The two-year dietary study found that a high fat diet helped diabetes patients increase their HDL (good) cholesterol and dropped their blood sugar levels. They also lost about 9 pounds. A group that ate a low fat diet also lost weight but their blood sugar and cholesterol did not change.

“You could ask yourself if it really is good to recommend a low-fat diet to patients with diabetes, if despite their weight loss they get neither better lipoproteins nor blood glucose levels,” says researcher Fredrik Nyström.

A study presented at a meeting of the European Society of Endocrinology shows that people who scarf down their food are 2.5 times more likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes than those who take their time eating. In the past, other researchers have shown that eating fast increases your chance of gaining weight. This is the first time scientists have linked fast eating to diabetes.

In 1898 Horace Fletcher first started thoroughly chewing his food to improve his health. In 2012, many medical researchers now thoroughly agree with his slow-food philosophy.

Another benefit: German researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin have now discovered that licorice root has substances with an anti-diabetic effect. These compounds, called amorfrutins, not only reduce blood sugar, they are also anti-inflammatory and have few if any side effects.

“However, drinking licorice tea or eating licorice will not help to treat diabetes,” explains research scientist Sascha Sauer. “The concentration of the substances in the tea and licorice is far too low to be effective.” The researchers, therefore, developed special extraction processes to obtain the amorfrutins from the plant in sufficient concentrations. This could be used to produce amorfrutin extracts on a wide scale.

“The amorfrutins can be used as functional nutritional supplements or as mild remedies that are individually tailored to the patient,” says Sascha Sauer. “In view of the rapid spread of metabolic diseases like diabetes, it is intended to develop these substances further so that they can be used on humans in the future.”

Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who eat breakfast lowered their risk of diabetes by more than 20 percent.

The study, which looked at the meal habits of about 30,000 men for 16 years, also found that if you eat three meals a day and don’t regularly skip eating, you lower your diabetes risk by about 25 percent. Scientists believe that eating breakfast and following regular meal schedules keeps your blood sugar at a more constant level. As a result, your blood sugar stability may make diabetes less likely.

Dangerous Sugar

Various lifestyle factors can contribute to dangerous blood sugar levels. Predominant causes include a diet high in refined sugars, processed foods and simple carbohydrates; excess levels of toxins in the body; ongoing use of specific pharmaceutical drugs; chronic stress or sleep deprivation; and other imbalances. Consider that the number of type 2 diabetes cases that are diagnosed each year continues to break records. This steady climb in new cases is particularly disturbing among teenagers and children, since type 2 diabetes among this vulnerable population was almost unheard of before the 21st century.

It’s clear from these troubling statistics that our society faces a skyrocketing epidemic linked to modern lifestyles and environments. The good news: Metabolic conditions like type 2 diabetes can be successfully avoided or addressed using the right natural approaches.

Early Diagnosis Possible With The A1C Test

Early detection plays a critical role in preventing and reversing serious metabolic health issues and related chronic conditions. The sooner that blood glucose abnormalities are detected, the easier it is to correct them. A simple and accurate way to test long-term blood sugar imbalance is the A1C blood test. Precise and informational, an A1C test can detect chronically elevated blood glucose levels that are often missed with the standard fasting blood glucose test which reads only current blood sugar levels.

The A1C is unique: It shows where blood sugar levels have been during the past two to three months, providing an accurate picture of blood glucose over time.

An international committee of experts from the American Diabetes Association, the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the International Diabetes Federation, recommends that the A1C test be the primary test used to diagnose pre-diabetes, type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Clinically, however, doctors have been using the A1C only for diabetic patients or for patients they think already have diabetes.

But this simple test could save many more lives if it were included as part of routine screening exams.

As a practicing integrative physician, I’ve observed that merely taking one isolated reading using the standard fasting blood sugar test does not give an accurate determination of how an individual is handling blood sugar over the long term. As a result, doctor and patient may fail to detect harmful blood sugar trends early on, opening the door to serious chronic conditions down the road.

A1C Test Details

The A1C test is also called the hemoglobin A1C test or HgA1C. Hemoglobin is a protein found within red blood cells that retains a record of blood sugar levels. When blood glucose reacts with hemoglobin, the hemoglobin becomes glycated and remains in that state. During the 120 days that red blood cells stay in the blood before being replaced (and during the lifespan of the red blood cell), the hemoglobin preserves an imprinted memory of the body’s blood sugar levels. By measuring this glycated hemoglobin, the A1C test shows how blood sugar levels have behaved over the past two to three months and can detect a chronic imbalance with great accuracy and insight.

Lifestyle: The Benefits Of Diet And Exercise

The most important way to maintain a healthy blood sugar level is to stick to a strictly low glycemic-index diet emphasizing low-sugar foods that sustain and nourish blood glucose. Otherwise, when you eat highly sweetened and processed foods, you spike and crash blood sugar. The second most important factor is regular exercise, which triggers numerous hormonal and biological effects critical for metabolic health and glucose balance.

These lifestyle changes have been shown to be as effective as drug therapy for normalizing blood sugar levels over a short period of time. Furthermore, studies and clinical evidence suggest that over the long term, a healthy lifestyle with proper diet and exercise is the only sustainable solution to keep your blood sugar levels stable and protect overall health.

Recently, a research meta-analysis was published that helped identify the benefits of two different kinds of exercise training programs: combining aerobic exercise with weight lifting or merely taking part in aerobic exercise. The results demonstrate that a combined program of resistance exercise along with aerobic workouts improves blood sugar control beyond just doing aerobics alone. The average effect of the training programs was similar to that of long-term diet and insulin therapy.

Natural Supplements

In addition to diet and exercise, a number of herbs, botanical compounds and nutrients have been shown to help prevent and even reverse metabolic conditions over time. These targeted natural solutions work to:

• Re-sensitize insulin receptors.
• Prevent blood glucose spikes.
• Improve metabolism of fats and sugars.
• Increase antioxidant activity.
• Decrease inflammation.
• Prevent excess blood glucose from wreaking havoc on proteins, cells, tissues and organs.

Some top recommended supplements for metabolic health include:

• Berberis.
• Bitter melon.
• Gymnema leaf.
• Cinnamon.
• Jambolan seed.
• Fenugreek.
• Holy basil.
• Siberian ginseng.
• Astragalus.
• Integrative Metabolic Formula.
• Medicinal mushrooms.
• Alpha lipoic acid.
• Sodium alginates.
• Chromium polynicotinate.

Don’t Let This Silent Culprit Progress Undetected

Ask your health care provider to order the A1C test as part of your annual health exam. With this easy and advanced diagnostic tool, you can catch possible blood sugar problems at an early stage, in time to address them with simple diet, supplement and lifestyle adjuncts, which help reverse unhealthy trends. Even if you eat well and take good care of yourself, you may find that metabolic issues are developing silently as you age.

The A1C test is a good way to gain clear insight into your overall wellness, helping to protect and promote health and vitality throughout your life. For more practical information on all-natural remedies, visit http://www.dreliaz.org/.

“Although our results need to be confirmed in more studies, they do support the hypothesis that certain environmental chemicals can contribute to the development of diabetes,” says Monica Lind, associate professor of environmental medicine at the Section for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Uppsala University.

When the researchers examined more than 1,000 older women, they found that, as expected, diabetes was more common among those who were overweight and had high blood fats. But the researchers also found a connection between blood levels of some of the phthalates and increased prevalence of diabetes. Individuals with elevated phthalate levels had roughly twice the risk of developing diabetes compared with those with lower levels. They also found that certain phthalates were associated with disrupted insulin production in the pancreas.

“We now have evidence that physical activity is an important part of the daily maintenance of glucose levels,” says Missouri University researcher John Thyfault. “Even in the short term, reducing daily activity and ceasing regular exercise causes acute changes in the body associated with diabetes that can occur before weight gain and the development of obesity.”

Thyfault’s most recent study shows that low levels of physical activity lead to elevated levels of postprandial glucose (PPG), the spikes in blood sugar that occur after meals. PPG is a risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes and has been associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Thyfault found that when healthy individuals reduce their physical activity by about half for three days, their PPG responses to meals double.

“It is recommended that people take about 10,000 steps each day,” Thyfault said. “Recent evidence shows that most Americans are only taking about half of that, or 5,000 steps a day. This chronic inactivity leads to impaired glucose control and increases the risk of developing diabetes.”

“Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in children and adolescents and its occurrence is rising. The need for effective interventions to prevent new cases of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes is urgent. At the same time, we need to assure that every child with diabetes receives the best available care that we know will prevent them from developing kidney failure, sight-threatening retinopathy or premature cardiovascular diseases,” says Ann Albright, Ph.D., director of the Division of Diabetes Translation at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The survey, reported in Diabetes Care, found that the U.S. rates for diabetes are significantly higher than in Europe.

Carbohydrate Simplicities And Complexities

Carbohydrates are typically classified as either complex carbohydrates or simple carbohydrates (sugar molecules). As a general rule, simple carbohydrates are absorbed quickly into the body and quickly increase your blood sugar level.

The glycemic index is a measurement of the relative rate at which the sugar of any food enters the human blood stream, thereby raising the amount in the blood. The slower sugar is absorbed into the blood stream, the better for your long-term health. For example, on the 0 to 100 glycemic index scale, table sugar (sucrose) rates closest to 100 (very quick absorption). Most often, high glycemic index foods are 70 or more; medium foods are classified from 55 to 69; and low glycemic index foods fall below 55 on the index. These rankings are important: Scientific literature demonstrates that low glycemic index diets can reduce coronary heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

The Ins And Outs Of Insulin

You should be aware of how the hormone insulin affects your physiology. This potent hormone helps the body use blood sugar for energy or store it as glycogen for later use. When a meal or snack causes a rapid rise in blood sugar, the pancreas is quick to secrete insulin. If insulin is secreted too quickly into the bloodstream, it causes sugar to be too rapidly conveyed into the cells of your liver, muscle, brain and other organs. Consequently, when blood sugar drops precipitously as sugar leaves the blood, this abnormal cycle triggers hunger again, which can lead to a cycle of overeating.

Sugar is the molecule that cells use to provide energy for the body. However, dumping sugar into the bloodstream intravenously to provide fuel for the body can cause serious problems.

An excess intake of high-glycemic carbohydrate food spikes your blood sugar. Depending on your metabolic characteristics, this process can send blood sugar abnormally high and demand abnormal amounts of insulin secretion. That can lead to insulin resistance, a condition in which insulin loses its ability to maneuver sugar out of the blood and into cells for energy or into glycogen for storage.

Because whole foods include a comprehensive collection of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, dietary fiber, antioxidants, healthy oils and other micronutrients that enable the body to derive energy from sugar, whole foods are the preferred method for obtaining nutritious energy, much more advantageous than merely consuming straight sugar.

Sugar’s Guises

Sugars are present in foods in many different forms. To make wise food choices, you need to recognize their names and know a bit about their effects on health.

The least healthy sugars are refined and nutrient-poor. A primary member of this sugar type is sucrose, the white and refined table sugar you probably know best. Also included in the refined sugars are powdered sugar, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose (made from cornstarch), invert sugar (consisting of the sugar molecules glucose and fructose) and brown sugar.

A wide range of scientific research confirms the fact that simple (refined) sugar in excess leads to numerous health problems. There are more than 100 adverse effects from sugar documented in the scientific literature. These include: immune system suppression,^[1] impaired mineral absorption,^[2] advanced skin aging, decreased skin elasticity,^[3] accelerated cancer growth^[4] and weakened eyesight.^[5] That’s why I believe so strongly that it’s time to find better alternatives to refined sugar. We need a healthier alternative for sweetening ice cream, shakes, pancake syrups, fruit juices, cakes, pies and cookies. This may be difficult to accomplish when it comes to sweet treats like donuts, candies, sodas and all the other refined, high glycemic flour foods that are so highly popular.

Sweet Contrast

Contrast the refined sugars with the relatively healthier sugars that are closer to their original whole food form.

These include raw honey and grade B maple syrup as well as blackstrap and un-sulfured molasses (made from the juice of sun-ripened sugar cane). These sweeteners contain vitamins and minerals and even antioxidants. Other alternatives include evaporated sugar cane juice that has been re-crystallized, xylitol from wood sugar or birch sugar and some forms of agave nectar from the agave plant. Agave nectar often has a much lower glycemic index than table sugar (depending on the manufacturer). You can also obtain fruit concentrates from apples, dates or kiwis. However, these have largely been depleted of their vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants.

Another helpful sweetener that rates an advantageous 0 on the glycemic index (with no sugar molecules) is the sweet herb stevia, which is not an artificial chemical like aspartame. But all of these sweeteners must be balanced with nutrient-rich foods to sustain long-term health.

Next week, I will discuss complex carbohydrates and inflammatory foods.

To your best health,
Michael Cutler, M.D.
Easy Health Options

Great Expectations

When Deen announced she had type 2 diabetes, you might have expected her to also announce that she was going to change her lifestyle in order to protect her health. Instead, Deen seems to be taking the stance that having this potentially devastating disease is a money-making opportunity. To offset the damage of diabetes, most people need to lose weight, engage in an exercise program and eat a healthier diet. You can’t rely on pharmaceuticals to save you from your unhealthy habits. They won’t.

That fact hasn’t stopped Deen and her two sons from becoming spokespeople for the diabetes drug Victoza, marketed by Novo Nordisk. Actions like this have caused another celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain, to call Deen “the worst, most dangerous person in America.” In an interview with the website eater.com, Bourdain said, “When your signature dish is hamburger in between a doughnut, and you’ve been cheerfully selling this stuff knowing all along that you’ve got Type 2 Diabetes… It’s in bad taste if nothing else.”

Thyroid Issues

Aside from the fact that no medication can successfully combat diabetes if you don’t change your lifestyle, many experts question whether the drug that Deen endorses can produce any real benefits for diabetics. As health writer Tom Philpott notes, “Deen’s favored Big Pharma diabetes product might be as questionable as the (processed) meat she promotes.”

Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Victoza in 2010 for diabetics, studies have suggested that the drug may be linked to thyroid cancer. As a matter of fact, in 2009, the members of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Advisory Committee to the FDA agreed almost unanimously that lab studies showing a connection between Victoza and thyroid problems in animals probably meant that human takers of the drug would have similar complications.

As Philpott says, the FDA has issued warnings about Victoza’s connection with not only thyroid cancer but also pancreatitis. And MedPage Today reports that the FDA instructed Nova Nordisk to send out letters to doctors emphasizing the drug’s “serious” risks.

Along with Victoza’s potential side effects, a substantial number of experts question whether pharmaceuticals like this one, designed to lower blood sugar, provide any significant benefits to people with diabetes. According to Nortin Hadler, M.D., of the University of North Carolina, a frequent critic of conventional medical practices, reducing blood sugar with these types of drugs is practically worthless. He says in his book, Rethinking Aging, that they ought to “be taken off the market.” In an interview with Philpott, Hadler said drugs like Victoza “have never been shown in years of study to provide any benefit.”

Spreading Epidemic

Today, in the United States, diabetes has become a devastating epidemic. It is estimated that 26 million of us already have diabetes, and another 79 million are pre-diabetic and at serious risk of developing the disease. Diabetes kills about 69,000 Americans a year (that’s almost 200 people a day), and the total cost of the illness is about $112 billion — more than $12 million an hour.

Research shows that simply losing weight, exercising and eating more fruits and vegetables can lower your risk of diabetes. For example, a study of African-Americans reported in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases, found that those who followed a vegan diet reduced their risk of diabetes by 70 percent.

Meanwhile, Deen says that she is not going to be making any significant changes to the recipes that she uses on her television shows. And if America follows her lead, the diabetes disaster will continue unabated.