Avoid sugar–it can make your body acidic

By Cory Quirino
Philippine Daily Inquirer


IF YOUR sugar is already high and you’re a borderline diabetic, try this:

Brisk walk 20-30 minutes a day.
Use coconut sugar which is safe for diabetics and low in the glycemic index (the rate at which blood sugar rises in the body). Coco sugar can be bought at Filipino health food stores or World of Wellness (tel. 7233878, 3323864).

Substitute white bread, rice, pasta, noodles and sugar with brown/red rice, whole-grain bread/pasta.

Drink vegetable concoction designed by my diabetic friend – ½ green apple, ¼ onion, 2 cloves garlic, ½ ampalaya (bitter gourd).
Blend and drink with the fiber or juice it. Make your own mixture. Add coconut water and 1 tsp of moringa (malunggay).

Take a cup of wheatgrass (tel. 8901111) on an empty stomach 3x a day

Take 3 capsules of ampalaya tablets daily and whenever you take dessert/alcohol or anything sweet. Cut down on your drinking habits because alcohol when digested into your system is sugar.
Sugar makes the body acidic. And illness only thrives in an acidic environment.

Weakness

When you wake up feeling tired, try the following:

Keep mobile phone closed at bed time. Or if you must leave it open, place it as far away from you as possible. Its electromagnetic frequency will interfere with your own body frequency and interrupt your sleep. This goes the same for TV sets, electrical appliances.

Unplug all electrical appliances, lamps, TV sets, computers that are within close proximity to your bed. Even if they are switched off, they are plugged into an electrical outlet. They still have emissions.

Don’t sleep in front of your TV set. It emits frequencies that can interfere with your own body clock. Cover it, if you must.

If you have jet lag, take a capsule of melatonin, a natural hormone before bed time. Try Sleepwell, available at Mercury Drug.

Starvation diets only succeed in making you big. Eat 5 small but nutritious meals a day.

Lazy heart

It takes 100 steps to have a strong heart. According to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, walking 30 minutes a day is the recommended regimen. But what kind of walking? Jog or stroll?

Participants wore pedometers while on treadmills and their oxygen intake and heart rates were measured. The goal was for a metabolic equivalent (MET) of 3, meaning they would be using up thrice the energy needed as when resting.

Jogging has a MET of 8, sprinting, 12-18.

Reach a MET of 3 at a step count of 92-102 steps per minute. For women, 91-115 steps per minute. So, take 100 steps per minute if you want to be healthy.

Affirmation today: “The best affirmation is the one you usually create. But here’s a universal invocation: Everyday goodness comes my way.”

Love and light!

PS Melabic is a combination of the 9 all natural most effective diabetes fighting ingredients. To find out more how they can help you normalize your blood sugar levels and take back your health visit me at Melabic.com

Diabetes Sugar Destroyer

Today I want to share with you about another natural ingredient known as The Diabetes Sugar Destroyer

***If you have a sweet tooth you should play close attention***

I am talking about Gymnema Sylvestre.

Gymnema sylvestre is originally an Indian vine
widely used in Ayurvedic medicine. It is also found in Northern Africa. It is grown commercially in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.

Many studies of Gymnema have been carried out. The results of the studies show us the following:

** Scientifically Proven**

Gymnema Sylvestre:

- Reduces or removes the sense taste of sweetness for several hours
- Reduces the absorption of glucose into the blood stream
- Increases insulin production by the pancreas - by repairing tissue
- Reduces blood levels of triglycerides and cholesterol

These effects make Gymnema sylvestre a powerful and essential tool in helping you control your blood sugar:

Gymnema is a remarkable herb which can be a huge benefit both to those who truly want to cut down their consumption of sweet foods and those with blood sugar issues. To learn more about how Melabic can help stabilize your blood sugar visit Melabic.com

We added this natural herb from Mother Nature because it is a very powerful way for us to help control our blood sugar. Gymnema Sylvestre
helps trick our brain, so that you are unable to taste the sweet foods. It does work! I find it very fascinating how so many natural ingredients are on our planet to aid us in our daily lives.

Take care also remember to hug someone you love it is also proven that a hug repairs many ailments we might have going on in our bodies.

PS Melabic is a combination of the 9 all natural most effective diabetes fighting ingredients. To find out more how they can help you normalize your blood sugar levels and take back your health visit me at Melabic.com

Robotic Pancreas: One Man’s Quest to Put Millions of Diabetics on Autopilot

By Dan Hurley
Wired May 2010

Jeffrey Brewer was on top of the world. For years he had put in 100-hour workweeks as cofounder of two early Internet juggernauts: local guide Citysearch and the online advertising pioneer GoTo.com (later renamed Overture). But by 2001, with more than enough money to live on for the rest of his life, the 32-year-old handed off control of Overture and set out on a yearlong trip to Australia with his wife and two kids. Upon their return to the States, though, they noticed something odd. Seven-year-old Sean was unquenchably thirsty and urinating far more often than usual. On September 19, 2002, they took him to the pediatrician. The doctor gave him a urine test and announced without hesitation, “Your son has type 1 diabetes.”

Previously known as juvenile diabetes because it is usually diagnosed before adulthood, type 1 is the “other” kind of diabetes, the kind no amount of dietary adjustment will hold at bay. It develops rapidly, due to a mysterious autoimmune reaction that attacks the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Treatment requires insulin injections and relentless hour-by-hour diet control. Short-term, the main risk is hypoglycemia — low blood-sugar level caused by too much insulin — which makes patients exhausted and confused, leading to unconsciousness and death if not treated immediately with something sweet. But the opposite problem, high blood sugar, raises the long-term risks of kidney failure, blindness, amputation, and heart disease. Either way, type 1 diabetics live on the edge, a cupcake away from a coma.
Nurses taught the Brewers how to inject the insulin and how to prick Sean’s finger for the drop of blood to test his blood-sugar level with a little meter. They learned a simple algorithm: If their son’s blood sugar was this high, give him so many units of insulin; if it was this much higher, give him that much more. It’s a crude scale that every one of the more than 1 million type 1 diabetics in the US makes do with daily.
Tall, thin, and intense, Brewer was shocked by the antiquated approach. “I had this logbook,” he says. “I’m testing Sean every few hours, and I’m thinking, this is crying out for automation. A computer should do this and would do it better. Why didn’t this exist, with all that we can do?”
So began phase II of Brewer’s life. He would become advocate-in-chief for bringing to market a breakthrough technology that has been promised for decades: a fully automated, self-regulating artificial organ — mechanical and electronic rather than biological — that would sense blood-sugar levels continuously and release just the right amount of insulin at just the right time without the need for any action, or even awareness, on the patient’s part. Good-bye to many-times-daily blood tests. Farewell to insulin injections containing back-of-the-napkin dosages and inevitable hours of feeling ill. Good riddance to the risk of slipping into unconsciousness and an untimely death. Brewer would start the race to build a technological fix for diabetes. The biggest obstacle? Bureaucratic logjams.
Everyone, Brewer soon found out, had an excellent reason for not letting Sean and other diabetics fly on autopilot. Manufacturers were afraid of liability, academics were bent on achieving perfection, and the Food and Drug Administration was downright jumpy at the thought of letting a computer control a mechanism with life-and-death responsibilities.
Yet most of the components for what researchers were calling an artificial pancreas — an external device the size of an iPod that would duplicate the insulin-secreting and -regulating functions of that organ — were already in place. An insulin pump had been approved back in the late 1970s, and a continuous glucose monitor that read the output of a sensor implanted under the skin was nearing approval. (The first one would hit the market in 2005.) The trick was to connect the two via software, letting the monitor’s information on blood-sugar levels — high or low, rising or falling — serve as the basis for calculating exactly how much insulin to release.
Brewer flung himself into the challenge with the same passion he had brought to his Internet startups. Less than a month after his son’s diagnosis, at a meeting of the Diabetes Technology Society, he was ready to shake things up. After listening to an arcane academic debate about which algorithm would be best for the pump, Brewer stood up in the audience and began berating the scientists for dithering over details. “We have all the pieces,” he said. “We need to start commercializing these technologies, because people living with the disease need it.”
The audience broke into applause.
Then Brewer hit the road, traveling to the leading manufacturers in diabetes technology. He joined the board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
“I remember it vividly,” says Aaron Kowalski, the JDRF’s assistant vice president for glucose control research, about the first time he witnessed one of Brewer’s applause-inducing interruptions. “It was amazing. I’ve been to many, many scientific meetings, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like that happen before.”
continue reading.......

PS Melabic is a combination of the 9 all natural most effective diabetes fighting ingredients. To find out more how they can help you normalize your blood sugar levels and take back your health visit me at Melabic.com

What causes Diabetes?

Type 1 Diabetes

Found throughout the pancreas, a very specialized tissue called the “Islets of Langerhans” is responsible for manufacturing and secreting hormones. Famed German pathologist Paul Langerhans discovered this tissue in 1869 after observing the cells clustered in groups, almost as if they were little islands (hence the name).

One such group is known as “beta cells”. These cells manufacture insulin according to the level of glucose found in the blood stream. Think of these beta cells as a factory: they only know how much insulin to produce when told by the “foreman” (glucose). When a person ingests food, blood sugars rise significantly, resulting in the release of a substantial amount of insulin. This insulin causes the body’s cells to use the sugar, and the level of sugar in the blood stream quickly returns to normal levels. Concurrently, these beta cells gradually reduce production of insulin until they reach an “idling state”. These beta cells constantly adjust their output, ensuring that there is precisely enough insulin to moderate blood sugar.

When a person has Type 1 diabetes, the body reacts to beta cells as if they were foreign invaders. As such, these cells (crucial to normal functioning) are destroyed. Once the beta cells are lost, the body can no longer produce insulin, and symptoms of diabetes begin to appear.  

Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is most commonly caused by an unhealthy diet and infrequent exercise. When taken together, the result is insulin resistance, a condition in which the body’s cells aren’t sensitive enough to react to insulin.

Insulin resistance is thought to be caused by a breakdown in intercellular signaling. Patients with insulin resistance have cells that don’t “hear” insulin, which means that they don’t ingest it for use. The result is elevated levels of insulin and glucose in the bloodstream.

During the developing stages of insulin resistance, the pancreas makes an attempt to compensate by producing increasing levels of insulin. Eventually, so much insulin is created that the cells once again begin to “hear” the insulin, and blood glucose is returned to a normal level. This is known as compensated insulin resistance.

Unfortunately, this increase in production isn’t sustainable. After a while, the pancreas becomes worn out, and glucose levels consequently remain elevated. When this occurs, it’s called uncompensated insulin resistance.

The following is the chain reaction that occurs over time in a Type 2 diabetes patient.

Too many carbohydrates are ingested, leading to a spike in blood sugar. Insulin is produced. Blood sugar drops. Eventually, this roller coaster begins to affect the body's ability to use insulin. Consequently, the body starts to have trouble metabolizing sugar. Over time, the pancreas begins to weaken, and can no longer produce enough insulin to overcome this insulin resistance. The result is a decreased insulin production and/or increased insulin resistance. Both lead to the propagation of the cycle, with symptoms eventually beginning to develop. Scientists don’t yet have an answer for the “chicken or egg” question regarding the link between obesity and insulin resistance. It’s not clear which causes the other to occur, or if there is even a causal relationship. There is some connection, especially in the weight that gathers in the midsection. Furthermore, a lack of physical activity (exercise) encourages insulin resistance, as well as the ingestion of too many carbohydrates.

Diabetes and Oxidative Stress

Most scientists and doctors agree that oxidative stress is extremely important in determining the root cause of diabetes. The theory is quite complicated, with references to biochemistry. Envision a “free radical”, which is an atom or molecule with an unpaired electron in its outer ring. This atom or molecule desperately wants to find another electron to reach a state of equilibrium. As such, this “free radical” will quickly grab an electron from the nearest molecule. Of course, this converts the other molecule into a “free radical”, needing to find another electron. And so on down the line it goes, a never-ending cycle occurring over and over again.

Scientists call this cycle the “chain reaction of free radicals”. The most dangerous aspect of these rogue free radicals is the damage they wreak on DNA and the cell membrane. Think of their activity as cells running amuck, destroying everything in their path.

The body’s natural defense against free radicals is a system of antioxidants. These are molecules that aren’t affected by free radicals, and can thus sever the chain reaction prior to serious damage occurring. The most important antioxidants are the following:

Alpha lipoic acid, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, glutathione, and CoQ10.

These free radicals affect the various types of diabetes in different ways:

1. Type 1 diabetes: Free radicals damage the important beta cells located in the pancreas, affecting their ability to produce insulin.
2. Type 2 diabetes: Free radicals damage cell membranes, which leads to a breakdown in signaling between cells.

Furthermore, free radicals deplete the body of its store of antioxidants, adding to the problem.

All of this explains why lowering oxidative stress is so crucial. This is done by eating a more healthy diet, increasing the exercise regimen, and making sure to take a full line of antioxidant supplements.

There’s still much research to be done into the causes of diabetes. We do know, however, that the body can start to malfunction 5 to 7 years before the diagnosis of diabetes. This explains why somewhere in the range of 40% of people who have diabetes remain undiagnosed.

Brand-new diabetes advice

Shape
April, 2006
by Sarah Robbins

We've known forever that a lowfat diet can protect against cardiovascular disease--now there's evidence suggesting that it fights diabetes too. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found that overdoing it on fatty foods appears to suppress the action of GnT-4a, the single gene that controls the production of the hormone insulin, which keeps blood sugar (glucose) levels in check. Consistently elevated glucose is the hallmark of diabetes. "The results of the study, which was done on mice, have the potential to explain how diet influences the development of type II diabetes in people," says study author Jamey Marth, Ph.D. Scientists are now trying to find out why the gene fails--and how to correct it. But you don't have to wait to take action: Trimming the fat out of your diet is an overall healthy move.--S.R.

PS Melabic is a combination of the 9 all natural most effective diabetes fighting ingredients. To find out more how they can help you normalize your blood sugar levels and take back your health visit me at Melabic.com

Diabetes and You!

This blog is all about diabetes and my experience in managing it, researching for treatment and the products offered in the market and the internet for diabetics.  I will be posting also information from other related sites about diabetes.

But first about myself and my diabetes background. We are three children (all boys in the family) and all are diabetics. My mother is a Type I or insulin dependent diabetic since she was 19 and died at the age of 52 from diabetes complication such as kidney malfunction, pneumonia with water in her lungs, heart disease or in short multiple organ failure and she's not even obese, she is very thin since her high school days. She started injecting insulin when she was about 40.

I discovered my diabetes when I was 32 (I'm now 39), back then I don't believed I had one but my eldest brother brought me a glucometer - a portable blood sugar testing kit. He was using one as he was diagnosed earlier (at age 27). He persuaded me to have my blood tested and behold the result: 9 mmol/L or 162 mg/dL. Yes, it is beyond normal and I am diabetic.

Many thoughts came into my mind such as will I suffer and die like my mom, will my kids be diabetics also and others. I consulted my wife, other diabetics, my brothers of course, a doctor friend and they all told me to have myself checked by a medical doctor.

And so I did. The doctor had me undergo what they call the oral gluco challenge in which they got my fasting blood sugar then had me drink a very sweet liquid, had me wait for two hours and then took another blood sample. The result is 11 mmol/L or 198 mg/dL. So I am definitely a diabetic. The doctor prescribed Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate) once a day. Back then, I was an unemployed father with a wife and kid to support and avandia was and is expensive compared to other blood sugar lowering medicines such metformin or glyburide or glibenclamide and others.

For more information about diabetes, how it affects you, what you can do about it, just read my subsequent post.


Thank you for reading!