Insulin is the very commondiabetes treatment. Medications are the most popular solution for patients with a high risk for diabetes. But what if it was easier than that? New studies find that vitamin D deficiency and sugar addiction might be at the real center of the issue. Can the solution to diabetes really be so simple?
Taking Drugs for Diabetes May Hurt Instead of Help
Taking drugs like insulin to treat diabetes may cause more harm and inconvenience than good, especially for older patients [1]. Drugs can make numbers on a chart look good because they are lowering the high sugar levels. But this is problematic because it creates a vicious cycle. When sugar goes down, the appetite goes up. Eating more causes weight gain. When the weight increases, the sugar goes up again too. After that, the patient has to increase the medication dosage to curb sugar levels once more.
The simple fact is that drugs are not as smart as the human body. They can?t adjust their levels automatically to a patient?s needs. That?s why it?s time to take a different approach. Diabetes can be both prevented and treated naturally and simply.
Preventing Diabetes With A Simple Vitamin
Losing weight is the most common piece of advice given to patients at risk for diabetes. But there is a new suspect in town that may outweigh it: a deficiency in vitamin D. For years, researchers thought that vitamin D deficiency and diabetes were somewhat linked, but they believed the lack of vitamin D promoted the obesity, which then caused the diabetes. However, a recent study examined type 2 diabetes patients and their true relationship with vitamin D.
Type 2 diabetes doesn?t only occur in overweight people. In fact, about 10% of people with the disease are not overweight. Considering that more than 29 million Americans have diabetes, 10% turns into a pretty significant figure [2]! So how do these people of average weight get diabetes if it?s supposedly caused by obesity?
That?s what this study set out to solve. They compared diabetes patients? vitamin D levels and body mass index, analyzing to see what role (if any) the vitamin plays [3]. They reported finally that vitamin D deficiency is more associated with diabetes than it is with obesity. That means there is a higher risk of getting type 2 diabetes if you are lacking vitamin D.
Since many people in the US lack optimal levels of vitamin D, it is important to get tested by a physician to see if you are at risk.
The Two Best Ways to Get Vitamin D
The best source of vitamin D is sunlight. Sunlight can also cause skin cancer and aging, so the trick is to not overdo it. The amount of sunlight needed to produce enough vitamin D depends on two things: how light or dark the skin is and where you are in the world.
Stay in the sun for half the time it takes for your skin to burn. This could be anywhere from 15 minutes for fairer skin and a couple of hours for darker skin. The body can produce 10,000 – 25,000 IU of vitamin D in this time?just enough to defend itself against diabetes [4]!
The second best way to get the appropriate amount of vitamin D is with D3 supplements. Supplements work best if they are ordered from a reputable source and a physician checks your levels to make sure the body is not blocking the vitamin (this is common with toxins like caffeine). Taking supplements can be more effective than simply relying on food with the vitamin in it.
Managing Diabetes By Removing Sugar
In primitive societies there?s no such thing as diabetes [5]. Only natural food is available to eat and much of the food doesn?t even need to be cooked. However, in our modern, developed nation, food is available in all different forms. Unfortunately, most of these forms contain heaps of unnatural sugar. And now nearly 10% of our nation has diabetes.
The easiest solution for diabetes prevention is to remove excess sugar from the diet. When there is no sugar, there is no problem. Of course, cutting out sugar can be much harder than it sounds. It?s incredibly addictive. Some studies have even compared it to cocaine [5]. It?s like if my hand was hurting. The easiest way to let it heal is to avoid using it and let the body do the rest. But it sure seems difficult to live life without a hand for a couple of weeks!
If you can commit to removing sugar from the diet, you are committing to better health. A while ago, I had a patient with high sugar and high blood pressure. He was devoted to doing what was necessary to go back to normal levels. I instructed him to stop eating extra sugar and processed carbohydrates. He hasn?t had to come in again.
Juice Counts As Unnecessary Sugar, Too
Cutting out excess sugar includes cutting out fruit juice as well. Even if there is no sugar added to the juice, the body doesn?t process the sugar the same as it would a whole piece of fruit. Let?s say you want to eat an orange. If you peel it and eat it whole, great. It contains fiber that stabilizes the sugar levels in our bodies. But if you put the orange in a juicer, that component of fiber is removed. The sugar becomes easily available to the body and it rushes into the bloodstream. The high blood sugar quickly creates a demand in insulin. Since it all happens so quickly, an exaggerated amount of insulin may be used up. When something happens rapidly, it becomes very difficult to measure it precisely. For instance, if I tried to mix the ingredients for a complicated soup in 30 seconds, there would be vegetables and broth thrown everywhere in the rush to get it finished.
After the body produces more insulin in the race for stabilization, the sugar levels don?t just go back to a normal level; they go down below normal. The juice is treated like a bad carbohydrate?the same as it would be with french fries or candy or cookies.
Diabetes Prevention In A Nutshell
As always, please see a physician to get advice specific to your body. But for purely general tips, here is what you can do to prevent type 2 diabetes:
Get enough sunlight to absorb optimal levels of vitamin D?half the time it takes for your skin to burn.
Stay away from any sugar that?s not in whole fruit form.
Don?t eat carbohydrates unless they?re grown from the ground.
Avoid processed food.
Exercise naturally doing housework, gardening, walking?there?s not necessarily a need to go to the gym if you are moving vigorously daily.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/278956.php
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0610-diabetes-report.html
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/10.1210/jc.2014-3016
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-do-i-get-the-vitamin…
http://www.staffanlindeberg.com/TheKitavaStudy.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144