Bitter Melon And Diabetes: How Does It Affect Blood Sugar Levels?

Bitter melon and diabetes: How does it affect blood sugar levels?

Diabetes is a condition that affects blood sugar levels and can lead to health issues if not properly managed. Could eating bitter melon be healthful for those looking to manage diabetes?
The bodies of people with diabetes do not produce enough insulin or are not able to use insulin effectively, which leads to there being too much glucose in the blood. Insulin is required so that cells can use it for energy.
A healthful diet and exercise are important for people with diabetes to help them manage their condition. Certain foods can cause blood sugar levels to spike, which is problematic.
In this article, we explore whether bitter melon is healthful for people looking to manage diabetes. As part of this, we analyze the impact bitter melon may have on blood sugar.
Contents of this article:
Treating diabetes
In type 1 diabetes, high blood sugar is the result of the body not producing enough insulin.
Type 2 diabetes, however, occurs when the body does not respond correctly to insulin. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, and people of any age can develop it.
Many people with diabetes manage their condition well and do not experience further health problems. A range of medications and lifestyle changes can help people with diabetes live healthy lives.
However, drug therapies may have some side effects. As such, some people look to try natural treatments that are free of side effects. To make an informed decision about these, it helps to understand the science behind these options.
One such natural treatment method is better melon. Although further research is neede Continue reading

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Apple cider vinegar and diabetes: Does it help? How is it taken?

For many years, apple cider vinegar has been linked with an array of health benefits. These have ranged from aiding weight loss to relieving cold symptoms. But does taking it help people with diabetes?
The majority of the health claims around apple cider vinegar have yet to be supported by clinical research. However, evidence has been emerging to suggest that apple cider vinegar may have certain benefits for the management of type 2 diabetes.
This article will discuss the research behind this claim and how apple cider vinegar should be taken, if at all.
What is apple cider vinegar?
Vinegar can be made from nearly any carbohydrate. Apple cider vinegar is derived from cider or freshly pressed apple juice.
Like most vinegars, apple cider vinegar is produced after a slow process spanning several weeks or months in which sugars are broken down.
Mother of vinegar is a cobweb-like substance made from yeast and bacteria that builds up during this period. Mother of vinegar gives the vinegar a cloudy appearance and it is only present in unfiltered apple cider vinegar. It is thought to boost the vinegar's nutritional value.
However, most vinegar is pasteurized. This heating process kills bacteria but prevents mother of vinegar from forming.
Apple cider vinegar and diabetes
In 1980, there were around 108 million people with diabetes worldwide. Its prevalence has increased greatly over the past few decades to an estimated 422 million. Diabetes is a chronic condition marked by an inability to manage blood sugar levels appropriately.
The hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar leve Continue reading

It’s horrible, deadly — and insanely easy to fix. But America’s troubles with food insecurity means millions are closer to the scurvy zone than we admit.

It’s horrible, deadly — and insanely easy to fix. But America’s troubles with food insecurity means millions are closer to the scurvy zone than we admit.
By Leigh Cowart
Right now, there’s about a cup of orange juice in my gut, sloshing around and mingling with my stomach acid as it delivers all the vitamin C that I require for the day. I’ve got some major bruises on my knees, and so once the essential nutrient hits my body’s internal transport system, the orange juice that I just drank will play an important role in wound healing, preventing future capillaries from bleeding too easily, and with any luck helping me perform enough sweet, sweet collagen synthesis to make it look like I sleep regularly. Vitamin C may be the most important water-soluble antioxidant in human plasma, and is required for all plants and animals. But while most other animals can synthesize their own supply, humans — along with other primates, guinea pigs, capybaras, some fish, and some bats — have to get theirs elsewhere. Hence the orange juice.
The problem is that not everyone gets enough. And when vitamin C goes missing from a diet for long enough, the results can be explicitly unpleasant: scurvy.
We act like scurvy is long left behind, a throwback disease, forgotten and dust-covered and banished to antiquity. But this scourge of sailors is, in fact, not something that humanity has outgrown. It still happens, and probably more than you realize.
Scurvy, the most extreme result of prolonged lack of vitamin C, is, in a word, unpleasant. In three, it’s “fatal if untreated.” The d Continue reading

Disease Prevention: Diabetes and Heart Problems Can Be Avoided if You Eat Slower

Growing up, your parents probably delivered lectures about your eating habits, namely getting enough fruits and vegetables, not playing with your food, and not scarfing down the contents of your plate. Turns out, wise mom was right again when it comes to chewing thoroughly—the American Heart Association released new information that gobbling down your food could damage your heart and cause weight gain.
Related: Low-Calorie Diet Could Help Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
Researchers from the organization presented their findings about eating pace and health at the 2017 Scientific Sessions, a conference where researchers and clinicians discuss the newest heart health advances.
According to a release, people who ate slowly were less likely to be obese or develop metabolic syndrome, which are among a variety of factors that increase your risk of health problems like diabetes or heart disease. These factors include: excess stomach fat, typically seen in apple-shaped bodies; elevated blood sugar; high blood pressure; high triglycerides; and low HDL cholesterol, also what people usually refer to as “the good kind.”
For the study, researchers looked at data on 642 men and 441 women whose average age was 51 years old. None of the participants started with metabolic syndrome, and everyone was separated by their eating speeds, categorized as either slow, normal or fast.
Over the course of five years, fast eaters were 11.6 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome than normal eaters. Those who ate at normal speeds had a 6.5 percent chance of developing the syndrome while only 2.3 pe Continue reading

New Theory About the Cause of Type 1 Diabetes

The immune system mistakenly identifying insulin-secreting beta cells as a potential danger and, in turn, destroying them has long been considered the root cause of type 1 diabetes. Now, an international team of researchers led by City of Hope’s Bart Roep, Ph.D., the Chan Soon-Shiong Shapiro Distinguished Chair in Diabetes and professor/founding chair of the Department of Diabetes Immunology, has been able to justify a new theory about the cause of type 1 diabetes through experimental work. The study results were published online yesterday in the journal Nature Medicine.
Type 1 diabetes affects an estimated 1.5 million Americans and is the result of the loss of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.
Now Roep, along with researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, have found a mechanism in which stressed beta cells are actually causing the immune response that leads to type 1 diabetes.
“Our findings show that type 1 diabetes results from a mistake of the beta cell, not a mistake of the immune system,” said Roep, who is director of The Wanek Family Project for Type 1 Diabetes, which was recently created with gifts from the Wanek family and anonymous donors to support the institution’s goal of curing type 1 diabetes in six years. “The immune system does what it is supposed to do, which is respond to distressed or ‘unhappy’ tissue, as it would in infection or cancer.”
In order to gain a better understanding of why the immune system attacks the body’s own source of insulin — the pancreatic beta cells in the islets of Lange Continue reading