Shocking news '24,000 diabetes sufferers dying every year unneccessarily'

The news report yesterday ' Wednesday 14 December' in the Daily Express highlighted how many people with diabetes die from the condition and its complications.  24,000 is a shocking amount of people and not all of them would be older people.  This reasons given are mixed with some not receiving the full amount of care by the NHS and others simple not managing their diabetes.  Women according to the report are more likely to not manage their diabetes were men are better than this. Has this something to do with the life responsibilities that some women have i.e. house, children, self etc?  Or is it simply because managing diabetes is not on the top of their priority list.  I would be interested to hear what you have to say about this.

Two important statistics to leave you with.

1. The Express states ' up to 75,000 diabetes die in England every year'

2. The National Diabetes Audit found almost  '450,000 children and younger adults with diabetes have high risk blood sugar levels that could lead to severe complications'

According to various reports this is only going to get worse.

Can cinnamon help to control blood sugar?

According to Jeff O'Connell in his book Sugar Nation he came across this, little know to me anyway, gem of research which  indicates that cinnamon may help reduce blood glucose levels.  He writes 'A pair of studies found promising results, reductions in blood glucose levels of 20 percent or so'  Other studies have also looked at cinnamon for reduction of blood glucose levels but not with the same results. 

Cinnamon has an active ingredient called hydroxychalcone, which seems to improve insulin sensitivity.  Whether it is the cheap  or the expensive version of the spice it does not seem to matter.  Like O'Connell I will be adding it to everything that I can.  Whether proven or not it is a lovely tasting spice and will not do my any harm.  It could even help with my blood glucose levels.

The Diabetes Information Jigsaw

During my research in the last few days I came across a report called The Diabetes information Jigsaw.  Has anyone heard about this?  It was conducted in 2006 so the information is a little out of date but I wondered if anything that it reported on had changed.  It mentions that the 'government has made patient-centred care for diabetes a priority' but key deadlines had been missed.

From the three reports that I read: 'The Diabetes Information Jigsaw', 'DAWN' and 'Implications of the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study' diabetes is estimated to affect 370 million by 2030!  That is a shocking amount of people and it is not only in the older generation but more young people are being diagnosed with Type 2.  At least half of us do not 'achieve glycemic control', self-management is poor, just as many suffer from depression and we want better information and support.

I would like to hear what you think.  Drop me a line with your views on how you are managing your diabetes or if you are a carer how it is going for you both.

This is my second day of having one juice a day and already I have noticed a difference in my sugars.  Yesterday before eating was 9.4 mols, I juiced a lunch with a refreshing juice made with three greens: celery, cucumber and broccali.  Although I was not hungry my stomach flet empty so I had few crackers and cheese.  Reading before tea was 9.8 mols. 

This morning before breakfast was 8.3 and I had a wonderful juice that was made of: 1 apple,1 pear, 1/2 lemon, 1/2, deseeded red and yellow peppers and 1 small beetroot.  When juiced it looks like the picture.  It is a wonderful refreshing drink that has an earthy smell and taste.  Some people might find it hard to take a first because of the earthy taste.  I found it too sweet so I will try it next time with only 1 apple.  My readiings tonight was 9.8 mols. 

Juicing makes me feel light and not heavy which I feel after eating carbs.  It is a wonderful feeling.

New Lease of Life!

It has been a little while since I last posted to the site.  My apologies you all of you who are following my blog.  The thing that I find the most difficult to deal with is the mood swings that I get when my sugar is either too high or lower than normal.  I don't intend to feel down, there is nothing in my life to make me feel down, but my tendancy with my sugars bouncing about is that I get down.  And when I am feeling down I find it hard to motivate myself.

However I seem to have a new lease of life and back into looking at ways that I can manage my diabetes and keep the downs at bay.

Speak to you all soon.

Since I last wrote I have been asking people with type 2 diabetes if they believe there is a cure.  On the whole their answer was that diabetes can be managed but not cured.  If your diet is strict and you adhere to the recommendations by the professionals i.e. Doctors, diabetic nurse, dietician etc then complications will be a long way in your future.  Regardless of how well you manage your diabetes they all agreed that in time it will progress and they will eventually be on insulin and living with some of the complications we all hope to never get.

There is some debate what ‘a cure’ means.  Is it that you will never have the symptoms every again no matter what the diet and lifestyle is?  Or is having being strict and having good management a cure?  Could we say that a change in lifestyle and diet may eliminate all signs of the disease, is this then the cure?  Many professionals believe that it is genetic and once the gene is turned on then it cannot be turned off.

What do people mean when they say that diabetes can be cured? 

A little more research and pondering are required to define this.

In the meantime....

I have been experimenting with food and recording how my body reacts to different diets.  Amazingly for one whole day I was off my insulin with normal readings for one meal and lower readings for the others!  This is worth investigating a little further.

A little something for you to consider –

Would you rather change your lifestyle and diet to be free from all the signs and symptoms for the rest of your life?  Do you think like many other people that your health and wellbeing can never be retrieved and it is too much effort to change which results in complications and an early death?

Drop me a line and let me know.

Till next time.

Is this the cure?

Cousens is not the only one who professes that diabetes can be cured.  Fellow Americans Dr Neal Barnard ‘The Reverse Diabetes Diet’ [not read] (http://www.nealbarnard.org/) and DeWayne McCulley Death to Diabetes [not read] (http://www.deathtodiabetes.com/) also claim that diabetes can be cured.  There are variations on the same theme, that processed foods should be reduced and/or eliminated from our diets, more emphasis on fresh greens, no sugar, and eat low Glycemic (GI) foods.  Don’t forget to exercise!

It’s all well and good having this information from America but like so much other information, that’s all it is, and it is frustrating!  Cousens book There is a Cure for Diabetes is really heavy to read. There are words in it that I haven’t a clue what they mean.  You are probably familiar with these types of words.  Medical in every sense for example do you know what Glycation means or Glycosylaated Protein? The last one should be familiar to all of us as it is the HGBA1C that tests our red blood when we have our 6 monthly check-up.

Cousens book is interesting in small bites and the case studies are interesting to see but they don’t really share what is the affects of the change in diet.  Yes they share that they are now or at least by the end of the program cured but not what the process was like.  It would be interesting to see how they have managed away from the centre and if they have retained the lifestyle change.

Closer to home, last month I read about a clinical study conducted by researchers from the Human Nutrition Research Centre that claimed that they had found a cure for type 2 diabetes.  The diet consisted of 600 calories for 8 weeks.  When I read this I cringed with the thought of only each 600 calories a day, a woman should have 1940 calories a day.  Crazy!

NHS Choice has more information on the research if you are interested.

The results: After one week their blood sugar levels were normalised and by week eight they had improved their pancreatic sensitivity to insulin and lost weight.  Fat stored in the liver also decreased.  None of the participants were on insulin and had only been diagnosed for less than 4 years.

Are they cured?

The quick answer to that is no.  Four weeks after the diet had stopped the participants not only gained weight but their fasting blood sugar increased.  I am sure that we all could have told them that this would happen.  As for being cured?  According to Cousen if they had remained on the diet they may have been. For there to be a cure it means a lifestyle change for life!

Our choices are simple. 

Die earlier than we would be expected to after years of developing complications, if we stay on the diet that we currently have.  This includes people who are good at managing their diabetes with diet.  It will by all accounts sooner or later catch up with you.  Or decide that we want to live a full life, without all the complications and be alert, have energy to spare and feel good.  

I know what I am going to choose, do you?

Till next time.

Raw for 30 days

After reading Cousens book There is a Cure for Diabetes as mentioned previously I watched the DVD Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 days.  The DVD follows six people, five have type 2 diabetes and on has type one.  The DVD ‘chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet consisting of vegan, organic, live, raw foods in order to reverse diabetes naturally.  The participants are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food and even cooked food’ (www.RAWFOR30DAYS.com).

What a challenge!

‘Meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food and cooked food is the typical staple diet of people in the UK too.  Other than the nicotine and alcohol this is also my typical diet, with the addition of lots of chocolate.  I am addicted to chocolate and although I have tried to make raw chocolate I need more practice to make it give me the chocolate buzz I need.

The switch proved to be hard for different reason on the people taking part in the challenge with one person leaving before the end of the 30 days.

 But did it work? 

Read for yourself.  Americans sugar readings are slightly different from ours, to give you a base to understand the readings a normal blood sugar reading after eating should be 140 or less.  This is the results that I took from the DVD.

Male 1 (type 2) by week 4 he was off his medication and his blood sugars had dropped 214 points to as low as 73 without the medication.  His total cholesterol dropped from 216 to 160. (According to Cousens he is cured!)

Male 2 (type 2) was on 19 different medications (it makes you wonder what they were giving him; it’s a crazy amount of meds!). By week 4 he was off his medication and his blood sugars had dropped from 219 points to as low as 74 WITHOUT any of the meds.  He also lost 32lbs (2 stone 3lbs)

Female 1 (type 2) by week 4 she was off his medication and her blood sugars had dropped 291 points to as low as 109 without the medication.  Her total cholesterol dropped from 257 to 171 and she lost 23lbs in weight (1 stone 6 lbs). (According to Cousens she is cured!)

Female 2 (type 2 by week 4s he was off her medication and her blood sugars had dropped 167 points to as low as 112 without the medication.  Her blood pressure at the start of the 30 days was 135/76 by week 4 it was 120/64 and she lost 26lbs in weight (1 stone 9lbs) (According to Cousens she is cured!)

Male (type 1) by week 4 he had reduced his insulin intake from 70 units to 5 units per day. His blood pressure had lowered and he had lost 20 lbs in weight (1 stone 4lbs).

At the start of the DVD Cousens suggests that a high fibre, high carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diet is the only diet that will work.  Not everyone is cured especially if you have type one.  Cured or not this lifestyle change is promising.

Day 16

Day 16

A lot has happened since day 3.  I had an episode of hypoglycaemia which knocked me for six.  It happened quickly and started with feeling very shaky then moved onto a racing heart and fast breathing.  It escalated and lasted for a good 30 minutes.  It is not something that I want to happen again!

Normally if you are diabetic you have to be aware when your blood sugars drop below 4 (UK) you could have a hypo.  They are not nice and the first time you have them can be scary.  It has unsettled me for a while as my reading was on 4 not below.  I had given myself the same amount of insulin (70 mM) as two days ago after I had a higher blood test reading (6.9 previous and 8.4 this time). A change in needles may have been the cause but it has been the catalysis to make the changes to my diet.

After researching different diets and looking at what is happening in America I have begun the transition to a raw diet.  It may sound strange but it is mainly a vegetarian diet with emphasis on seeds, juices and smoothies.

Gabriel Cousens is a medical doctor from America who believes there is a cure for diabetes.  Though other medical professionals may tell you that it is incurable and that diabetes is a chronic disease that will progressively become worse and may cause your death.

Cousens runs the Tree of Life 21-Day + Program and according to the forward to his book, There is a Cure for Diabetes, written by Brian M Connolly (Founder and CEO, Healthful Communications Inc, and a Type 2 Diabetic) the Program has nearly 100% success rate for curing diabetes. That is amazing when you consider that it was done on food alone with no drugs or side effects.

The diet is

organic, plant-source only, live (raw) food, relatively high complex carbohydrate, 15 -20 percent (low to moderate) plant-based fats, moderate protein,  low glycemic index, low insulin  index, high minerals, no refined carbohydrates (especially white flour and white sugar), high fiber, moderate caloric intake’ (Cousins: p161)

It’s a heavy book so I am still reading through it but I have started by including a green smoothie for the last two days.  Green smoothies are a complete meal and are made with bananas, water, two generous handfuls of spinach and a teaspoon of superfoods.  They don’t lay heavy on your stomach all night and moves through your digestive system with ease.  To make a green smoothie you will need a good blender.

Resource

Cousens. Gabriel, (2008) There is a Cure for Diabetes, Berkley California, North Atlantic Books

Day Three

Finger prick blood test readings are a funny thing.  Not funny ha ha but funny strange. It’s 5.30 am and my fasting reading is 8 and last night’s reading was 6.9. This is absolutely brilliant for me considering they are normally in double figures!  The aim of course is for the both readings to be between 4 and 7.   To get to this I have to increase the amount of insulin that I take. At the present moment I take 70 mM and should be increasing this to get the readings down. 

When I first started taking insulin in May 2010 my readings would fluctuate each day.  The first week the lowest was 11.7 and the highest 17.5 between 13.5 and 10.5 higher than it should be at the highest reading.  It didn’t improve and I reached on one day 29.8, due to illness I think.  By the end of June my evening readings where still relatively high averaging for the week at 18.8.

I find it difficult to get my head around how by taking the tests at different times I could get different readings even if what I did or ate was the same as the day before.  Or if I took a reading at 5.30pm when I arrived home after work it may read 13.3 but by 7.30pm when I am ready to eat it would be different again!  I know that different foods affect the reading whether they have sugar in them or not. 

The increase in insulin mildly concerns me.  It really should concern me more but there has always been this ‘unbelief’ emotion and thinking that stops me being that concerned about it.   Considering the possible implications of diabetes I should be more concerned but I am not. 

What drives this search into learning whether it is possible to reverse diabetes type 2 is not the thought of amputation, going blind or having a heart attack.  It is how I feel physically and emotionally.  For me what matters is my quality of life now not in the future.  After all I may not have a future!  So today is what matters. How I feel, the energy levels that I have, how emotionally I feel.  One of the side effects of diabetes is depression.  I do notice a change in my emotions with a higher blood sugar reading.  I feel that I am bordering on manic depression some days but the lower the reading the more able I feel to deal with life and all that brings. 

It is clear that in order to gain a newfound vitality of life the areas to look at is diet, exercise, and emotional well being, all the areas that we are told to change.  The difference is the stance we come from.  The medical profession stance is about maintenance and keeping it under control as best we can. My stance is to reverse it and gain vitality of life once more.

Day One

Day one of the journey to freedom from diabetes is not really day one. Day one started with the decision that I no longer wanted to live with diabetes and how it affected by life.  That was over a year ago. 

‘Why’ you may be asking as it taken so long to do anything about it.

I wish I could give a good reason but on reflection I cannot.  When you find life a struggle, for whatever reason, you become stronger and focused on changing your circumstances or you succumb and give up on life.  I think I fit snugly into the ‘give up on life’.

My life like everybody else has had its ups and downs. But in order to understand my reactions, emotions and thoughts on this journey it is important to begin knowing that I start from a place of ‘giving up’.  ‘Giving up’ is how I have arrived at this place with type 2 diabetes, insulin dependent and struggling to get my sugar readings to where they should be.  I have started to experience problems that are diabetic related or at least exacerbated by diabetes.  You may recognise some of these if you are diabetic.

I am constantly tired and weary but more than that.  In the afternoon, after lunch, no matter how careful I have been during the morning with what I have eaten and drunk I have a slump.  A slump is not a forty winks affair.  It is: a total drainage of energy from my muscles, dizziness, blearing of sight, a brain that is foggy and cannot focus, and an extreme desire to sleep to the point that I have to pinch myself to stay awake.  If I have the opportunity to sleep I sleep deeply for a couple of hours, no dreams, no movement while asleep.  On waking I feel sick most of the time and it takes a good ten minutes for my brain to function properly.  It is no fun being diabetic!

I have always had a little psoriasis but it was not a problem until three years ago.  My hands and feet became covered and it would itch like made.  My hands would itch that much that I found that I would be scratching them in my sleep to the point that I made them bleed. The same would happen with my feet at night when I took off my shoes.  It has now started to spread up my legs.  Although I am on tablets to keep it at bay they restrict me and can cause problems with my liver. 

Besides keeping the moods under control the newest problem is the pain I have caused by the nerves in my wrists and ankles.  Although the pain is not constant, when it comes it is excruciating!

It makes me feel old and tired.  If you are unfamiliar with diabetes we are told at diagnosis it is a chronic disease.  This means that we have it for life and could see in our future a load of different complications ranging from blindness to amputation. 

BUT!

I believe there is hope that this is not strictly true!