Feb
16

A little history on diabetes

Sara on February 16th, 2009

Around 1500 BC, medical scribes in both India and Egypt described a condition of great thirst and urination. They treated this condition with high fiber wheat grain, a valid therapy which can be scientifically explained today. Over 3000 years ago, a treatment recommended for diabetes in India involved intensive exercise. Another ancient and good idea. It was the Greek Aretaeus around 1000 AD who first called the disease “diabetes” after the Greek word for “siphon”, noting all the excessive urination that diabetics experience. Some of the earlier “medical technicians” would diagnose and track the severity of the diabetes based upon how sweet the patient’s urine smelled. The more sugar in the urine, the more uncontrolled the disease and the greater the likelihood of suffering severe complications in the eyes, kidney, heart and nerves. Thomas Willis, physician to King Charles II of England in 1670 was torn between commenting on the obvious increase in diabetes among his wealthy patrons eating lots of sugar and the wealth being made in the sugar trade by his boss.

In 1898, Elliot Joslin, MD emphasized the importance of diet, exercise and lifestyle to control diabetes. Dr. Joslin’s work became the foundation for the world famous Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best first isolated insulin in 1921. Two years later, researchers Banting and Mcleod were awarded Nobel prizes for their work on insulin and diabetes. Demand for insulin was so high that a large pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly was required to meet the world’s need for insulin. Since 1923, insulin research has brought various refinements, with the biggest breakthrough coming in 1978 when DNA engineering allowed researchers to manufacture human insulin, which has since become the gold standard for Type 1 insulin dependent diabetics.

~Get your diabetic recipes here

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Feb
16

Nutritious herb – Ginseng

Sara on February 16th, 2009

Ginseng is one of the world’s oldest herbs, used by many cultures over the past 5,000 years. Ginseng is one of the classical “adaptogens”, which is an elite group of herbs that improve various aspects of the bodily processes. If a person has high blood pressure, then ginseng will often help to lower it toward normal. If a person has low blood pressure, then ginseng will often help to raise it to normal. No drug has such an unexplainable ability to alter the body’s processes in whatever direction they need to go.

In a double blind study, 36 Type 2 diabetics were given either placebo, 100 mg ginseng, or 200mg ginseng. The diabetics who received ginseng had measurable improvements in mood, body weight and blood sugar levels. The group that received the highest dosage of ginseng, 200 mg , also had improvements in glycosylated hemoglobin, a sign that blood glucose levels have slowed the destructive “tanning” of blood proteins.

~Low Sugar Recipes.com

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Feb
15

Finding the underlying cause

Sara on February 15th, 2009

What if I slammed my thumb in my desk drawer every morning for a week. The first time it happened, it really hurt. The next day I do it again and my thumb is swollen and painful. By the end of the week, my thumb is blue and red, bloody and swollen and very painful. So I go to Doctor A, who tells me he is going to inject my thumb with anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce the swelling. I get a second opinion from Doctor B who tells me that she wants to give me pain medication to better tolerate the discomfort. I get a third opinion from Doctor C who wants to cut off the thumb because it looks defective. The real cure here is to stop slamming my thumb in the desk drawer.

Of course no one (with a sane mind) will do something like the above. Now, you may ask, “What does this example have to do with me beating my diabetes?” Right, let’s look at the case of Sarah (not me obviously :P) whose diabetes is caused by obesity, sedentary lifestyle, not enough fiber and too much sugar and the wrong fats in her diet. All of these lifestyle factors team together to bring about insulin resistance, or Syndrome X. She then develops junk food diet and sedentary lifestyle, which makes her diabetes worse, and on it goes. The hypoglycemic drugs that her doctors give her work briefly, then stop having any effect. The poor diet that Sarah is consuming is the “slamming the thumb in the desk drawer”. Dr. A, B and C are all working on a paradigm that they studied in medical school “if you can name it (the disease), then I can tame it (with drugs or surgery)”. Medical approaches can be useful short term quick fixes to subdue symptoms, but do not address the crucial “slamming the thumb in the desk drawer”. Sarah needs to change her lifestyle.

~Get your diabetic recipes here

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Feb
15

Diabetes: Simple but deadly

Sara on February 15th, 2009

At first glance, diabetes appears to be such a simple disease. Too much sugar in the blood. But that simple error creates an avalanche of problems in the body that create havoc with the health of diabetics, especially if they have poor regulation of their blood glucose. Diabetes is such an insidious disease that it is the leading cause of blindness, kidney disease, amputations and heart disease in the US.

Diabetes can become a wretched disease for those who ignore it, or an opportunity to make your life into a masterpiece for those who control it.

~Get your diabetic recipes here

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Jan
30

Nutritious herb – Cinnamon

Sara on January 30th, 2009

When researches at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigated the effects of several spices reported to improve diabetes, they were surprised that cinnamon, cloves, tumeric (mustard) and bay leaves actually had a measurable impact on making insulin more effective in the body. Of all these therapeutic herbs, cinnamon was the champion. Since cinnamon has no calories, makes insulin more effective, and makes food taste better, use it liberally.

~Low Sugar Recipes.com

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Jan
12

Welcome!

Sara on January 12th, 2009

Welcome to the all time Low Sugar Recipes blog! Stay tune for more insights into low sugar or sugar free cooking to share with your family and friends.

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