LifeCare Chiropractic

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diabetes prevention

Does Being Overweight Really Increase My Risk of Diabetes?

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The answer is yes, but what is striking about this study is just how much it puts you at risk.
In this particular study, researchers looked across multiple studies to determine the risks associated with being overweight or obese and diabetes.  Here’s what they found:
  • Those who were overweight had a 728% higher risk of developing diabetes.
  • Those who were obese had a staggering increase of 828%.
Personally, I really wish we would get rid of the diagnosis of diabetes.  A scoring system to tell if you are physiologically handling your blood sugar better or worse.
Somewhere along the line, we gave a magic value to a blood marker and that has become the only thing to worry about.  It’s like using the same marker for cigarette smokers and lung cancer.  Do those smokers who have not yet been diagnosed with lung cancer think everything is ok?
Of course not.
So why do people who are overweight and have not (yet) been diagnosed with diabetes think everything is ok?  The prediabetic state is arguably one of the most damaging states for our bodies to be in.  But we continue to ignore this condition, with drastic ramifications on all aspects of health.

 

Low Fat Versus Low Carb for Weight Loss: 5 Changes to Make

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No one becomes morbidly obese by overdosing on avocados or olive oil, yet fat has been demonized in the weight loss circles since the 90’s.

I won’t go into the whole USDA food guide pyramid mistake in this article, but if you’d like to read why it was such a bad idea you can do this in a previous article which can be read by clicking here.

That being said, this does not mean that you can ignore the higher calorie content found in fats.  Nuts are very good for you (raw, NO added oils) but if you eat two pounds a day there will be a price to pay in weight gain.  Same thing with olive oil.  But this doesn’t mean that you should avoid these foods altogether.  That is throwing out the baby with the bath water (and really….did anyone ACTUALLY ever throw a baby out when dumping the bath??).

This low-fat craze, however, was a huge push over the past 3 decades.  And look where it’s gotten us as a society; more obesity, more diabetes, more heart disease and more cancer.  Part of the problem with the low-fat diets is that we replaced the fats with bad carbohydrates like high fructose corn syrup and enriched wheat flour, two items that are the worst thing you can do for your weight and your health.

You can still see the remnants of the low-fat craze just by looking at the front of food package.  Some products proudly proclaim themselves to be “low fat” and use healthy in the same sentence.  This is despite the fact that a seasoned biochemist couldn’t pronounce half the ingredients on the label.

Leaving “low fat” out of the battle for weight loss, the carb story has been just as confusing.  Carbs became demonized as a group of macronutrients without thought to whether the carbohydrates came from broccoli or Wonder bread.

With all of that being said, keeping your carb intake lower is probably a good idea.  This particular study reinforces that point by comparing a low-fat diet to a low-carb diet.  In it, researchers compared 148 men and women put on either a low-carbohydrate diet (<40 grams per day) or a low-fat diet (<30% of daily energy intake from total fat with less than 7% coming from saturated fat]).  Here’s what they found after a year’s time:

  • The low-carb diet group lost more weight (7.7 pounds more).
  • The low-carb group lost more fat (1.5% more fat loss).
  • The low-carb group had a better improvement in HDL levels, the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL as well as triglyceride levels.

None of these results are Earth-shattering, but it does become clear that paying attention to your carb count has better payouts on health then does focusing on fat content of your diet.  Just to help you along, here are some tips for lowering your carb intake:

  1. Try mashed cauliflower with spices and olive oil instead of potatoes.
  2. Try jicama tortillas instead of corn or four tortillas, or try romaine lettuce to wrap your fish tacos.
  3. Ditch the sodas and juices – try organic teas or get a SodaStream Crystal and make your own sparkling water with essences.
  4. Ditch sauces and use spices instead (spices with no sugars added, of course).
  5. If you’re going for pasta, try to make it a smaller part of the dish rather than the dominant food group.

So what creative ways have you come up with to lower your carb intake?

 

Whole Grains and Diabetes Prevention: Are You Reading the Label?

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You don’t label shop your grains. Your buying choice comes from the front of the food package. But is this pattern missing your whole grains to prevent  diabetes?

It is interesting to note that our national recommendations are NOT to avoid refined carbohydrates.  Rather, they suggest we should eat more whole grains.  I am generally not a conspiracy minded person, but clearly money is the only reason these recommendations are written as such.  Before I get into this, you need to fully understand the difference between a whole grain and a refined carbohydrate.

The whole grain contains the germ (the bulk of the protective nutrients), endosperm (the calories) and the bran (the fiber). To extend shelf life and increase palatability to the oblivious American public, the germ and bran is lopped off and we’re left with the endosperm–the calories minus some 90% of the phytonutrients that where present in the whole grain. The result is a devastating calorie rich/phytonutrient poor staple consumed by the vast majority of Americans. So “enriched wheat flour,” “sugar” and “high fructose corn syrup” all fall into this category.

It is rare that someone truly understands the distinctions between the whole grain and refined carbohydrate, but this understanding is critical to health.  Refined carbohydrates have been linked to pretty much every chronic disease, while whole grains generally protect.  Opposite ends of the spectrum.  Despite this clear difference and the very clear research that states that refined carbohydrates are pretty much evil, our national recommendations still do not tell us to avoid them.

If the powers that be (namely the USDA and the Surgeon General) stood up and declared that refined carbohydrates should be avoided completely, Nabisco, Kraft, Quaker, Mars and Nabisco would likely go out of business.  They really don’t offer any products that do not generate some degree of harm to your health.

Since we can’t have that happen, you are instead told to eat more whole grains.  So these companies can make the same crappy products and toss in some whole grains after the “contains less then 2% of…” part of the label.  This allows the companies to slap the “made with whole grains” on the front of the package.  You, as the unwary customer who does not read the ingredients label thinks that Wonder Bread is now a health food because it is “made with whole grains.”

The analogy I usually give is the guy at the Skittles factory over a vat of product with an eyedropper of fruit juice.  After the single drop, they proudly proclaim that Skittles are made with real fruit juice and put it on the front of the label.  But does any parent look at the front of the Skittles package and think, “Made with whole grains!  I’ve GOT to give this to my kids for their health?”

All of this ranting brings me to this particular article.  Researchers looked at whether a higher intake of whole grains led to a lower risk of developing prediabetes.

Overall, those with the highest intake of whole grains had a 34% lower risk of progressing to prediabetes (Tweet this).  This level of whole grain intake can only come by replacing refined carbohydrates with whole grains.

The bottom line is, if you are not reading ingredients labels and instead focus exclusively on carbohydrate content in the “nutrition facts” grid, you are missing the most important aspect of what you are eating.

Do you read the label?  Do you think that you should, in the best interests of your family’s health, go to the fridge and pantry right now and throw out all the food items with enriched wheat flour and high fructose corn syrup?

Diabetes Prevention Through Modern Chemistry

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Diabetes rates continue to increase with no end in sight. Diabetes prevention, however, is very possible through healthy lifestyle changes.

GLP-1 is a protein produced by “G cells” that are located later down in the small intestine.  They are actually taste cells just like our tongues have.  When properly stimulated, GLP-1 is released and does all kinds of good things to help our bodies manage blood glucose.

But it is broken down very quickly by the body (1-2 mins) and so has a short window of action.  Luckily, the Better Living Through Chemistry (BLTC) folks have come up with an answer–the spit of the gila monster acts much like our body’s GLP-1 when injected and quickly became the new “wonder drug” for diabetes.

However, it’s use is really a pain in the gluts because it has to be refridgerated and used as an injection.  Then, other BLTC folks came up with a drug to make our own GLP-1 last longer (DPP4 inhibitors).

These have always been used to manage diabetes that has already been diagnosed.  Looking for a bigger profit margin, in this particular study, the BLTC folks are doing studies on rats to see if we can double the market and use in on people to prevent diabetes.

You can almost hear the “cha-ching” sounds as you read the article.

The drug companies have pretty much decided that YOU, the consumer, are not smart enough and dedicated enough to make the necessary lifestyle changes to avoid or eliminate diabetes yourself.  Because of this, we NEED chemistry.

Forget the fact that all this drug use to drive beta cell function of the pancreas will undoubtedly lead to complete burnout of these cells and lord knows what other bad effects.

The good news is that if the drug companies can suppress the bad news on the negative side effects for as many years as possible, they can continue to make glorious profits.

Lower Risk of Diabetes – Avoid Doctor’s Advice

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Drink 8 glasses of water per day. This has become a near mantra when it comes to a heathier lifestyle.  Doctors tell you it will help prevent diabetes.

It helps with weight loss (not true). It helps to detoxify (not true). It keeps you from eating as much at a meal (not true). But at least it won’t harm you, right?

Wrong.

I have previously gone over the reasons why drinking water may actually be harmful to your health. The principle reason is that, when many of us choose to drink water, it is bottled in a plastic water bottle containing Bisphenol A (BPA). I would also consider that, with every ounce of water drunk, this is one less ounce of tea that can protect you in a multitude of ways.

You see, tea (unsweetened) has been shown in hundreds and hundreds of studies to protect us from a vast array of chronic diseases. If done right, most people find tea very satisfying. My 6 year old son now orders this on a regular basis when we go out to eat and this is our primary drink around the house.

Contrast this with water, which has no evidence that I have come across that suggests it lowers the risk of chronic disease. Now I’m not saying you should go hiking in AZ at noon in August and not bring some water. But look around you. Odds are that half the people you see are lugging along a 12 oz bottled water that they keep within arm’s reach as if they were going to shrivel up into a prune at any given second.

This particular study delivers some very interesting results. The “standard” recommendations suggest that we should replace sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) and fruit juices with non-caloric drinks such as water (do NOT consider non-caloric drinks containing artificial sweeteners like Splenda and Nutrisweet to do anything but harm our progression to diabetes) to lower our risk of diabetes.

Because of this, researchers looked at what effects drinking water vs SSB would have on diabetes risk. Researchers found that replacement of a serving SSBs and fruit juices per day by a cup of plain water per day with 8% lower risk of diabetes.

Sounds pretty good, right?

Well, at least it does until you find out what the rest of the data demonstrated. Plain-water intake at ≥6 cups/d increased diabetes risk by 6%.

Yes–increased.

What does this mean? It means that SSB and fruit juices are not good for us. We should NEVER drink our calories (which includes milk, by the way) because it will always increase our risk for diabetes.

However, replacing SSB with water may help, but it is not the best option because water itself may actually increase the risk of diabetes, just not as much as SSB. Which of course leaves drinking more tea.

So what is your favorite type of tea?

CAN WE PREVENT TYPE 1 DIABETES?

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Can we prevent the onset of Type 1 diabetes in our children? Like everything else, I suppose the answer to this depends on who you ask. This person’s answer, in turn, will result in what they read to stay current. I find that, in those who do not believe that chronic diseases can be avoiding or controlled without medication, their scope of learning is restricted.

First, a little clarification. Type 1 diabetes used to be called juvenile onset or insulin-dependent diabetes. Type 2 used to be called adult onset or insulin-independent diabetes. Given how much our current lifestyle has completely screwed up our collective health, these titles no longer apply.

In general, Type 1 diabetes results from either an autoimmune attack on the insulin producing beta cells of the pancreas, destroying the body’s ability to produce insulin, or from destruction of the beta cells of the pancreas from lifestyle contributions and / or diabetic medications.

Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, results when the need for insulin to control blood glucose exceeds the beta cell’s ability to keep up. This is best approached with lifestyle changes to revert our physiology back to a happier state.

In contradiction to their nomenclature, “adult onset” diabetes is now being seen in children because of the poor lifestyle choices their parents have ingrained upon them. Further, “juvenile onset” diabetes, or insulin dependent, is the end result of poorly controlled (read: managed exclusively with medication) Type 2 diabetes.

The official position of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF) is that we do not yet know what causes Type 1 diabetes in our children (the only suggestion their website gives to “prevent” Type 1 diabetes is to “focus on developing vaccines for universal infant and childhood immunization”) . Meanwhile, the advice they give to help manage this condition is superficial and seems to be heavily influenced by funding received from dubious sources like large confectionery and junk food companies that will remain nameless (but are listed on the JDRF website).

The research demonstrates several contributing factors to the development of Type 1 diabetes that I am aware of:

  1. Dairy places an important role in the onset of Type 1 diabetes, based on the fact that the countries with the highest intakes of dairy have the highest incidence of Type 1 diabetes as well as findings that suggest that there is molecular mimicry between proteins in the dairy and proteins in the beta cells of the pancreas.
  2. Niacinamide, one of the B vitamins, has been shown to prevent or stump the development of Type 1 diabetes.
  3. Vitamin D seems to play a strong role in the development of autoimmunity in general, and Type 1 diabetes in particular.
  4. Zinc has been shown to play a strong role in preventing Type 1 diabetes
  5. Bacteria in the gut may play a strong role in the development of Type 1 diabetes.  This also means that antibiotic use may increase the risk.
  6. Celiac disease, an allergy to the gluten containing portion of grains, has strong associations with the onset of Type 1 diabetes, and even shows up before the onset of the diabetes.

This particular study adds further weight to the contribution of vitamin D to the development of Type 1 diabetes. Researchers found that hormone levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH) where linked to the development of Type 1 diabetes in the siblings of those already afflicted with the condition.

PTH is a hormone (although the name sounds like it might be related to the thyroid, it is merely a description of where the gland sits – “para” meaning around or near) that the body uses to essentially lowers calcium levels in the bloodstream. It does this by increasing bone turnover and increasing the absorption of calcium from out diet via the gut. Elevated levels of the active form of vitamin D lower the release of PTH, lest we raise calcium levels too high in the bloodstream.

Since Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition, the researchers looked at the ratio of two opposing states of the immune system, IgG2 and IgE. IgG2 is a marker of our body’s attack against things inside (the far spectrum of which is our body mistakenly attacking itself), while IgE is a marker of the body stopping things from getting in in the first place (the far spectrum of which is allergies and asthma). They found that, in those with higher levels of PTH (which can be used as a marker of the active form of vitamin D) the above ratio was suggestive of autoimmunity.

Thus, this study adds more weight to previous findings that suggest that vitamin D plays a role in the development of Type 1 diabetes. It is findings like this that convince me that giving vitamin D supplementation to children is a very good idea.