Posts Tagged ‘vegetables’

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.

Leafy greens foil type 2 diabetes in studies.

Leafy Plants

Researchers from Leicester University in the UK analyzed pooled data from six studies examining links between fruit and vegetable consumption and type 2 diabetes found that the increased intake of green leafy vegetables lowered the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

They said it should be investigated further. They also cautioned that further research is needed before this can be used for giving specific advice to individuals.

Greens 

To recommend a diet high in greens may be dangerous. Not so much to the patient, but to the green paper coming in from the prescription pad.

It amazes me that this needs further study, while drugs are being used on a regular basis. It is either researchers, and doctors are so well educated by the drug companies that they now have tunnel vision, or they have no understanding of how a body functions.

Diet and Nutrition

Diet and nutrition are the two missing ingredients when talking about chronic health problems in America. This fact is bankrupting the nation while causing undue suffering.

On the other hand it is the pharmaceutical companies and health care that brings in the big bucks. This may have a lot to do with the direction of health care or sick care depending how you look at it.  

All things related to health are related to nutrition. Any eye health guide has to emphasize this connection.

Vision 

Your eyes may the window to your soul; they are also a reflection of your health. Many eye problems are a refection of your nutritional status. As people age they may experience vision loss due to cataracts, macular degeneration (AMD) and other sight problems.

Eye Health Study   

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) – funded scientists at the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research are finding that healthy eating can reduce health costs by protecting the vision and the quality of life. The laboratory study directed by Allen Taylor is part of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutritional Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. Mass.

One study indicated that regularly consuming a combination of protective nutrients and a low-glycemic-index, or “slow carb,” diet provided an AMD protective effect. A food’s glycemic index is an indicator of how fast the carbohydrate it contains will spike blood sugar levels. The macula is a 3-millimeter-wide yellow spot near the center of the retina responsible for the central field of vision.

For the study, the researchers analyzed dietary intake and other data from more than 4,000 men and women, aged 55 to 80, who had participated in the long-term Age-Related Eye Disease Study, or AREDS. Led by Chung-Jung Chiu, the researchers ranked intake of each of several nutrients consumed during the AREDS study, then calculated a compound score to gauge their combined dietary effect on the risk of AMD. The scoring system allowed them to evaluate associations between individual – and combined – dietary nutrients.

The nutrients that were found to be most protective in combination with the low-glycemic-index diet were vitamins C and E, zinc, lutein, zeaxanthin, and the omega-3 fatty acids known as DHA and EPA. The 2009 study was published in Ophthalmology

No Surprise

It’s no surprise that every cell, function, and organ is dependent on the nutrition that you supply them with. It is simply, disease can’t take root as easily in a healthy body. The way to good vision is by consuming a nutrient rich diet.

Most fruits and vegetables supply vitamin C in ample amounts. This list includes oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, papaya, green peppers, and tomatoes. Vitamin E is found in nuts, seeds, and wheat germ. Lutein and Zeaxanthin are found together in many foods. Dark green leafy vegetables are a good source. It is also found in smaller amounts in broccoli, orange peppers, corn, peas, persimmons, and tangerines.

These are delicious ways to both general health and vision health.  Achieving the benefits of good eyesight supports vascular health within the eye and improves visual acuity. It has been found than carotenoids protect against free-radical induced DNA damage. The density of your macular pigments composed (composed of Lutein, Zeaxanthin, meso-zeaxanthin) is essential to proper vision.

These may be big words, but all one has to know is eating lots lutein and zeaxanthin containing vegetables can help maintain the structural integrity of the macula.

As We See It

Plant compounds halt the progression of both macular degeneration, and cataracts. These are a significant cause of decreased vision. To halt vision loss with nutritional interventions is a very attractive solution.