Posts Tagged ‘Diabetes’

A diabetic diet is a diet that is the opposite of the one that produced the condition. Diabetes comes from the standard American diet. Americans are in a diabetic mode; from the young to the elderly this disease seems to be having sweet success.

DIABETES

Diabetes comes in two forms type-1 and type-2. Western medicine makes a case for these two types having different prognosis, and outcomes. It is prevailing wisdom that type-2 is brought on by lifestyle, genes, and obesity. This is considered the easier one to manage.

Rather than concentrate on the differences we must realize both are becoming more prevalent.

LOW CARB DIET

The emphasis is on a well balanced diet. That is the same diet that is recommended across the land. Foods are divided into five main groups. One of those groups is grains. Because this is a prevalent and inexpensive food it dominates the food chart.

The problem with that is what does well balance mean. The Inuit (Eskimos) had a diet high in protein and good fats, with little else. The Native Americans had a diet that didn’t meet the criteria of today’s well balance diet.

For both of those groups all forms of diabetes wasn’t a health problem. It just about didn’t exist until they were introduced to the foods that American’s consume on a regular basis.

HIGH CARB DIET

Type-2 diabetes is a consequence of eating a high-carbohydrate diet. This includes high amounts of sugars and starches. The current healthy diet recommendations include a high intake of carbohydrates.

The “balanced” diet that is proclaimed to be healthy is a sugar high diet. It is not only loaded with the sweet taste, it is heavy on starches that turn to sugar.

SWEETS

Sweets cast a deep shadow across the land. For all the joy people think they get from a sugary treat, there are jaw-dropping consequences. That is a blue-ribbon statement. We live in a country hooked on sugar.

The connection between sugar and health has been studied and published. However, you will not see it in most printed main stream publications. The spotlight seems to be on how to bake, and celebrate every special occasion with a sweet concoction.

SUGAR

The profile of sugar

1. Sugar is an immune system suppressor.

2. Sugar is usually the cause of high triglycerides and bad cholesterol.

3. Sugar reduces the good cholesterol.

4. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.

5. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose.

6. Sugar causes tooth decay, and periodontal disease.

7. Sugar causes a decrease in your insulin sensitivity.

8. Sugar can cause depression.

9. Sugar depletes your store of vitamins and minerals.

10. Sugar can make a toothless smile

In America you are told even if you are diabetic you can indulge at times. What this means is moderation in the poisons you put into your body.

LOW CARB FOODS

Diabetes may not be caused by obesity, which is why many overweight individuals do not become diabetic. The fact is dietary carbohydrates cause diabetes, and cause obesity. Obesity is evident first so the allopathic medical community ties the two together.

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The type 2 diabetes stupid study will get $1.3 million in new funding from the National Institutes of Health. It is going to be used to continue with the world’s longest running study on obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Arizona Pima Indians

Obesity and diabetes have been described as the major public health concern of the 21st century says Leslie Schulz, executive dean of Northern Arizona University’s study’s principal investigator. “This study is taking those necessary steps toward finding a way to protect people against these pervasive diseases,” she said.

A related study has shown that Pima Indians in Arizona who have a diet and lifestyle similar to most Americans have a much higher rate of diabetes than the national average: 38 percent verses 8 percent nationally, giving them the distinction of being the most diabetes-prone group in the world.

The Arizona Pima Indians have been genetically linked to a village of Pima Indians living a more traditional lifestyle in a remote, mountainous region of Mexico. A 1995 study of the Mexican Pimas revealed only a rare occurrence of diabetes. Schulz explains that the genetic similarities between the two groups of Pima Indians, along with the contrast in their lifestyles, provides an ideal setting to study the relationship between environmental circumstances and diabetes.

The researchers returned in the fall after 15 years to the Mexican village to study the relationship between the Mexican Pima Indians’ increasingly “westernized” lifestyle and their genetic predisposition for obesity and diabetes.

“Since we were last there, the environmental circumstances of the village have changed,” Schulz says, explaining how the electrical supply to the region has increased, cars have become more prevalent and grocery stores have appeared.

She points out that this changing environment affects non-Pima Mexicans who also live in the village as much as it does the Mexican Pima Indians living there.

“These two groups of people have undergone the same lifestyle changes over the past 15 years but they have different genes,” Schulz explains. “Therefore, we hope to separate out the role genes play versus the role lifestyle plays.”

Question

The researchers are attempting to answer why a person who is genetically predisposed to develop diabetes does not develop it.

ANSWER: GENES AREN’T YOUR DESTINY

Just as genes provide the codes for producing proteins, various chemicals called epigenetic marks sit atop genes and offer basic instructions to them, telling them to switch on or off

Biologists offer this analogy as an explanation: if the genome is the hardware, then the epigenome is the software. “I can load Windows, if I want, on my Mac,” says Joseph Ecker, a Salk Institute biologist and leading epigenetic scientist. “You’re going to have the same chip in there, the same genome, but different software. And the outcome is a different cell type.”

At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic “marks” that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.

Save The Money

Save the money, the studies already prove epigenetics is the main factor in gene expression.

There is perception that there isn’t enough evidence to prove that a sugar high-sugar additction is real. There are many dimensions to the sugar high-sugar addiction phenomenon that is sweeping the country.

From Wiki Online

“A sugar “high” occurs when your bloodstream is flooded with glucose, usually produced from ingested carbohydrates which can easily be converted into glucose, such as sugars and certain polymers of sugar, such as starches. Your brain is unique in that it requires glucose, and cannot use other forms of energy such as fats or proteins. So when glucose levels are high in your blood, you feel energized and awake. The state of high blood-glucose levels, through a very fundamental signaling system, triggers the release of insulin from cells in your pancreas. Insulin is a directive for your body to store this extra energy as fat once your glycogen reserve has been topped off (so you can make it through the winter and other times when there may be no food). Therefore, your entire body feels active during a sugar high.”

Sugar Rollercoaster

“On the other hand, a sugar “crash” is probably on the way. If a very large amount of easily broken down carbohydrates is ingested, blood-glucose levels rise rapidly and cause a high degree of insulin release. This creates a sugar “rollercoaster” inside your body as glucose levels are brought down precipitously, to the point where you feel fatigued, tired, and…hungry! Eventually, your body can become resistant to insulin, causing chronic high blood-glucose levels. This is known as hyperglycemia, and is the beginning stage of type II diabetes.”

Craving Sugar

There is such a thing as a sugar high. Also, sugar craving seems to be something that occurs in industrialized societies. This is different than just liking the taste of sweet foods one in awhile.

This is part and parcel of the American Standard Diet. An acronym is the (SAD) diet. That may as well stand for the sugar addiction diet, of the salt addiction diet. Both of these hold true, as all food manufacturing companies understand so well.

Sugar Addiction

Is there such a thing as a recovered sugar addict? This is different that a recovering alcoholic or drug user. Most of our current food supply contains sugar or a sugar substitute. Any sugar substitute sets you up to crave more sweets. 

You can keep a sugar addiction by consuming better forms, such as a high fruit diet. That may not cut it for a true sugar addict. It is a fact that many Americans are addicted to this substance. Without being aware of the reasons for their food preferences, such as pancakes, coffee with sugar, sweet cereals, nearly all restaurant foods have some sugar as an ingredient.

The average American consumes 2-3 pounds of sugar a week. This includes all forms from sucrose (table sugar), dextrose (corn sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is in many processed foods. These include bread, cereal, mayonnaise, peanut butter, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, and most pre-packaged foods.

Wikipedia on Sugar Addiction

There has been reference to the idea of sugar addiction in the popular literature for a number of years.

In 1998, Kathleen DesMaisons outlined the concept of sugar addiction as a measurable physiological state caused by activation of mu-opioid receptors in the brain. Her work extracted data from studies done showing that sugar acted as an analgesic drug whose effects could be blocked by a morphine blocker.

“Recent behavioral tests in rats further back the idea of an overlap between sweets and drugs. Drug addiction often includes three steps.

A person will increase his intake of the drug, experience withdrawal symptoms when access to the drug is cut off and then face an urge to relapse back into drug use.

Rats on sugar have similar experiences. Researchers withheld food for 12 hours and then gave rats food plus sugar water. This created a cycle of binging where the animals increased their daily sugar intake until it doubled. When researchers either stopped the diet or administered an opioid blocker the rats showed signs common to drug withdrawal, such as teeth-chattering and the shakes.

Early findings also indicate signs of relapse. Rats weaned off sugar repeatedly pressed a lever that previously dispensed the sweet solution.”(Leah Ariniello, Brain Briefings, October 2003)