An Unlikely Tool To Combat Diabetes: Chocolate, Say Researchers

An unlikely tool to combat diabetes: chocolate, say researchers

But here’s the thing: BYU researchers have discovered certain compounds found in cocoa can actually help your body release more insulin and respond to increased blood glucose better. Insulin is the hormone that manages glucose, the blood sugar that reaches unhealthy levels in diabetes.
Of course, there’s a catch.
“You probably have to eat a lot of cocoa, and you probably don’t want it to have a lot of sugar in it,” said study author Jeffery Tessem, assistant professor of nutrition, dietetics and food science at BYU. “It’s the compound in cocoa you’re after.”
When a person has diabetes, their body either doesn’t produce enough insulin or doesn’t process blood sugar properly. At the root of that is the failure of beta cells, whose job it is to produce insulin. The new study, published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, finds beta cells work better and remain stronger with an increased presence of epicatechin monomers, compounds found naturally in cocoa.
To discover this, collaborators at Virginia Tech first fed the cocoa compound to animals on a high-fat diet. They found that by adding it to the high-fat diet, the compound would decrease the level of obesity in the animals and would increase their ability to deal with increased blood glucose levels.
The BYU team, comprised of graduate and undergraduate students in Tessem's lab and the labs of Ben Bikman and Jason Hansen (BYU professors of physiology and developmental biology), then dove in and dissected what was happening on the cellular level — specifically, the beta cell level. That’s when Continue reading

Rate this article

Total 1 ratings

Type 1 diabetes mellitus and gluten induced disorders

Go to:
Introduction
Coeliac Disease (CD), also referred to as gluten-sensitive enteropathy, is an autoimmune condition that occurs in genetically predisposed people by exposure to gluten. Initially mentioned in literature in the second century AD, CD was described as an intestinal disorder with symptoms of diarrhoea, malabsorption and weight loss. Recently, it has become clear that there is a group of conditions related to gluten consumption. Foremost among them are three types: a) the least common is wheat allergy; b) the autoimmune form, the best characterized, includes CD, dermatitis herpetiformis, and gluten ataxia; and c) sensitivity to gluten, which is possibly immune-mediated and now the most common (1). An association between gluten and CD was only established much later, by Dicke (1953), who found that the removal of gluten from patients’ diets led to the improvement of symptoms (2).
Gluten and gluten toxicity
Gluten is a protein constituent found in wheat, rye, and barley. It is gluten that gives dough its elasticity, helps it rise and contributes to the texture of many food products such as bread, pasta, or imitation meats (3,4). Specifically the storage proteins (prolamins) gliadin (wheat), secalin (rye), and hordein (barley) have been shown to have toxic effects on intestinal cells in gluten sensitive people. The toxic effects of these prolamins include the reduction of F-actin, inhibition of cellular growth, premature cell death, the rearrangement of the cytoskeleton, and increased small bowel permeability (5).
Symptoms and associations of CD
Despite a stron Continue reading

Too little gluten in our diet may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes

People with celiac disease or who are gluten intolerant may benefit from a low-gluten diet. A considerable number of people who do not have these diseases still adopt a gluten-free diet in the hope that it benefits their health. New research, however, suggests that a low-gluten diet may even have some adverse health effects, by raising the risk of diabetes.
Gluten is a protein mainly found in wheat, barley, and rye, as well as baked goods and other foods that contain these cereals. People with celiac disease - an autoimmune disorder affecting at least 3 million people in the United States - avoid gluten because their immune system responds to it by attacking the small intestine.
However, more and more people are adopting a gluten-free diet, despite its health benefits being unclear.
In fact, some nutritionists advise against avoiding gluten. Instead, they recommend a well-balanced diet that includes fruit and vegetables, as well as whole-grain wheat and other foods containing gluten.
New research - presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Lifestyle 2017 Scientific Sessions - suggests that a low-gluten diet may have adverse health effects by raising the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Studying the link between gluten consumption and type 2 diabetes
Geng Zong, Ph.D. - one of the study's authors and a research fellow in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, MA - explains the motivation behind the study:
We wanted to determine if gluten consumption will affect health in people with no apparent Continue reading

No Longer Fat, Sick And Hungry: We Cured Arthritis And Pre Diabetes With Vegan Diet

The long read
Diane McConnel and Judith Fiore completely changed their lives with a plant-based diet
It was a damp, cold day in the west end of Toronto, in the fall of 2012. As I rolled over in my bed, I could feel my swollen knees aching beneath me. My other hip was hurting too, the one that had not been replaced three months before.
My lower back throbbed when I moved. My fingers were swollen like balloons, painful as red hot pokers.
I knew then that I was in big trouble. I had thought that all my health troubles were over, once I'd had my hip joint replaced at age 59, never anticipating that my arthritis was progressive and would start spreading to my other joints.
'Expert'
I waited in the crowded office of a doctor who specializes in arthritis, surrounded by others who were overweight, in pain and struggling with walkers and wheelchairs.
This expert offered no hope of recovery. I was given a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and another for pain management.
The side effects of these medications are severe, including bleeding from the rectum, with the increased risk of heart attack and stroke. He also suggested that I sign up for a government funded program on how to live with arthritis. My future looked dismal and I was scared.
Dr. McDougall
I couldn't help feeling that something must be causing this, something must be aggravating my body's delicate balance of chemistry. If I could just find out what that was. I started searching the web, looking for answers.
I typed in 'cure for arthritis' and stumbled across a doctor in California who is curing not only some forms Continue reading

Type 2 Diabetes - The Signs and Symptoms

There are 21 million people in the world who have been diagnosed with diabetes, but there are still around 8.1 million people who have the disease and don’t know about it (27.8% of people with diabetes are undiagnosed). Symptoms of this disease vary from person to person, but, like with most diseases, the earlier you catch it, the better off you will be.
Therefore, it is definitely worth getting to know, and keeping an eye out, for the symptoms of diabetes.
• You are above the age of 45
• You have already been diagnosed with pre-diabetes
• You are overweight or inactive
• You are African American, a native of Alaska, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, or Pacific Islander American, and are experiencing atypical symptoms.
Common Symptoms of Diabetes
If you’re experiencing any of the below, you should contact your doctor as soon as possible.
Excessive Urination (Polyuria)
Polyuria is an increase in the frequency of urination. When you have abnormally high levels of sugar in your blood, your kidneys draw in water from your tissues in order to dilute the sugar, so your body can expel it in the urine. The cells are also pumping water into the bloodstream to flush out the sugar, and the kidneys are not able to reabsorb this fluid during filtering, resulting in excessive urination.
To meet the clinical definition of polyuria, an adult’s urine output must be more than 2.5 liters per day (normal urine output is 1.5 liters).
As it’s near enough impossible for you to measure this yourself, if you notice that you’re visiting the bathroom more times than Continue reading