From the Desk of Carolyn Dean MD ND
If you’ve been shopping for groceries lately, you’re already bombarded with sensory overload for Easter chocolate and candy. For some people, this feels like permission to indulge because it’s the time of year. Unfortunately, every holiday, every special event, every dinner out gives us “permission” to binge or “leave enough room for dessert.”
I want to revoke that permission by downloading lots of information about Type 2 Diabetes.
What Dr. Google or an MD might say about Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 Diabetes occurs when insulin isn’t working properly, or the pancreas doesn’t produce enough usable insulin, resulting in high blood sugar (sugar building up in the bloodstream).
Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. The pancreas has to work harder, making more insulin to combat high blood sugar. When the pancreas cannot make enough insulin, diabetes is the result.
Dr. Google has at the top of the list that the cause of diabetes is genetic. Having excess body fat, overweight, physical inactivity and a highly processed diet are said to be contributing factors. There is said to be no cure for diabetes – probably because they saddle it with the genetic label.
Some symptoms of diabetes include:
- Increased thirst
- Increased hunger
- More frequent urination
- Fatigue
- Blurred vision
- Numbness in hands and feet
Having type 2 diabetes is linked to serious diseases like heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and kidney disease: and it can cause nerve damage, eye damage and skin conditions.
Dr. Google might suggest medical testing
You might be sent for a blood test to measure your blood sugar level after fasting for 8 hours. Or you might have a blood test that doesn’t require fasting.
If your blood sugar levels indicate that you’re diabetic, your doctor might suggest that you modify your diet and get more exercise – then out comes the prescription pad.
Dr. Google might suggest drugs
Oral or injectable medication may be prescribed to control and maintain blood sugar. Synthetic insulin may be prescribed to lower blood sugar. Dr. Google maintains that this form of diabetes is irreversible, and you’ll have to manage it (with drugs) for the rest of your life.
What I say about Type 2 Diabetes
Sugar = Diabetes and when you know that and come to terms with that, the prevention and treatment of diabetes is straightforward—Stop Eating Sugar!
Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes, with 90-95% of all cases falling into this category. In Type 2, insulin resistance is the cause of blood sugar rising in the blood stream. The pancreas still produces insulin, but the cells won’t take up the glucose that it’s transporting. Diet and obesity play a huge role in this form of diabetes.
I’m not a diabetic specialist, I am a specialist in cellular health, and I know that by feeding your cells appropriate amounts of the right nutrients you can improve the structure and function of the whole body – that includes your blood sugar.
I also know that you’ll never medicate yourself out of diseases you’ve behaved yourself into.
With the rise of sugar being infused into virtually every processed food, treat, snack, meal, and even tobacco, the number of people world-wide with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. By 2045, statisticians predict the number could rise to 629 million.
The highest prevalence of diabetes is in the United States and it’s because we’ve pushed the envelope when it comes to creating heavily refined, heavily processed, and heavily sweetened DEAD food.
Let’s look at that phrase and think how we are putting completely DEAD food into our incredibly ALIVE bodies. Lord Sufferin’ Cats! It is not a sustainable equation. There is nothing alive in your microwaved frozen dinner, your drive-through bagged meal with a giant, sugar-laced soda. There is no nutrition for your cells in these “foods”.
So, think of that as you are deciding to reduce your sugar intake – make sure you replace it with food that is ALIVE. Food that you prepared yourself.
What will your doctor who didn’t study nutrition tell you?
I didn’t learn about nutrition in medical school in the 1970’s and the topic is absent in the curriculum to this day. That’s why, when you receive a medical diagnosis of diabetes, your doctor hands you a bland leaflet about diet and lifestyle along with your prescription for medication to control, maintain or lower your blood sugar.
What do I say? You can choose to stop eating sugar. Stop putting sugar into your bloodstream!
It is that simple. I don’t believe that this condition is irreversible. I’ve had many patients normalize their blood sugar by stopping sugar, white flour, and dairy WHILE ALSO TAKING APPROPRIATE MINERALS AND SUPPLEMENTS.
I’m sorry (not sorry) for shouting, but most patients are given a life sentence of diabetes, with the accompanying medications, and absolutely no incentive to change their lifestyle. They have the impression that medication will even things out if they continue to have too much sugar.
And their doctor isn’t even telling them that eating sugar is the cause of too much sugar in their bloodstream!
So please, when you have a blood test indicating high blood sugar, STOP EATING SUGAR!
Eating sugary snacks or drinking a soda laced with 10 teaspoons of sugar is an incredible shock to the system. That’s because the amount of sugar in the bloodstream at any one time is only two teaspoons. So, 5 times the amount of sugar in the blood sets off body-wide alarms. The alarm stimulates an excessive pancreatic insulin response to normalize blood sugar levels by shoving that sugar into cells.
Too much insulin makes blood sugar plummet as it’s driven into the cells. That incredible flood of sugar, several times a day, for many years is the underlying cause of our epidemic of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome with the triad of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
I repeat, you’ll never medicate yourself out of a disease that you’ve eaten yourself into.
But you can supplement your revised diet and halt and reverse high blood sugar and its resulting risks and diseases. I won’t say more about the diet right now except to stop sugar but let me describe a few of the nutrients that will help eliminate your cravings and make your insulin go back to work.
- Magnesium
• Helps the body digest, absorb, and utilize proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
• Is necessary for insulin to open cell membranes for glucose.
• Helps to prevent obesity genes from expressing themselves. - Vitamin C
Completes with glucose for insulin transport into cells. Too little vitamin C and too much glucose inside cells causes build up of metabolic waste.
- Multiple Minerals
• Chromium
• Zinc
• Selenium
Again, stop eating sugar when you have a blood test indicating high blood sugar.
Carolyn Dean MD ND
The Doctor of the Future.
