http://www.diabetesnaturalremedies.co.uk/ Dr Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute in the US is one of the few medical doctors qualified to speak about the the benefits and disadvantages of both conventional medicine practices and natural and herbal remedies due to her vast experience in both fields. In these video slides she shares her experiences in the treatment of diabetics. It is really an eye opener for diabetics and the like. You will be amazed at the effectiveness of lifestyle changes that have made some type 2 diabetics to stop taking any medication after following these strict lifestyle changes.
By prescribing diet and exercise, James Anderson, M.D. of Lexington, Kentucky, and colleagues stopped insulin completely in two-thirds of their lean diabetic patients, and reduced the amount of insulin in the other third.
Haven’t physicians prescribed diabetic diets for years? So what’s new? Just this. For over 70 years, traditional treatment for diabetes has been a high fat diet with insulin by injection, or oral administration. Justification for prescribing the fat diet is that it keeps the blood sugar from rising too high after a meal and it prevents too much sugar from spilling into the urine.
But the disadvantages of fat diets far outweigh the advantages. Dr. Anderson told his audience what the disadvantages were. The fat diet does not reduce blood sugar, nor the insulin requirement to handle the excess sugar In the blood. In fact, it tends to make the body less sensitive to insulin and induces resistance to it. Elevation of blood fats leads to atherosclerosis and promotes ketosis. Atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries can cause coronary occlusion or stroke. Ketosis is the accumulation of certain chemicals (ketone bodies) in the body tissues and fluids, which can be detected in the urine of poorly controlled diabetics.
Other diets that help control diabetes are high protein, high carbohydrate (CHO) and high fiber diets. Protein diets seem to prevent a significant rise In blood sugar, but are “impractical, monotonous, expensive and high in fat,” hence are not recommended.
Refined CHO diets (sugar, white flour, white rice, etc.) elevate the blood sugar after meals, as well as increase fasting triglycerides. Such a diet is a detriment in treating diabetes, and is no treatment at all.
However, when complex CHO’s compose most of the meal, these disadvantages do not present themselves. By complex CHO’s Anderson means whole grain bread and cereals, brown rice, bran, fruit, vegetables, and no sugar.
He contends that the person on a complex CHO program responds well to insulin. The body better utilizes the CHO and glucose in the food. When mildly diabetic persons switch from 45% CHO to 85% complex CHO, their glucose tolerance test improves.
After a low fiber meal (the typical American diet), blood sugar shoots up rapidly. This stimulates a spurt of insulin Into the blood stream. The resulting overabundance of insulin sends the blood sugar down as rapidly as it ascended.
No such abrupt response of insulin to glucose absorption occurs after eating a meal high in fiber, for there Is no rapid rise in blood sugar. Fiber slows the digestive process so that absorption of glucose proceeds more slowly. The rise is not as high and is more sustained.
Most Americans on a high meat diet eat between 14 and 20 grams of dietary (plant) fiber every day. The Lexington diet, first introduced almost ten years ago, provides 65-70 grams, considerably more than the average.
Dr. Anderson explained that for proper responses, insulin must link up with insulin “docking sites” (receptors) on the white blood cells. For insulin to be properly utilized, the docking sites must be filled with insulin. Here is another advantage of a high fiber diet–the fiber Increases the number of docking sites. Obese individuals lack the acute sensitivity to insulin, because their Insulin receptors are fewer in number, hence fewer sites for insulin linkage.
In addition to decreasing the rapid rise of blood sugar after a meal and increasing the number of insulin docking sites on white cells, a high fiber diet lowers blood fats, helping to carry cholesterol out of the body. It keeps the blood sugar at a lower level than with a fiber-free meal.
Exercise along with the diet is important. Some of those who reduced the amount of Insulin by means of diet, but who could not go off completely, have by exercise over a period of time been able to go without insulin. But they had to faithfully adhere to the diet and exercise every day
