Dear Reader:
What should you eat?
You hear a lot of bad advice mixed with disguised commercialism leading you in the wrong direction about what to eat. It turns out that the worst foods are also the most profitable. This interest constantly distorts the science. Truth is that simply following the most common diet advice is enough to trigger diabetes.
To prevent diabetes you have to ignore most of the common advice and follow an opposite strategy. You can prevent it. And if you have diabetes, you still have options. It’s not a lifelong condition without a cure. You can use a few easy-to-follow steps to turn the tables on this disease that already afflicts 20 percent of Americans over 60.
My patients have used this plan to:
• Return blood sugar to healthy levels
• Lower blood pressure
• Lower risk of heart disease and stroke
• Prevent retinopathy, which causes thousands to go blind every year
• Boost energy, lose weight and more.
Most people believe that diabetes begins with high blood sugars. High blood sugar is a symptom of diabetes. But it’s not the cause.
The major problem in adult diabetes is excess insulin. Insulin is the hormone that your body uses to move sugar from the blood into the cells where you burn it for energy. Diabetes begin to overproduce insulin.
Here’s how it happens:
• Your blood sugar spikes from foods that are high carb and high glycemic.
• You produce more insulin to move sugar into cells, which will use it for energy.
• Your cell’s receptors become less sensitive to insulin.
• You develop both elevated insulin and blood sugar levels.
• Your body compensates by producing more and more insulin.
• Your body becomes resistant to insulin—we call this condition insulin resistance.
The medical industry’s response—to focus on lowering blood sugar—is appropriate for immediate care. But this ignores the cause – the insulin problem. Sometimes drugs make the cause worse by stimulating even more insulin production.
The problem is not like children with inborn diabetes who can’t produce enough insulin—the problem in environmental or adult diabetes is too much insulin. When you have too much of any hormone, your body reacts by making your body less sensitive to it – as a way of protecting itself. But over time, your body will lose the ability to respond altogether.
Too much insulin in the blood:
• Converts excess carbs into fat stores causing you to gain weight.
• Triggers the production of triglycerides, a risk factor for heart disease.
• Lowers HDL (good cholesterol), which increases your risk of heart disease and other diseases.
• Impairs your body’s sodium balance, which raises blood pressure.
• Damages your kidneys.
• Damages your vascular system contributing to heart disease, retinopathy (eye damage), and neuropathy (nerve damage).
To reverse the symptoms of diabetes, start by simply reverting to the foods you’re meant to eat and avoid the ones you weren’t. Get back to your native diet.
Your ancient ancestors ate lean protein and vegetables. They ate fruit and nuts and seeds when these things were available. These are all low on the glycemic list meaning they cause less insulin production.
You can use the glycemic load as your guide. A food’s glycemic load is a measure of how much insulin you will make in response to an average serving.
Foods with a glycemic load under 10 are good carbohydrate choices—these foods should be your main source of carbs. Foods that fall between 10 and 20 on the glycemic load scale have a moderate affect on your blood sugar. Foods with a glycemic load above 20 will cause blood sugar and insulin spikes—eat these foods sparingly.
All meats, fish and poultry score a zero. These are the real “guilt-free” foods. Try making protein the focus of each meal. A good old-fashioned steak won’t raise your blood sugar and the protein will help you handle insulin better, build muscle and repair tissue – all essential for the prevention of diabetes.
In your next Doctor’s House Call, I’ll give you 3 simple supplements that improve your insulin response and help you burn fat. Until next time…
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 Novel Fiber Limits Sugar Absorption. Life Extension Magazine. September 2004