About Diabetes
April 21st, 2008 at 05:25am
Under About Diabetes+ Diebetes Management
A few months ago I stumbled upon an article that tied together cinnamon, diabetes, and insulin resistance. Intrigued, I did some follow up research and made some astonishing discoveries. In fact, I’m absolutely amazed that what I discovered isn’t covered on the nightly news, the major newspapers, and is a constant top story on Drudge considering the profundity of what you’re about to learn.
First, the background on insulin, insulin resistance, and diabetes. After we eat, food is broken down into glucose, the simple sugar that is the main source of energy for the body’s cells. But our cells cannot use glucose without insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin helps the cells take in glucose and convert it to energy. When the pancreas does not make enough insulin or the body is unable to use the insulin that is present, the cells cannot use glucose. Excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream, setting the stage for diabetes.
Being obese or overweight affects the way insulin works in your body. Extra fat tissue can make your body resistant to the action of insulin. If you have insulin resistance, your muscle, fat, and liver cells do not use insulin properly. The pancreas tries to keep up with the demand for insulin by producing more. Eventually, the pancreas cannot keep up with the body’s need for insulin, and excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream. Many people with insulin resistance have high levels of blood glucose and high levels of insulin circulating in their blood at the same time.
People with blood glucose levels that are higher than normal but not yet in the diabetic range have “pre-diabetes” or “insulin resistance.” Insulin resistance is a hidden condition, one that doesn’t present any symptoms, that increases the likelihood of developing diabetes and debilitating heart conditions. If you have pre-diabetes, you have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes or non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Studies have shown that most people with pre-diabetes go on to develop type 2 diabetes within 10 years, unless they lose 5 to 7 percent of their body weightówhich is about 10 to 15 pounds for someone who weighs 200 poundsóby making modest changes in their diet and level of physical activity. People with pre-diabetes also have a higher risk of heart disease. Type 2 diabetes is sometimes defined as the form of diabetes that develops when the body does not respond properly to insulin, as opposed to type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas makes no insulin at all. At first, the pancreas keeps up with the added demand by producing more insulin. In time, however, it loses the ability to secrete enough insulin in response to meals.
OK, I’ve established the connection with diabetes and insulin resistance. What’s up with the cinnamon? In August 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced preliminary findings that “Cinnamon may significantly help people with type 2 diabetes improve their ability to regulate their blood sugar. As a matter of fact, this study found that it increased glucose metabolism 20-fold.” Over the next few years additional studies were conducted with humans to further evaluate this surprising result. In one small 60 patient study conducted in Pakistan, reporting in the journal Diabetes Care, all the patients had been treated for type 2, adult onset diabetes for several years and were taking anti-diabetic drugs to increase their insulin output. But they were not yet taking insulin to help process their blood glucose. The subjects were given small doses of cinnamon ranging from as little as a quarter teaspoon up to 2 teaspoons a day for 40 days.
The results again surprised the scientists, but were even more profound than previous. Not only did the cinnamon reduce the blood sugar levels and increase the natural production of insulin, it lowered their blood cholesterol as well. Even 20 days after the cinnamon treatment had ended, the patients continued to see beneficial effects.
This is good news for the more than 50 million Americans who suffer from diabetes and/or heart disease. All the patients in the study showed better glucose metabolism and natural insulin production when they took cinnamon capsules that delivered less than two teaspoons a day of the spice.
Specifically, their blood cholesterol levels were lowered in the range of 10 to 26 percent, affecting overall cholesterol levels and reducing the LDL (known as the bad cholesterol) but not reducing levels of HDL, the good cholesterol.
This is also potentially good news for the many millions more of us who suffer from insulin resistance, sometimes known as pre-diabetes, or the Metabolic Syndrome. Lowering blood sugar levels, and improving cholesterol ratios can help reverse pre-diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome, and in fact may actually prevent the onset of full diabetes.
Better news still, while cinnamon addresses elevated blood sugar levels and helps to combat insulin resistance, it is also a successful factor in helping you lose weight. The fat cells in your abdomen are particularly sensitive to high insulin levels, and are very effective at storing energy far more so that fat cells you would find in other areas such as the lower body (i.e. hips, rear-end, thighs). Because abdominal fat cells are so close to your digestive organs, and there is an extensive network of blood vessels circulating in the abdominal area, it is even easier for fat cells to store excess glucose there.
Now here’s the challenge: getting enough cinnamon over the course of a day without getting absolutely sick to death of the taste. After doing this research, I decided to be my own guinea pig for testing. I spent the first week putting a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon in a bowl of oatmeal every morning and after about the third day, I knew that wasn’t going to be a workable long term strategy. I next went online and found an excellent source of cinnamon capsules. I’ve been taking two cinnamon capsules a day ever since I made my discovery and the effects have been profound. I’ve lost 14-lbs and no longer have a noticeable bulge around my waistline. I changed nothing else in my daily routine other than adding the cinnamon capsules. My diet is predominantly low-carb but I’m not fanatic about it. I have a sedate office job and the extent of my exercise is doing household chores and playing with the dogs. This certainly doesn’t qualify as a rigorous scientific controlled test, however I’m certainly convinced as I’m a believer in finding out what works and sticking with it.
An expanded version of this article is online at the authors website.
Keyword Articles: http://www.keywordarticles.org
B.L. Walther is an entrepeneur and author of Healthy Living Digest. Please visit Healthy Living Digest for timely news, information and articles on health, fitness, and personal development.
By admin
April 15th, 2008 at 06:03am
Under About Diabetes
Insulin resistance appears to have a major effect on heart disease. Work at Stanford Medical Center, the University of Buffalo Medical Center, and other medical research facilities have pointed to the higher incidence of CHF (Congestive Heart Failure) amongst patients with insulin resistance. Congestive Heart Failure is a rapidly-growing healthcare problem in the United States, with over five and a half million people suffering from the consequences of an inefficient, enlarged heart. Many in later stages are unable to walk or even get out of bed.
CHF can come from many sources, but insulin resistance is an independent causative factor which does not depend on lack of exercise or obesity to cause its damage to the heart and circulatory system.
How does insulin resistance affect heart health? The answer is difficult, as it is tied to complex interactions between various hormone levels and the reaction of organs to chronically higher levels of insulin in the blood. Those who have insulin resistance tend to have other factors (or ‘co-morbidities’) which, taken on their own, also increase the dangers to the heart and circulatory system.
For example, patients with insulin resistance also have lower levels of HDL (high-density lipids), the ‘good’ cholesterol which is associated with fewer heart attacks, and higher levels of LDL (low-density lipids), which are associated with artery-clogging plaque. They also tend to have higher blood pressure, another heart risk factor.
What lies behind these greater co-morbidities, and resultant risk for patients? Androgen levels were found to be higher in patients with insulin resistance, and androgen is the male hormone that is associated with stress and increased heart disease. Just as estrogen seems to have some heart-helping qualities, androgen has some inhibitors to heart health, both by diminishing estrogen levels and increasing stress-related inflammation.
In addition to the hormonal effects, high insulin levels in the blood over a longer period of time can lead to breakdowns in organs, particularly those sites in the body where changes arteries and capillaries can result in food and oxygen starvation. Diabetics are generally known to have higher incidences of heart disease, but they are also much more likely to have problems with lower leg circulation (because the blood circulates particularly slowly in the legs), vision (because of the network of small capillaries in the eyes, which are subject to blockage) and peripheral vascular systems, such as kidneys and the carotid arteries.
Recent work in Canada points to the effect of insulin resistance on inflammation and associated plaque production. Plaque is implicated in a number of diseases, including that which causes ’silent’ heart attacks in individuals who seem healthy. The effect of insulin resistance on plaque formation could be a primary one, or a secondary effect from other hormonal and metabolic changes in the body related to cholesterol levels and inflammation.
The overall conclusion in early research is clear. Insulin resistance poses problems to the body directly, through influence of high levels of insulin to critical organs, and indirectly, through influence on the secretion of other hormones and inflammatory substances which can lead to heart disease. While many diabetic patients are insulin-resistant, and diabetic patients tend to have much higher rates of heart disease, insulin resistance in itself poses an increased risk of complications for patients.
Keyword Articles: http://www.keywordarticles.org
Scott Meyers is a staff writer for Its Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Insulin Resistance.
By admin
April 15th, 2008 at 05:58am
Under About Diabetes
Insulin resistance is now being understood to be a major contributor to the onset of diabetes. While we know that glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin tests can be used to detect diabetes type I or II, many in the general public did not realize that higher glucose levels over a long period of time can create insulin resistance, thus setting the stage for the more serious forms of diabetes in the future.
What causes insulin resistance? One can point to current dietary habits and lack of exercise as the main contributors.
The body’s cells need sugar in order to run their metabolic functions, from brain activity to running to the tasks of everyday living. Most of this sugar is presented to the cells through the bloodstream in the form of glucose. Glucose is produced by the liver from foods that are digested in the stomach and small intestine, and whose components end up in the liver for further processing. The liver produces enough glucose to power the then-needs of the body, while converting the rest of the sugars to fat for storage for later use.
The liver creates glucose from all food types, but is particularly stimulated by the carbohydrates, which are easier to convert to glucose with fewer byproducts (such as ketones, which are poisonous byproducts of the production of glucose from proteins).
Two general types of carbohydrates stimulate the liver in different ways: the ’simple’ carbohydrates are converted much faster, and create large amounts of glucose relatively quickly after ingestion. Simple carbohydrates include all the things that we love to eat, but are regarded as junk food by the general media: unrefined sugars, such as those found in soft drinks and in our cereals, flour, such as that found in white bread and fried foods, and sugar found in candies like chocolate bars and ‘energy bars,’ which are mainly sugars.
The ‘complex’ carbohydrates, on the other hand, are converted to glucose at a much slower rate, which means that there is less of a glucose peak after one eats complex carbs. Complex carbohydrates include whole-wheat bread, spaghetti and other forms of pasta, and starches found in legumes like beans and potatoes. These are ‘complex’ because the liver must perform a series of chemical transformations before converting to the end-product, glucose.
Insulin resistance is the result of too much glucose circulating in the bloodstream for too long a time. The high levels of glucose stimulate the pancreas (more specifically, the Islets of Langerhans) to produce more insulin. And more insulin circulating in the bloodstream means that the cells are ‘tired’ of the excess of hormonal signal, and develop a resistance to the chemical.
Simple carbs, consumed in too great a quantity, are clear causes of this insulin overproduction. The other factor which contributes is inactivity. That is, the less one exercises, the less the body is able to absorb the glucose which is produced in such high quantities by the liver.
If, for example, one eats too many simple carbs, but goes out and runs for an hour, much of the insulin messages are accepted by the cells, glucose levels are reduced and insulin resistance doesn’t occur.
Insulin resistance is therefore caused by two main factors: the types of food one eats, and the amount of exercise one does after eating. Both affect the level of insulin circulating in the bloodstream, and therefore can have an important influence over insulin resistance by the body’s cells.
Keyword Articles: http://www.keywordarticles.org
Scott Meyers is a staff writer for Its Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Insulin Resistance.
By admin
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