Our Country Is Waking Up: Eating Vegan Is The New Prescription To Treat Diabetes

Our Country Is Waking Up: Eating Vegan Is The New Prescription to Treat Diabetes

The time has arrived; no longer is a vegan, plant-based diet being seen as a trendy, hippie fad. It’s finally seen as an Rx treatment to take on one of the largest killers of our time: diabetes. Diabetes affects 115 million Americans every single day. More cases develop year by year, despite what we’ve done to eliminate soda in some cities, eliminate a large majority of high-fructose corn syrup on the market, and even list calorie content on fast food menus for people to make better choices. Those are a step in the right direction, but aren’t solving the diabetic problem. What is? A fiber-rich, plant-based diet – simple as that.
The Simple Solution to a Really Big Problem
The Center for Disease Control says that 86 millions Americans now have prediabetes. That’s a major problem if they end up joining the already 29 million Americans that already have it. Neal Barnard, M.D., and founder of The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, recently shared his take on the new findings that show a plant-based diet prevents and treats Type 2 diabetes and helps those with Type 1 diabetes manage, and eliminate some symptoms.
Our Country is Getting a Wake-Up Call
We’ve long known how a plant-based diet supports and prevents diabetes, but we’ve yet to see medical organizations and the government wake up to this crazy (yet simple and smart) notion themselves. Many medical professional believe that their patients simply won’t stick to a plant-based diet, and that may very well be true if they don’t have the right knowledge and motivation to do so. Luckily, organi Continue reading

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Four Herbs That Help With Diabetes Management

Nature offers us support for health and healing with its abundance of medicinal herbs.
A medicinal herb is a plant, or part of a plant, which is used in its entirety to enhance our physical well being. Each herb contains hundreds, sometimes thousands, of naturally occurring chemicals that work together synergistically to help us heal.
Some herbs have been used for millennia to treat illnesses such as diabetes. If you are struggling to maintain good glucose control, or want to strengthen your resistance to diabetes complications, consider talking to your diabetes care team about adding herbal supplements to your daily regimen.
Your physician or diabetes educator can make sure any herb you take is compatible with your prescription medications, and whether an herb is contraindicated for pregnant women, children, or for those with certain other medical conditions.
Four Helpful Herbs
Here are four diabetes-helpful herbs can be taken alone, or used in combination.
Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridum) is a member of the ginseng family, and is sometimes called armored ginseng, or northwest ginseng (it grows in the Pacific Northwest). Devil’s club helps balance blood sugar levels, is a calming digestive tonic, and is reported to help some people lose weight.
Goat’s Rue (Galega officinalis) contains a compound called galegine that helps the body balance glucose levels and supports the breakdown and absorption of dietary fats and proteins. In Europe, Goat’s rue has been used for centuries to treat diabetes.
Dandelion root (Taraxacum officinalis) is a gentle, effective liver tonic Continue reading

“Online Revolt” Infuriates Diabetes Establishment

Last week, we saw the news that the world’s largest diabetes organizations, including the International Diabetes Federation, the American Diabetes Association, the Chinese Diabetes Society, and Diabetes India, are embracing bariatric surgery as a radical new approach to treating type-2 diabetes. According to these experts, surgery should be the standard protocol for many patients.
At the same time, these experts are becoming increasingly dismissive of diet and lifestyle approaches to reversing type-2 diabetes. The crux of the problem is that “the experts” recommend a low-fat, higher-carbohydrate approach, which simply doesn’t cut the mustard when compared to low-carb, higher-fat approaches.
In the information era, however, the truth always comes out.
Today, The Times is reporting on what they are referring to as “an online revolt by patients.” Diabetes.co.uk, a health organization that opposes the official dietary guidelines for diabetes treatment, launched a study, which included over 120,000 participants, the majority of whom suffer from weight related type-2 diabetes.
These people ate low-carb diets for 10 weeks, in defiance of the UK government’s Eatwell Guidelines, which mimic official US guidelines.
Over 70% of participants lost weight and improved their blood glucose levels.
“The results from the low-carb plan have been impressive and this is a solution that is clearly working for people with type 2 diabetes,” said Arjun Panesar, chief executive officer of diabetes.org.uk
David Unwin, a family doctor and clinical expert in diabetes, added, “For ma Continue reading

When Depression Accompanies Diabetes: How to Cope

Diabetics with depression tend to have higher glucose levels than those not depressed, and depression makes daily diabetes management more difficult.
So tell your doctor about problems with sleeping, focusing, anxiety, irritability, lethargy, hopelessness or sadness. He or she will want to know how long the symptoms have persisted and how they affect your daily functioning.
Unless you have a history of depression, these symptoms are likely temporary, and there is much you can do to hasten their departure. To begin, accept your feelings.
Depression and Feelings
Anger, fear, disappointment, sadness, fatigue, grief and overwhelm are all natural responses to intrusive change. None of these feelings is wrong or a sign of weakness.
Emotions and feelings, even the uncomfortable ones, are meant to be felt. Denied feelings are like trapped birds; they may flap about fearfully or angrily trying to get free or lose hope and sit in sadness. When we acknowledge and feel our emotions, they are free to come and go or flow.
Unfortunately, we often think of emotions as being either positive or negative. It is more beneficial to think of them as information about the internal state of our affairs. We need to take this information into consideration when choosing our actions.
Depression Relief
To relieve depression, you must often make yourself do things you know are good for you, since you cannot rely on pleasurable feelings for motivation.
Socialize, use your supports and ask for help. Getting emotional support will help you manage diabetes, and good diabetes management will empower and str Continue reading

Type 2 Diabetes, Angina, Exhaustion, and 50 Pounds Gone in 18 Months

I have had a love affair with food my entire life. Growing up, my dinners consisted of meat, potatoes, fried vegetables, white rolls, and desserts topped with ice cream. The winter holidays were filled with cooking and entertaining. And every New Year’s Eve, I would make a resolution to go on another diet to get control of my weight. I never thought about the consequences of what I was eating. In July of 2007, just after my 58th birthday, I went to the hospital because I was not feeling well. Blood tests revealed I had type 2 diabetes and a dangerously high blood sugar of 441 mg/dL. I was prescribed five pills and two injections of Byetta a day.
In February 2008, I went to the hospital again because I was short of breath and had pain in my left arm and jaw. I failed the stress test within several minutes. My angiogram revealed five of my arteries were 80 to 100 percent blocked, and I had to have coronary bypass graft surgery. After the operation, I was sent home with a one-page dietary guideline and instructions to limit my saturated fats. It still didn’t register with me that my food choices were the problem. I was too overwhelmed by the scary turn of events and thought the bypasses had “fixed” me. I knew absolutely nothing about nutrition.
Even after the surgery, I continued to have angina due to an 80 percent blockage in my diagonal artery, which had not been repaired. I was given medication to dilate my arteries and relieve the angina. Over the next few years, the dosage was increased several times. Meanwhile, my diabetes was raging out of control. I remember cr Continue reading