By Evie Breedlove-Mangapora, ARNP & Deborah J. Post, ARNP
Worldwide, more than 346 million people suffer from diabetes, and death from this disease is expected to double by 2030, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Diabetes can kill you if you don’t quickly take steps to manage it. So, if you’re diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, it’s important that you take it seriously — and that you know it can be fully reversed with lifestyle changes.
What is Causing So Many People to Develop Diabetes?
Type 2 Diabetes . . . is directly caused by lifestyle.
The reason why your diet and physical activity levels play such a powerful role in this disease is because of their impact on your insulin and leptin levels. You see, your blood sugar levels are not the root cause of the problem.
Leptin: a hormone produced in your fat cells. Leptin tells your brain when to eat, how much to eat, and most importantly, when to stop eating. Leptin is largely responsible for the accuracy of insulin signaling and whether or not you become insulin resistant.
Insulin: sugars and grains raise your blood sugar. When this happens, insulin is released to direct the extra energy into storage. A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen, but the majority is stored as your main energy supply—fat. Insulin’s major role is not to lower your blood sugar, but rather to store the extra energy for future times of need.
Insulin resistance: any time you cells are exposed to insulin they are going to become more insulin resistant. The more sugar and grains that you eat the more you provoke insulin surges which exposes your body to more insulin. When your body is exposed to excess insulin soon it no longer responds to it properly and becomes insulin resistant.
In order to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes, your body needs to regain insulin sensitivity and reverse insulin resistance — and this can be achieved very effectively with changes to your diet and physical activity levels.
As insulin resistance sets in and your blood sugar levels spike out of control, those with type 2 diabetes experience an increased risk of:
• Heart disease and stroke (which end up killing half of diabetics)
• Foot ulcers and limb amputation
• Diabetic retinopathy, which can cause blindness
• Kidney failure (10-20 percent of people with diabetes die of this)
• Premature death (diabetes approximately doubles your risk of death)
Top Dietary Recommendations for
Avoiding Diabetes
AVOID high complex carbohydrates including potatoes, corn, rice and grain to prevent insulin resistance.
If you have diabetes, we recommend limiting or even eliminating sugar from your diet, especially in the form of fructose.
Fructose does not stimulate a rise in leptin, so your satiety signals (feeling of fullness) are suppressed. Fructose also raises your insulin and your triglycerides, which interferes with the communication between leptin and the part of your brain that senses starvation and prompts you to eat more.
Modifying your diet is incredibly important.
Drinking just one sweetened drink a day can raise your diabetes risk by 25%.
Avoid using toxic artificial sweeteners which lead to greater weight gain than sugar.
So what should you eat if you have diabetes, or want to prevent it?
• Avoid, sugar, fructose, grains, and processed foods
• Swap out grains and sugars for healthy protein or vegetable-only carbohydrates.
• Consume saturated fats:
• coconut and coconut oil,
• avocados,
• butter,
• nuts,
• grass fed organic meat,
• wild caught fatty fish such as salmon.
• consider supplementing with a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil
• Optimize your vitamin D levels. Maintaining your vitamin D levels around 60-80 ng/ml, using proper sun exposure, or supplementation, can significantly help control your blood sugar.
• Get Moving to Prevent and Treat Diabetes. Exercise is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to lower your insulin and leptin resistance. The amazing thing about exercise is that it exerts its effects very quickly. One single session of moderate exercise can improve the way your body regulates blood sugar.
Exercise should be done 3 times a week with 48 hours of rest between workouts:
1. Warm up for three minutes
2. Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds
3. Recover for 90 seconds by continuing to exercise but at a radically reduced comfortable pace
4. Repeat the high-intensity exercise phase and recovery 7 more times
Drugs are Not the Answer for Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetics do NOT need drugs. In fact, taking drugs for type 2 diabetes can be far worse than the disease itself! One meta-analysis of 13 randomized controlled trials showed that drug treatment to lower blood sugar is not only ineffective, it’s dangerous as well.
Using drugs to help lower blood sugar is like turning the check engine light off without fixing the problem. Engine is still in trouble!
How we can help:
Let us help you create a systemized and individualized plan to reverse pre-diabetes or diabetes. Our focus is to empower you with the tools to manage your own health so that you do not need prescription medication for life. The first step of taking control of your health today is only a phone call away.
Attend one of our life changing presentations:
Call Now & reserve a seat (bring your spouse; bring a friend): 239-560-8334
Deborah Post ARNP/ Evie Breedlove ARNP/ and Michael Uphues DO announce that
Well bridges Health Center has MOVED!
Come help us celebrate at our OPEN HOUSE
On Dec 2nd Friday 3-7
9200 Bonita Beach Rd Suite 213
(upstairs from old office)
Bonita Springs FL 34135
Our expanded space offers a spacious presentation area for seminars by the practitioners and much more including wellness programs to create a healthy educated community. See the Calendar for our seminars being offered every month, get on our mailing list for lecture off site being offered by the practitioners.
Come help us celebrate our new home, Dr Uphues will perform some magic as well!
Come meet us all at our open house.
(239) 560-8334
Evie Breedlove-Mangapora, ARNP
Inner Essence Health, LLC
(239) 777-4647
inneressencehealth.com
Deborah J. Post, ARNP
Wellbridges, Inc.,
(239) 481-5600
Debpost.com