
LATE DIAGNOSIS
“Only when your beta cells can’t bring your blood sugar down to near normal levels after eight hours will you be diagnosed as diabetic by a doctor who relies on the fasting blood sugar test. Unfortunately, it is this fasting blood sugar test alone that most doctors use to screen for diabetes. This means you may actually have had diabetes for up to a decade before your doctor gives you a formal diagnosis.”
BETA CELLS
Infections, toxic chemicals, pesticides, drugs, and pancreatic tumors can all cripple your beta cells, but obesity is often being labeled as the prime suspect. Obesity has its health hazards, but a Mayo Clinic study with autopsied pancreases from patients whose medical histories were known, tells a slightly different story. Each autopsied patient was obese but each autopsied patient revealed something different depending on their blood sugar levels:
These results do not paint an image of being obese as a worthy opportunity, they paint a picture of our bodies being able to adapt to their environments. Be warned, over-adapting downgrades your health and will eventually overwhelm you.
GENETICS & OBESITY
“They are finding that to develop diabetes, you need to have at least one of many different metabolic flaws. Most of these flaws appear to be genetic in origin. Some are inherited, but others are caused by exposure to chemical toxins.” The twin studies are available to clearly distinguish whether diabetes is genetic (it is), but does that mean bad habits are not to blame in these studies (Jenna believes so)?
A lot of bad habits involve putting our bodies into compromised situations by indulging in the foods we eat and the lifestyles we lead. The actions we take and the meals we chew do indeed affect our genetics, thus our environment affects our genes. We then unzip these freshly battered and abused genes and pass them on to the next generation.
In a study comparing lean individuals with insulin resistance to lean individuals with normal insulin sensitivity, glucose was found to convert differently. Those with insulin resistance converted it into triglycerides, a trend leading to abdominal obesity. As for the non-resisters, they converted it into glycogen appropriately. Here is where Jenna incorporates her belief that low carb diets lead to weight gain, not fat. David provides statistics that shed some light on this: “Between 1976 and 2000, America has decreased its fat intake by 11% and its calories by 4%, yet obesity is up an astounding 31%!”
TOXINS
As for environmental toxins, they too have been found to influence diabetes. In an Indian study where subjects of equal body sizes were compared, PCBs in the blood translated to 4x more diabetes, and pesticides translated to even higher numbers.
A CDC study found that 92%, of the 2,500 subjects tested, had BPA in their urine—animal studies have shown that BPA reduces insulin sensitivity.
Some drugs linked to diabetes:
FOOD
A diabetic diet is geared towards lowering blood sugar and reclaiming stability within the body. Jenna starts out by offering three ways to effectively lower blood sugar:
CARBOHYDRATES
When you begin to reduce the amount of carbs that you will be eating, your body will resort to fisticuffs. Your body became all too well acquainted with your previous dietary habits and relies on you for that continued activity. When you lower your carb intake, your body will feel starved, even though it most certainly is not, and will signal your brain to urge you into eating more, like you used to. Cravings are born and one can even experience false hypoglycemic events.
During these times, when people have their brains playing tricks on them, Jenna recommends low carb snacks and this advice: “We do this knowing that an occasional spike is not going to kill us as likely as we are meeting our blood sugar targets most of the time.” She is referring to off-meals or planned cheating, which she believes is okay once in a while and terms it a “safety valve.”
SAFE CHEATING
The only thing effective about “safety valve” eating is the guarantee that you will never overcome your cravings and you will continue to eat yourself to death with unsafe blood sugars. Jenna has been on a low-carb diet for six years and she still has cravings! Her belief that self denial of carbs should not be monk-like is her rational for why cheating has become okay in her life. She believes eating the things that you have always eaten and have always loved is vitally important to maintaining this diet.
Honestly, how can a diet be effectively modified if one is only modifying around the current diet to make it work? There is no compromising with disease, you cannot work around its edges and expect it to remain dormant and never conquer our richly disease-promoted bodies. Cravings can be tough, but they can also be eliminated. Diets fail because they always aim to work around the edges of the current dietary choices. Jenna believes a “restrictive” diet will lead to a failed diet and binges of the bad foods, but cravings are the culprit, and if you maintain them, they will thrive.
It is also important to recognize that most of the foods consumed today, did not exist many yesterdays ago. We created them. We developed cravings. We fell in love with the killer. And to say that these foods are a necessity and a past-time is completely untrue.
LOW BLOOD SUGAR RAISING FOODS
Jenna does offer the benefits of low blood sugar raising foods:
FAT
Another area that is quite misleading: Jenna claims she lost 18% of her body weight on a low-carb diet and this was driven by her belief that no one should worry about fat because it is not evil. Jenna falls into the category that motivated me to gather all of the interconnections among diseases, especially the lifestyle modifications that have proven to be successful. She comes off as believing that curing diabetes with a low-carb diet is the only problem. Yes, this book is clearly diabetes focused, but diets should be focused on the whole of the body because it is the whole of the body that entertains the ability to eliminate disease.
“A healthy low-carb diet should not be a low fat diet, nor should it be a high protein diet.” This is extremely crucial information, but only if read correctly. Eat the healthy fats—she writes about how most people get 60-70% of their calories from fat—and avoid marketing ploys that present protein as healthy only in abundance.
GRAINS
When eaten with a lot of fat, carbs tend to digest at a slower rate. This holds true for pizza and ice-cream which can display deceptively good readings on your glucometer. Pastas, which seem to be resistant to digestion, even the low carb variety, will raise your blood sugar four to five hours later. “Healthy whole grains,” when compared to sugary cereals, do win the fight outright, but they still raise your blood sugar to dangerously high levels.
SUGAR-FREE & ARTIFICIAL FOODS
As for those sugar-free foods and ones containing sugar alcohols, they are just a bunch of lab created carbs. Lab created does not mean perfect and it most certainly does not mean human ready or even capable. These carbs break down into glucose within our bodies, but only if we have the enzyme to do so. Those lacking this enzyme have to deal with bowel symptoms such as diarrhea and gas (enjoy!). Artificial sweeteners have also been shown to increase appetites in both humans and rodents (MSG mentioned).
SUPPLEMENTS
Jenna starts this section with a very important topic: The regulation of supplements. Unfortunately, supplements often contain fillers, non-nutritive white powder, metal, etc…, and only receive regulation upon lethality. When people die, supplements can get recalled and replaced by new ones the next day. Personally, I cannot believe I can go into a store and purchase papaya enzyme extract pills and avoid the true source of this supposed enzyme.
Jenna mentions some additional supplementing downfalls:
FRUCTOSE
Jenna also mentions fructose and purports that all fructose is bad for diabetes. Fructose is found in all fruits, honey, and most notably in products that contain high fructose corn syrup. She writes that fructose enters the body then “beelines for the liver” and becomes fat, a process that leads to increased insulin resistance and decreased leptin, a protein responsible for the regulation of appetite and body fat levels. Although she recommends low carb berries, she rather recklessly groups all fructose-containing foods together. With a little common sense, one can see why a piece of fruit and a manufactured product high in high fructose corn syrup should not be grouped together.
EXERCISE
Exercise increases our muscles’ sensitivity to insulin both during and for a few hours after the activity. As an added benefit, exercise builds more muscle which in turn can become even more sensitive to insulin. This is absolutely amazing, but everything needs to be balanced.
Jenna writes about the importance of:
Both walking and swimming are effective means of exercise and both can eliminate many of the problems associated with exercise. Those with diabetes often have tendon thickening which causes compression of the nerves (pain), thus the importance of adequate but safe exercise. Jenna also recommends avoiding sports drinks when exercising because they tend to skyrocket your blood sugar.
DIABETES WITHOUT LIFESTYLE MODIFICATIONS
NEUROPATHY
“Neuropathy did not correlate to any particular fasting blood sugar level, nor did it correlate to any particular A1C level (some believe A1C just measures at two weeks rather than three months)!” The length of pain experienced by the patients did however correlate with how high over 140mg/dL they were—140mg/dL is considered a “mildly elevated level” or pre-diabetic level, but nerve damage occurs after two hours of being at or above this level.
Sadly, most have it when they are finally diagnosed with diabetes, even those without the diagnosis tend to operate with some diabetic symptoms. Nerves are responsible for a lot more than pain…
INFECTIONS
If there is one thing diabetics are known for, it is their ample ability to harvest infections like a preschool classroom. This interference with the nerve-brain connection does lead to infections and often amputations or organ failure. Jenna writes that amputations are the result of the inability our nervous system in signaling that an attack is taking place while there is a clogging (excess glucose) of the vessels supplying the much needed nutrients to the nerves. In short, the nerves die while vessels clog almost simultaneously and then you get the big chop!
SAFE BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS
In another study performed by a doctor within an acute care setting (intensive care unit), he was able to reduce the patient death rate by 29.3%. He achieved these results by utilizing insulin to keep their blood sugars below 140mg/dL, at all times. Kidney failure and their stay times within the ICU were also reduced. Imagine if their blood sugars were kept at much lower levels, no where near the currently accepted pre-diabetic levels.
110mg/dL is another level considered to be within acceptable limits, even more so than that mentioned above. Apparently levels where beta cells start to die off is considered normal. Apparently it is okay to promote death within our society. It does depend on how long we are exposed to these levels, but should we be exposed at all? A rat cell study in accordance with this study found that if the failing rat beta cells were taken out of high concentrations of sugar and placed in lower concentrations, they could revive (we can too).
RETINOPATHY
In a large study among pre-diabetics, it was revealed that one in twelve had retinopathy changes (vision changes). They developed “diabetic” retinopathy despite the fact that they did not reach those diagnosing levels.
CANCER
A Swedish study that consisted of 64,597 participants, for duration of ten years, found a link between cancer and diabetes. When blood sugar levels were over 110mg/dL or over 160mg/dL after a glucose tolerance test, there was a very strong increase in cancer. No one can hide, as evidenced by the fact that body weight did not play a role in these results, but everyone can find it in themselves to make healthier choices.
HEART DISEASE
According to the Framinham Heart Study, LDL nor total cholesterol predict heart attacks, triglycerides and the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL are the true predictors. Handcrafted sugars have been linked to heart attacks and seem to be the reason why half of all people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels. How about at the “normal” pre-diabetic levels? Your risk more than doubles!
A1C
I briefly mentioned the A1C above and I bring it up again in order to make a few more studies and their results a little more significant. This test measures the amount glucose carried by red blood cells and translates the results into how well you are managing your diabetes over a longer period. A blood cell’s lifespan is typically around 120 days and this test is used to measure your average levels within a three month span. As I mentioned earlier and although this method is considered a go-to gold standard, it is still debated as to how effective it really is, but this method needs to be understood for your own health and wellbeing.
Independent of…
…one study found that the A1C is more effective at predicting heart attack risk. Those with an A1C of less than 5% had the lowest risk (more on percentage levels soon). Another study found that 4.6% showed the lowest risk and risk only doubled with every one percent increment. A 4.6% A1C is thought to translate to an average blood sugar of 86mg/dL.
DIABETICS DESTINED TO DETERIORATE?
Within the text, Jenna brings up a toxic myth claiming that you must deteriorate. A huge study, the UKPDS (UK Prospective Diabetes Study) “proved” that we indeed must deteriorate and that there is nothing we can do. Unfortunately, doctors rely on this information and use it as rational for not recommending lifestyle modifications to their patients. This study monitored glucose control and found that no matter how well the participants controlled their levels, they all deteriorated.
I forgot to mention—doctors also forget to read this too—the “good control” in this study was an A1C level of 7.0%! What was it that I said before (?), risk doubles every one percent increment and this is a two point four percent increment! The “good control” on this commonly called upon study translates to an average blood sugar somewhere around 172mg/dL! Jenna brings some amazing insight here: remember that this is an average level and does no justice to the ranges experienced. Blood sugars can be spiking over three hundred for a couple hours and drop to seventy, resulting in the previously mentioned average (this is an extremely scary notion).
“Think of it this way: How would you feel if your doctor said that most patients who quit smoking develop lung cancer—after defining ‘quit smoking’ as smoked fifteen cigarettes a day?”
A Japanese study very similar (very) to the big UKPDS study found different results. They carried out their research by keeping the A1Cs of their participants steady. By lowering post meal blood sugars (stabilization), the results revealed little or no deterioration. The average A1C achieved in this study was 7.0%, just as in the UKPDS. I do not feel I need to say any more…
CONCLUSION
Chronic diseases such as diabetes take time to develop. Time consists of micro-damages adding up and compacting into more widespread damage. This damage can often be termed with the prefix “pre”, or as we know it, not that important right now. Unfortunately, these prefixed terms are often misplaced and cause more than enough damage and destruction within the lives of many. We do not need to be relegated to a lifestyle fixated in impossibilities and safety zones that provide only the premise of protection. It is so hard to find your way through life in a manner that is both healthy and enjoyable. Even those that have found much success often get lost in the confusional mess and lose their way. Evolve your life around being healthy and avoid placing habits and addictiveness at your center. It is you that needs to be maintained and cared for, not some silly external factors.
Do you have diabetes?
What lifestyle modifications have helped you?
What are your feelings on nutrition and diabetes?
Don’t forget to sign up for the Newsletter and to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
Related posts: