What I am learning about Diabetes - It is dangerous

Why this blog?

In a recent blog I mentioned about my elevated blood sugar level and about the reversibility of Diabetes. In another blog I mentioned about how health can be improved by changing our food. I have been spending many hours since then on the Internet reading and watching YouTube videos to understand more about Diabetes and its relationship to food. I am writing this blog post for my reference and for others who may like to know the significant truths that I am learning about Diabetes. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: ..."

Reverse Diabetes or die 10 years early

One important truth that I learnt about Diabetes is that if you follow the standard Diabetes medical routine your life expectancy is reduced by about 10 years. Check Diabetes Life Expectancy and many other such sites. This truth was brought close home during the last week of February when my brother-in-law Stephen, who was only 64, passed away due to a stroke. Another brother-in-law Ranjit passed away in August 2010, when he was only 60, due to the complications caused by Diabetes. To those who claim that Diabetes is hereditary and it is in the genes, I like to state that Stephen and Ranjit's mother passed away when she was 70 and their father when he was 87. The urban food habits of our generation are destroying our lives fast and it is not allowing us to live even as long as our parents had lived. What makes Diabetes appear hereditary is that we acquire our food habits often from our parents and it is our faulty modern urban food habits that are responsible for onset of Diabetes. Both Stephen and Ranjit were born in urban Delhi and lived all their life in urban Delhi. Stephen, for some years lived away from Delhi, but again in environments where food habits were that of urban cities.

Why Diabetes kills?

Even though I have been studying about Diabetes for some weeks now, only some days ago, I learnt the real truth about the damage that Diabetes causes. Most of the material on Diabetes talk about blood sugar level, insulin etc. and do not give the real reason for the damage that elevated blood sugar level causes.

The Bible in Leviticus 17:11 states that "For the life of the flesh is in the blood ..." Various urban medical conditions like Diabetes, Heart attacks, Strokes, Hypertension etc. have to do with abnormal blood flow in the body and often start with elevated blood sugar.

When blood glucose level rises, pancreas will release insulin for the body cells to remove glucose by binding it to insulin from the blood stream and turn it into energy in the cell mitochondria. In case of a diabetic the body cells have excess fat in the cells that block the glucose removal process. So the glucose and insulin continue to build up in the blood stream. The high glucose concentration damages tiny capillaries. Since capillaries are throughout the body, damage takes place all over the body. This is how elevated blood sugar causes damage to the body. Since capillary damages cannot be felt, someone may have elevated blood sugar for years and may not know about it. Check the link capillaries and diabetes. Also check this Complications of Diabetes link which says that even nerve damage can take place throughout the body. Physical activity increases the glucose removal from the blood stream.

This image of the capillary is taken from http://clinicalscienceblogcatherine.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/capillary.jpg

I think even the above description is very simplified and the human body being very complex must have many other effects due to insulin resistance, the primary cause of Type 2 Diabetes.

Reversing Diabetes

Diabetes is basically a life style disease and it does not have any other causes like germs etc. Hence it is possible to reverse diabetes by reversing some of the earlier life style decisions that led to diabetes. I have found 4 doctors whose practice of reversing diabetes very useful. They are Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. John A McDougall, Dr. Neal Bernard and Dr. Don Colbert. Some of these doctors over a period of years have successfully reversed diabetes in thousands of patients. All the reversal is largely brought about by changing the diet of their patients. Each of these doctors follow slightly different diet plan for their patients. Based upon their recommendations I am trying to follow a Vegan diet plan and have already found complete improvement in Blood Pressure, Cholesterol and some improvement with blood sugar level. I am now trying to eliminate the medicine for blood sugar level control completely. The only problem is that the doctor I consult (a diabetic himself) does not believe that diabetes is reversible and can only be controlled with medicine.

Natural sweetener Stevia

There are lot of artificial sweeteners that many diabetics use in place of sugar with their tea or coffee. What I have read about these artificial sweeteners are not good. Which searching through the Internet I stumbled upon a natural sweetener called Stevia. I even found that there is a company in Noida that packages this natural sweetener in form of tablets which are convenient to use with tea or coffee. Additional details can be found from their website.