Posts Tagged ‘Inflammation’

Type 2 Diabetes facts are quite different from the hype. The new term is “diabesity” and it is reaching epidemic proportions. It is seen in the aging population, young adults, and youngsters. It is a combination of obesity and diabetes.

Type 2 Diabetes        

“Type 2 diabetes is a lifelong disease that develops when the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin or when the body’s tissues become resistant to insulin. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body’s cells use sugar (glucose) for energy. It also helps the body store extra sugar in muscle, fat, and liver cells.”  This is from MSM healthline.

Type 2 diabetes isn’t a disease; it’s the cumulative effect of lifestyle. This is how the body behaves under certain circumstances. If we call diabetes a disease, which it is not, we do untold damage by trying to put a bandage on it. Medication isn’t going to reverse the condition, it covers up the symptoms.

Lifestyle Factors

Type 2 diabetes isn’t a choice. The lifestyle that leads up to the condition is a choice. This is not something that people think about in that way. However, if obesity rates keep rising there will be more cases than ever before.

Drugs have not been successful in preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes. The clinical cause of diabetes isn’t going to be anything other than lifestyle. Type 2 diabetes is not an illness. The condition starts long before the actual diagnosis.

Studies have shown that type 2 diabetes can be prevented. The fact is by preventing and reversing diabetes you will stave off heart disease and cancer while protecting your brain.

Halting Diabetes

Halting diabetes isn’t as difficult as one would assume. Alternative methods work very well. Most people aren’t well informed and continue to have numerous health problems that follow this condition.

Mainstream medicine doesn’t have a clue to what this condition is, and what it takes to turn it around. All the prescriptions in the world haven’t conquered diabetes. Yet, people who changed their diet were able to not only control the condition, but reverse it.

People assume that there body is a workhorse, which goes on under any conditions. Ultimately it boils down to be the lethal effects of sucrose, and excess calories. Diabetes has become an epidemic as our diets have incorporated more fast food, processed foods, and enormous amounts of food.

The higher the glycemic the diet, the more insulin is released, this leads to inflammation. When you elevate your blood sugar, high glycemic foods promote oxygen free radical processes, Free radicals are highly reactive molecules which damage DNA, and cause inflammation.

The standard American diet is a high glycemic one, with pro-inflammatory sugars and refined carbohydrates. High glycemic diets are directly linked to most chronic conditions. The way to halt diabetes is to watch the glycemic load values of your foods. By remembering that refined foods have high values and minimally processed foods such as vegetables have low values. A whole food diet is a way to halt all chronic conditions.

Glucose

Scientists have known that diabetics have a greater incident of heart attacks, strokes, and some types of cancers. In a study released by John Hopkins University scientist, even healthy people with higher normal blood glucose levels were shown to have more cardiac events.

Excess glucose contributes to arthrosclerosis and heart disease. The point here is the people with higher normal blood glucose levels aren’t completely healthy. Our medical experts wouldn’t know healthy if they fell over it. The medical establishment uses poor guidelines to judge health.

They are disease oriented, not health generating. Studies have documented the fact that higher glucose readings put you at risk for vascular disease. Conventional medicines flawed understanding that glucose metabolism affects the whole body.

Inflammation the Real Problem

Diabetes isn’t just a disease with one dimension it is an inflammation marker. There is research that points to inflammation as a cause of diabetes. It is now thought in some scientific circles that low-grade tissue inflammation related to obesity contributes to insulin resistance, the major cause to type 2 diabetes.

Increased body fat that is associated with obesity is not the direct cause. Obesity can cause inflammation and inflammation can cause obesity. Now if we view diabetes this way we realize we need a holistic healing model to follow.

People who are obese, many times suffer from chronic inflammation and are resistant to insulin, the hormone that removes sugar from the blood and stores it as energy. An interesting point is that rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammatory disease, heightens the risk of developing insulin resistance.

So if inflammation is the cause of diabetes, this disease has to be looked at as a whole body disease. Now that changes the dynamics and the treatment plan.

Taking care of glucose levels with medication is a bandage at most, and at worst it can lead to a further decline in health. That is why people on a whole host of medications wind up with the lethal effects of diabetes anyway.

Inflammation is a major reason why people with diabetes get heart, kidney, eye disease, and cancer. Treat the inflammation with low inflammatory foods and watch the improvement.

Diabetes-medication’s failure is due to the fact that this condition is based on lifestyle, and no pill can solve that. The risk of organ failure is not delayed by near-normal blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes. This shouldn’t be a surprising finding since diabetes is an inflammatory condition of the whole body.

Medication will not correct the underlining condition, which is inflammation throughout the body. Over time, diabetes damages blood vessels and is a major cause of heart disease. Inflammation damages artery walls. The longer a person has diabetes the greater the chance for complications to develop. This includes vision loss, foot ulcers, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Medication isn’t the answer and has deadly consequences for some patients. With all the drugs that are available diabetes isn’t managed very well. It is still a disease that can take years off a person’s life.

The reason is that diabetes in a condition and not a disease.

Understanding Diabetes

Understanding diabetes means taking into account that this isn’t an isolated condition. It is part of a whole body problem.

A clinical study compared the effects of intensive intervention in the control of blood sugar, blood pressure, and blood lipids to standard, less-intensive treatments. They looked at  the risk of cardiovascular events in both groups. It was a large study of 10,000 adults with established type 2 diabetes. The study was halted due to excess deaths in the group that was intensively treated.

That shows a complete lack of understanding of this condition, It doesn’t need medical intervention as much as a lifestyle change. The participants in the intensively treated group were moved to standard glucose control, as if that was the answer.

The participants had type 2 diabetes for an average of 10 years, and about one-third had pre-existing heart disease, and the remainder had at least two additional cardiovascular disease risk factors.

They also had high blood sugar as measured by the hemoglobin A1C tests. This tests shows the average blood sugar in the preceding two to three months. Half of the participants had an A1C over 8.1 percent above the currently recommended target for good control. A1C less than 6% is considered good in people without diabetes.

In people without diabetes the hemoglobin A1C should be 4.5% or lower according to Johns Hopkins researchers and the Life Extension Foundation.  With an A!C above 4.5 the more likely one is to suffer a heart attack.

Standard laboratory ranges indicate that non-diabetics can have a hemoglobin A1C as high as 5.7%. That is how we get unexplained heart attacks. Cholesterol levels appear normal and bingo there is a cardiovascular event with no known cause.

The Real Drug Failure Rate

A group of doctors have filed a suit against the Food & Drug Administration for failing to alert diabetes patients to safer alternatives to Avandia and other diabetic drugs. These increased the risk of stroke, and heart attack. It also has been blamed for the demise on some of the patients on these drugs.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible medicine.

The petition urged the FDA to require diabetes drugs to carry a warning label telling patients that a low-fat, plant-based diet can be as effective or better than drugs in reducing blood glucose and cholesterol.

These doctors saw people getting sick, because they were taking a medicine they may not have needed. In this case they said a low-fat, vegan diet is safer and just as effective.

Not only do medicines fail to help they can kill the patient.The problem is not only  a lack of knowledge, but in the retail thinking or the pharmaceutical industry. Their primary focus is profit and the primary vehicle for that is the drugs that they bring to market.

They have become disengaged from the primary purpose, and have damaged both their reputation, and the healthcare system. They are in the business of becoming more creative with production, so they don’t erode their profit margins. They produce one drug after another with an eye on returns, not on the public’s health.

Grapes are the sweet way to health; for many Americans with high blood pressure and insulin resistance.

Grapes Health Benefits

The focus of a study at the University of Michigan Health system was to test the effect of grapes in reducing risk factors related to cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome.

Researchers studied the effect of regular table grapes (a blend of green, red and black grapes) that were mixed into a powdered form and integrated into the diets of laboratory rats as part of a high-fat, American style diet. All of the rats used were from a research breed that is prone to being overweight.

The researchers performed comparisons between the rats consuming a grape-enriched diet and control rats receiving no grape powder. Researchers added calories, and sugars to the control group to balance the extra calories and sugars gained from getting the grape powder.

Findings from a new animal study was presented at the Experimental Biology convention in Anaheim, Calif., showed encouraging results of a grape-enriched diet preventing risk factors for metabolic syndrome. This is a condition affecting an estimated 50 million Americans and is often a precursor to type 2 diabetes.

After three months, the rats that received the grape-enriched diet had lower blood pressure, better heart function, and reduced indicators of inflammation in the heart and blood than the rats who received no grape powder. Rats also had lower triglycerides and improved glucose tolerance.

Phytochemicals In Grapes

The key focus should be the phytochemicals in grapes. The emerging evidence is that phytochemicals offer protection from all diseases. People who want to lower their blood pressure, reduce their risk of diabetes, and help their weakened hearts retain as much pumping power as possible should eat a whole foods diet. This means a diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables.

Grapes are instrumental in providing high levels of antioxidants, which are good for the heart. Emerging studies are proving that fruits and vegetables deliver what they promise, sweet goodness.