Posted on 05/25/2008 12:21:58 AM PDT by neverdem
One in four people born today are expected to develop Type 2 diabetes during their lifetimes.
Shedding excess weight and exercising more can cut Type 2 diabetes risk by 58 percent.
Favoring foods in their unrefined state -- brown rice and whole grains, for instance -- can help keep blood sugar levels from spiking.
Exercise improves blood sugar control by increasing insulin sensitivity.
As rates of Type 2 diabetes continue to rise around the world, experts say we mostly have ourselves to blame. Genes certainly play a role in determining risk. But the surge of new cases of this debilitating disease is caused mostly by poor diets and lack of physical activity.
By all rights, the prescription should be simple: lose weight if you are overweight, and get more exercise.
Easy? Of course not. Experts have yet to come up with anything close to a surefire approach to help people shed pounds. And dietary recommendations to prevent or slow diabetes have often been contradictory and confusing. Nearly 30 years after the American Diabetes Association recommended a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet to control diabetes, overturning the high-fat, low-carbohydrate approach of earlier decades, controversy still swirls around the amount and types of carbohydrates to eat.
Much of the debate focuses on the glycemic index, a measure of how carbohydrate-rich foods affect blood sugar, and whether these effects play a significant role in the progression of Type 2 diabetes. Foods high on the glycemic index, like sugared beverages, cake and white rice, are known to send blood sugar levels up sharply after a meal. Foods low on the index, like broccoli, lettuce, brown rice and whole grains, on the other hand, take longer to digest and hence keep blood sugar levels on a more even keel.
The American Diabetes Association has decided that patients...
(Excerpt) Read more at health.nytimes.com ...
See Richard K. Bernstein's books on diabetes. Low-carb is the way to go.
Carbs affect blood sugar a lot and more or less quickly--even so-called "complex carbohydrates."
Protein affects blood sugar some but not as much as carbs.
Fat has very little effect on blood sugar... before insulin was discovered, the only way to keep diabetics alive was to put them on high-fat diets.
The American Diabetes Association is massively out of date.
The ancestor’s diet is the way to go. Humans originally did not drop by a fast food joint for a chocolate shake and fries after hunting mammoth all day.
Beef, chicken, fish, pork, all vegetables (even potatoes), salad greens and tomatoes, some fruit - like berries and melons - but nothing battered and deep fried.
I allow myself a small glass of red wine with dinner and milk in my coffee in the morning - these aren’t exactly what one would expect to find in the cave’s pantry but hey! A little will not hurt.
It may well be that early man brewed beer but no potato chips, no clam dip, and no football. Those ice age winters were hellish.
So far, I have lost 22 pounds. My next test is 6/2, and my next appointment with the doctor is 6/6. Then we'll see if the weight loss worked.
40 minutes each day on an exercise bike, and eating about 1/2 of what I used to devour. And every time on the bike is misery. I thought it would get easier, but it doesn't.
When I get down to my target weight, I will buy and eat an entire pizza and a six-pack. That meal is already factored into the weight loss target.
He put me on Jamumet which is weight neutral.
I've lost 10 lbs so far
Anybody else have this same issue?
A great book is the “The GI (Glycemic Index) Diet by Rick Gallop. It is basically set up using the traffic light system. Stay away from foods listed as red colored foods, eat yellow foods in moderation, eat all the green colored foods you like. No need to starve!
I’ve been Type II since June 2005 and have been controlling my diabetes with this diet and exercise (hiking mainly) without drugs since.
I was 6’2” 231 pounds one year ago. Doc said “Type 2.” 4 Metformin a day. I changed my diet completely. I now weigh 185. Blood sugar is around 100. I now take 1/2 of a 5mg Glipizide a day. Ride my bike a lot. I’m 61.
Diet is now mostly steamed fresh vegetables. No meat except for fish. No dairy. Soy milk. And,,,, beer!
A little over a year ago, my blood glucose level was 144 and the doctor told me that I was diabetic. I refused treatment or counseling and began to change my lifestyle, going quickly to 131. I told them that I’d eaten my way into this, I’d eat my way back out. My fasting blood sugar is usually below 100 now. A1C is also in the normal range. Good cholesterol has improved considerably, bad is still a bit higher than they want, but oh well. I do not intend to take the drugs for that, figure that it’s better for me to work on it, myself.
I am a firm believer in the benefits of low carb/low glycemic index foods eating. I’ve lost around 35 pounds, feel better, refused to take a cholesterol drug and again, it’s my body, I’m responsible for it. I’ve seen what taking prescription drugs has done for/to others, and while I’m on blood pressure meds, that’s it.
One thing I’ve found that helps is Whey Low, a real sugar blend (fructose, sucrose and lactose, invented by a man for his type 2 diabetic wife) for people who are either diabetic or want to watch their blood sugar levels for other reasons. http://wheylow.com No fake sugars for me, as they bother my stomach.
This is a lifestyle change and while I miss some things, losing 35 pounds without much effort was nice. When you see what diabetes can do to your body when left unchecked, it becomes easy, at least for me, to regard some stuff as off limits and, for all practical purposes, poison to me. I do allow myself treats from time to time, but not a daily thing. Staying meds-free is my ambition.
Can you explain why you took meats off your diet?
I was under the impression meats being high in protein was one of the best things to eat if diabetic
Hi Bernard, when I was diagnosed my level was 10.6 hbA1c which equals to a rough daily glucose level of 300. Your glucose of 124 equates to a hbA1c of 6.6, the ideal is under 6. From what you have written my guess is you are near normal now, keep it up.
This article makes sense to me and mirrors my own experiences. Outside of genetics, portion control & exercise help tremendously. Obviously there is still much we don’t know about diabetes. Not only are their different types but even within the same “type” there are wide variances of degree, control and manifestations. I disagree, to an extent, with the comment about “grains”. At least the idea that they are to be avoided. Nothing wrong with a certain among of whole grain products. For that matter there is nothing wrong with almost any food if you know how it directly effects you. Of course with diabetes there is a great variation of how certain foods effect certain people. YMMV and this is why you must measure to see how and what effects you individually. Having said that it also depends greatly on what other issues you may have. High blood pressure, high cholesterol etc. While I have changed my diet and eat large amount of vegetables I don’t completely avoid anything at least not much. I do however restrict certain fruits, large amount of diary, pasta and don’t drink soda at all. However I prefer to eat real butter and real sugar in addition to using real H&H in my coffee. Again it is about portion control. I also eat a piece or two of candy almost everyday. Not sugarless BTW but about an oz or less and I savor and enjoy it tremendously. I may in the future have to change that but at this point in my diabetes it is serving me well. Portion control, at least for me, is key. That and exercise.
I just found them hard to digest. Acid reflux was bothering me a lot, still does! Meat seemed to be very slow for me to digest, and just made my stomach problems worse. I’ve always eaten a lot of Chinese-style cooking, but over the last 10 or so years had gotten lazy about cooking. It was just easier to broil a cheap, fatty steak than it was to do all the prep for a stir fry. Now I get a lot of protein from soy products, which I’ve always loved. Twice fried green beans, with fried tofu and black bean garlic sauce? Yum! Now I’m gettin’ hungry!
I figure my caloric intake is usually around 1,2-1,500, not including the,,,, beer!
ping for later
Your post repeats the thrust of the article.
The primary curative for Type II is exercise. Sweat and hard breathing do the job. Eating this or that is in my experience marginally curative compared to exercise and weight loss.
There is a magic weight number..... above that weight there are symptoms, below, the symptoms disappear. For me it is around 225. Above, sugar goes up a little, below it always declines.
Lastly, read up on cinnamon and diabetes. I saw a FR thread and did the reading and am becoming a believer. Exercise and weight loss to the required level are however of paramount importance.
For those of use who are normal weight/metabolically obese, a low carb diet is the only solution without pharmaceuticals.
I’m really exasperated because I have always exercised like mad, am not one pound overweight, eat abstemiously—and last year I got diagnosed as “pre-diabetic” anyway. No fair! No, there’s no history of diabetes in my family, but prior generations were overweight, principally from eating an ethnic diet that doesn’t work so well in the sedentary US. It wouldn’t be possible to cut back on refined foods, since I don’t eat them, or to exercise more. Pretty annoying. So I’m going to try cinnamon and some other supplements and see what happens. Yall wish me luck.
From my own experience I can tell you that prescription medications can cause blood sugar levels to rise, e.g., Dyazide, a diuretic given for blood pressure. Be advised that doctors are “clueless” about the side effects of the medications they’re handing out by the hundreds of thousands. Drug company representatives are sitting in your doctor’s offices by the dozens handing out “goodies” as they call them. I recommend going online to drugs.com, medications.com and other websites and investigate every drug you’re prescribed by your doctor. Know all the possible side effects so you will recognize them when they show up. We are now responsible for our own health, unfortunately. Doctors don’t know who you are and why you’re in their office and some don’t even care thanks to HMO’s.
Bernard, have you tried reading on the exercise bike. Keeps me on it, makes the time fly, and the reading ain’t bad, either.
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