Tag Archives: diabetes

Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, prevention.

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Browsing the web looking for health information, I learned that academics have discovered an undeniable link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Melissa Schilling, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, has just completed a large scale study in which she reviewed the extensive literature that clearly associates diabetes with Alzheimer’s disease, both in terms of risk and now in terms of mechanism. She was able to find robust evidence that links insulin, as well as the enzyme that degrades insulin (insulin-degrading enzyme or IDE), and the development of Alzheimer’s disease in itself. Her study strongly suggest that elevated insulin plays a critical role in the development of the various hallmarks characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. – See more at: http://www.drperlmutter.com/alzheimers-news-front-page/#sthash.dAVa7l9b.dpuf

Given that diabetes (Type 2, anyway) is considered a lifestyle disease, it adds to the urgency that diabetics and pre-diabetics change their diets now to prevent Alzheimer’s later. Some say Alzheimer’s is Type 3 diabetes.

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How Phyllis got off pharmaceuticals

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Phyllis was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. She also had thyroid issues, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. At the most, she was taking 12 different pharmaceuticals.

Besides reversing her diabetes (to read that story, start with Part 1 here or read this summary), she got off all her prescription meds.

Getting off medication is a taboo in many people’s minds. Once prescribed a medication, they believe that they have to take it for the rest of their life because their condition is irreversible. They believe that no longer taking a medication would be disobeying a doctor’s orders, and doctors are like God.

Medications can be extremely helpful, even life-saving. Byetta made a major difference for Phyllis. Yet it turned out she only needed it for a while, until her body became healthier and less resistant to insulin.

If you are in doubt about whether you might ever be able to go off a medication, ask your doctor if lifestyle changes can make a difference. Continue reading →

A hero’s journey: lessons in reversing diabetes

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Note: This is a summary of Phyllis’ return to health after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. To read her four-part story, start with Part 1.

“The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive.” ~ Joseph Campbell

The path to healing autoimmune disease is not a well-worn path, but it can be done. If it’s possible for Phyllis to reverse her Type 2 diabetes, it’s possible for others. Many people still treat autoimmune diseases as intractable — believing they can only cause a steady prolonged decline, and there’s nothing you can do about it except take the prescribed medications and wait for disability and death.

Even doctors, as Phyllis learned, don’t always offer counsel that lifestyle changes can improve health.

I wanted to look at Phyllis’ sojourn as steps she took on her life path where she learned to choose those forks in the road that led her in the direction of better health. Continue reading →

Reversing diabetes: Phyllis’ return to health. Part 3.

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This is Part 3 in a series of posts telling what Phyllis did to reverse her Type 2 diabetes. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here, or go here for a summary.

To recap, Phyllis was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2003. She was exhausted from a stressful job and commute and wasn’t eating right. She knew she needed to stop using the comfort of eating to offset stress. First, she quit her job. She connected with nature and quiet, found support, and began making changes to her diet. Doing Trance Dance helped her connect with an inner intuitive voice that advised her to eat a more alkaline diet. More changes were in store for her…

Family Constellation Work and Byetta

About this time, Phyllis started working with Gwendolyn Terra, who introduced family constellation work to Austin. Gwendolyn and Phyllis were roommates for a while and hosted/facilitated constellation sessions every Sunday.

Constellation work focuses on enlightening and healing the unconscious beliefs that often follow family tragedies and dysfunctions, affecting multiple generations, a kind of emotional DNA. These patterns are held in an individual’s energy field. A trained facilitator can help an individual clear patterns of unhappiness, failure, illness, and/or addiction that have been holding them back.

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Reversing diabetes: Phyllis’ return to health. Part 2.

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This is Part 2 in a series of posts telling the story of Phyllis and how she reversed Type 2 diabetes. Part 1 is here. If your reading time is limited, here is a summary.

To recap, Phyllis was working stressful 12-hour days with two-hour commutes each way. She wasn’t eating right. Her doctor told her she had a choice: be hospitalized or see an endocrinologist. She learned her A1C level was 10.2, putting her at high risk for serious complications…

Peace, Quiet, and Nature

Phyllis realized she had to do something differently. She knew she had to get away from food being such a comfort to offset the stress she was under.

She faced the stress first by giving a month’s notice and stepping away from her stressful job and commute.

She says now she was so sick back then, she couldn’t even think. Her body felt bad. Besides the diabetes, she had blood pressure issues, a heart murmur, and thyroid issues (Hashimoto’s, another autoimmune disease). Her memory declined. Continue reading →

Reversing diabetes: Phyllis’ return to health. Part 1.

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We’ve all heard the bad news: the percentage of Americans with diabetes has risen sharply since 1990. The CDC says over 12 percent of the adult population is estimated to have diabetes, and more than one-third of adults are now thought to be prediabetic. Two million more people are diagnosed with diabetes every year, and the rate is rising.

I’m talking about Type 2 diabetes (insulin resistance), which 90-95 percent of diabetics have, rather than Type 1 (in which the body no longer produces insulin), diagnosed in just 5 percent of diabetics.

Why is this alarming? Having diabetes increases the risk of serious health issues including heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, amputation of toes, feet or legs, and early death.

Doctors now know that living a healthier lifestyle (that means watching your diet and exercising) is key to preventing diabetes. Exercise and diet are important. But once full-blown Type 2 diabetes has been diagnosed, can it be reversed?

I’m writing this to tell you it can. This is Part 1 of a four-part series on how Phyllis Lejeune reversed Type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise, and in the process got off twelve prescription medications and lost over 100 pounds.

If you don’t have time to read all these posts, here’s a summary of Phyllis’ hero’s journey back to health.  Continue reading →

If inflammation is the culprit behind autism, heart disease, and more, the cure is to get parasites and eat real food

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Tonight I read two articles that each blamed inflammation for serious health issues.

One, by a world-renowned heart surgeon, said that the medical profession got it wrong when it began advocating a low-fat diet to control cholesterol. It is now known that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease. More people will die from heart disease this year than ever. The low-fat diet doesn’t work.

And…the dietary recommendations for lowering cholesterol are responsible for the high rates of diabetes and the obesity epidemic.

Only inflammation of artery walls causes cholesterol buildup. It has nothing to do with a low-fat diet.

The biggest culprits in inflammation, according to Dr. Lundell, are highly processed carbohydrates like sugar and flour and an excess consumption of omega 6 oils like soybean, corn, and sunflower.

There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.

There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation-causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them…. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.

What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.

Here’s a link to the original article: World Renowned Heart Surgeon Speaks Out on What Really Causes Heart Disease. And for good measure, read this to learn about the top 10 anti-inflammatory foods.

 

The second article was from the Sunday New York Times Magazine and showed a link between inflammation and autism. At least a third, and very likely more, of the cases of autism are linked to inflammatory diseases, including a mother’s inflammatory response to bacterial and viral infections, asthma, metabolic syndrome, autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and celiac disease, even allergies, during pregnancy.

Rather than blaming diet, this article blames sanitation for high levels of inflammation found in the developed world.

Scientists have repeatedly observed that people living in environments that resemble our evolutionary past, full of microbes and parasites, don’t suffer from inflammatory diseases as frequently as we do.

William Parker at Duke University has chimed in. He’s not, by training, an autism expert. But his work focuses on the immune system and its role in biology and disease, so he’s particularly qualified to point out the following: the immune system we consider normal is actually an evolutionary aberration.

Some years back, he began comparing wild sewer rats with clean lab rats. They were, in his words, “completely different organisms.” Wild rats tightly controlled inflammation. Not so the lab rats. Why? The wild rodents were rife with parasites. Parasites are famous for limiting inflammation.

Humans also evolved with plenty of parasites. Dr. Parker and many others think that we’re biologically dependent on the immune suppression provided by these hangers-on and that their removal has left us prone to inflammation. “We were willing to put up with hay fever, even some autoimmune disease,” he told me recently. “But autism? That’s it! You’ve got to stop this insanity.”

This article’s only mention of diet is that a probiotic taken during pregnancy may help prevent autism.

Read the original to learn about a medicalized parasite being tested on autistic adults. Here’s the link: An Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism.

My take? Do it all! One in 88 children now is born with autism in the U.S. The stress and difficulties of raising an autistic child are huge, not to mention who will care for (and pay for) these autistic adults who will someday have no family to take them in.

If that is due to diet and cleanliness, it’s worth eating fresh, unprocessed foods and living with some parasites. In my opinion.

Wheat belly

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Modern wheat is not good for anyone, according to Dr. William Davis, author of Wheat Belly, a new book that differentiates the wheat of today from the wheat of yesterday.

In this article on BoingBoing, Davis outlines how modern wheat has been genetically modified even since 1960 into a product that may be the real cause of the surge in obesity and diabetes.

He recommends that not just people with celiac, gluten-intolerance, and wheat sensitivity give up wheat. He recommends that everyone do so. If you’re wondering why you can’t lose weight, look at your wheat consumption. Rather than being a “healthy whole grain,” it might be working against your health instead of for it.

I don’t know the science and haven’t read the book, but I gave up wheat about four years ago, and I can tell you that it’s getting easier as more people jump on the no-wheat bandwagon. More restaurants offer gluten-free menus, and grocery stores offer more gluten-free foods. Gluten-free bakeries are even opening and doing well. Bakers and chefs are experimenting with alternatives to wheat flour and creating good new recipes.

Here’s what Davis says:

It is therefore my contention that eliminating all wheat from the diet is a good idea not just for people with gluten sensitivity; it’s a smart decision for everybody. I have experience in my heart disease prevention practice, as well as my online program for heart disease prevention and reversal, with several thousand people who have done just that and the results are nothing short of astounding. Weight loss of 30, 50, even 70 pounds or more within the first six months; reversal of diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions; relief from edema, sinus congestion, and asthma; disappearance of acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms; increased energy, happier mood, better sleep. People feel better, look better, eat fewer calories, feel less hungry, are able to discontinue use of many medications — just by eliminating one food from their diet — ironically a food that they’ve been told to eat more of.

Davis recommends going without wheat for four weeks:

If the health benefits of a wheat-free diet sound hard to believe, why not conduct your own little experiment and see for yourself: simply eliminate all things made of wheat for four weeks — no bread, bagels, pizza, pretzels, rolls, donuts, breakfast cereals, pancakes, waffles, pasta, noodles, or processed foods containing wheat (and do be careful to read labels, as food manufacturers love to slip a little wheat gliadin into your food every chance they get to stimulate your appetite). That’s a lot to cut out, true, but there’s still plenty of real, nutrient-dense foods like vegetables, fruit, nuts, cheese and dairy products, meat, fish, soy foods, legumes, oils like olive oil, avocados, even dark chocolate that you can eat in their place. If after that 4-week period you discover new mental clarity, better sleep, relief from joint pain, happier intestines, and a looser waistband, you will have your answer.