diabetorati

Bitter and other melons that can help diabetics

We've posted before about bitter melon and the potential benefits it has for diabetics, mainly because of its effect in slowing digestion and helping indigestion problems, and this is how it has been used in native medicine and widely throughout Asia.

A study of tribes in Pakistan, prompted because the older people who know all the herbal and native medicines are dying out and the young are not taking on the knowledge, found a type of melon from the bitter melon family in use.

In particular, the people and surrounds of the village of Dhibbia Karsal, a village in the south west of the Punjab Province of Pakistan were studied.  The area has a population of about 1 million people, average maximum temperature per annum of 47-degrees Celsius, and a strong tradition of herbal medicine and natural healing - through "hakims" or local healers.

Locally known as Tumba the older folk used the seeds, fruit and roots for stomach disorders, and it was also effective for constipation.   One of its active ingredients is momordicin, an this is the ingredient in bitter melon thought to be most useful for diabetic support because it is thought to slow digestion.

It brought to my attention that there is a wide variety of these melons - much broader than just bitter melon.  The family is the Curcurbitaceae (commonly referred to as the cucumber, gourd, melon, or pumpkin family) and it includes:

Major domesticated species (food plants): Citrullus lanatus (watermelon), Cucumis sativus (cucumber), Cucumis melo (melon), Cucumis anguria (bur gherkin), Cucurbita (five species of squash & pumpkin), Momordica charantia (bitter melon), Sechium edule (chayote), Luffa (two species of loofah), Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd), Benincasa hispida (wax gourd), Trichosanthes (two species of snake gourd), Telfairia (two species of oyster nut), Sicana odorifera (casabanana), Coccinia grandis (ivy gourd), Praecitrullus fistulosus (tinda), Cyclanthera pedata (slipper gourd), and Cucumeropsis mannii (white-seeded melon).

Medicinals: Bryonia (two species of bryony), Citrullus colocynthis (colocynth), Coccinia grandis (ivy gourd), Cucurbira foetidissima (buffalo gourd), Ecballium elaterium (squirting cucumber), Fevillea cordifolia (antidote vine), Gynostemma pentaphyllum (jiaogulan), Hemsleya amabilis (luo guo di), Momordica (a number of species including bitter melon), Sechium (two species including chayote), Sicana odorifera (casabanana), Siraitia grosvenorii (luo han guo), Trichosanthes kirilowii (Chinese snake gourd).

Number of these varieties aren't medicinal but the list gives you a clue where to start looking and experimenting with natural products which could help in relation to digestion and blood sugar uptake - that is, to slow down your blood sugar uptake by making one or more these part of your regular food plan.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Chromium and diabetes - benefits and sources

In a previous post I explained my 10 underlying mechanisms of diabetes, and mentioned that chromium is know to assist in the binding of insulin to cell membranes.

The transfer of glucose from the blood is achieved when insulin successfully binds with an insulin receptors on cell membranes which then facilitates the flow of glucose and also the transfer of insulin itself thus dropping the levels of both in the blood.

This is how chromium availability helps to relieve impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes.

Sources of chromium

So what are the sources of chromium and can it be dangerous if mis-used?

It turns out that not a lot is known because there is a lack of accurate tests, in volume and accuracy, for chromium status - its not usually something tested in blood tests for example.

What's known is that its deficiency may be a contributing factor in impaired glucose tolerance and type 2 diabetes.  It's food sources are also known, although there again data is limited:

• whole grain products;
• broccoli;
• green beans;
• grape juice; and,
• spices.

What do diabetics need to know?

Important things for diabetics to know are these:

• heavy exercise may increase the amount of chromium needed;
• foods high in sucrose and fructose increase chromium loss (which makes you wonder about cause and effect with regard to Type 2 diabetes - since high fructose/sucrose diets often lead to diabetes); and,
• Vitamin C in amounts of 100mg or more can increase the absorption of chromium.

Those are quite important points, because I do exercise quite heavily as part of my diabetic control regime, and also perhaps I should be taking a regular vitamin C tablet in conjunction with any chromium supplements.

With regard to supplements, chromium picolate is the form used in much of the research on the health effects of chromium.  It is said to have high bioavailability, and so does chromium nicotinate, whereas hexavalent chromium is highly toxic.  The former forms of chromium are trivalent forms, but even there people with kidney or liver disease are cautioned to take lower doses.  Certain nutritional yeast products are fortified with chromium and have high bioavailabilty (often known as chromium yeast in which the yeast combines the chromium into its fermenting products as it ferments).

For me the keys are to make broccoli a very regular vegetable choice, to check supplements for chromium since I need to keep up levels due to my exercise regime, and consider a nightly Vitamin C tablet.

On the other hand

On the other hand, a very recent 2007 study published in Diabetes Care found that "there is no evidence that chromium in the form of chromium yeast is effective in improving. glycemic control in western patients with type 2 diabetes" - so don't go to any extremes.

However, chromium is the most widely studied supplement for diabetes and the aggregate study results are inconclusive - neither positive nor negative.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

What makes us diabetic - understanding the 10 key mechanisms

Have you read medical explanations of diabetes and found them a little hard to understand, yet you wouldn't mind knowing "what's going on inside" but can't find the right level of explanation?

I've read many explanations, many times, and if you Google around you'll find lots.  But I thought that what's needed is something simple as possible, but no simpler, which includes explanations of some of the fundamentals.

So here is my attempt which is a step-by-step functional flow intermingled with explanatory statements:

1. The body secretes insulin in response to rising levels of blood sugar - after we eat.
2. The purpose of the sugar going into the blood is to be taken to other places, where it can be used.
3. The blood itself does not need sugar and in fact if it is not removed it becomes harmful - which is of course one of the harmful effects of diabetes.
4. The body pumps the insulin into the blood, sensing the rising blood sugar, in order to tell the blood to get rid of that sugar by delivering it to where it is needed.
5. The insulin binds to the surfaces of cell membranes to stimulate the cells to take in more blood sugar and hence to remove it from the blood.
6. So the insulin has a double effect, it helps the cell to pump in more glucose (blood sugar) for its necessary functioning, and as a consequence lowers the level of glucose in the blood.
7. There is other "stuff" which assists insulin in stimulating the cells and pumping the glucose from the blood and these are called glucose tolerance factors - a "factor" here used in a classic sense of the word meaning "an agent" (see Wikipedia GTF).
8. Insulin does other work such as helping shift fatty acids from the blood into cells, which is essential for the functioning of muscles for example.
9. Cell membranes have insulin receptors - these receptors are welcoming committees for insulin and grab the insulin in as it circulates in the blood - think of the sprukers on the footpath in front of some restaurants - waving in the insulin.
10. When the insulin "shakes hands", or binds, with these receptors then the combination of the two creates an active gate for the flow of glucose and other materials into the cell, that is the binding of the insulin "activates" the receptor and gets the transfer process going.

They are the 10 key things that a normally functioning system does.

Here are the basic three things that go wrong for us diabetics:

1. We don't produce insulin - that's a "Type 1" problem which requires insulin replacement and injections on a strict regime.
2. We produce enough insulin but the cell receptors no longer want to shake hands and engage with our insulin to activate the transfer of glucose from the blood - this is "Type 2" insulin resistance.
3. We produce insulin but not enough and also we become resistant - this is also Type 2.

Knowing this allows us to understand the rationale behind various ideas and suggestions and treatment strategies, for example:

1. We might want to try reducing the blood sugar levels so as to not overload any insulin that remains - or slow down the release of glucose through dietary selection - this works when you still have insulin but not enough to clear the blood of harmful quantities.
2. We might want to try treatments which can stimulate or help activate the cell receptors and raise their interest in grabbing hold the existing insulin - think of this as "Viagra" for diabetes - for example chromium binds to the insulin receptor and enhances its activity and this is how chromium availability can help relieve impaired glucose tolerance and Type 2 diabetes. (Chromium sources include whole grain products, broccoli, green beans, and spices).

I think that understanding this basic underlying mechanism is helpful in understanding what various treatments, supplements, and other advice is trying to effect - to get the insulin working again to transport blood glucose out of the blood and into cells.

Knowing this also makes clear where some of the terms come from, such as "glucose intolerance" which is when the action in point 7 above doesn't work and "tolerance" becomes "intolerance".

It gets a lot more complex, because for one thing the walls of the blood vessels themselves get damaged by the excess blood glucose (seen high levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein or interleukin-6 - markers of systemic inflammation), which then becomes a vicious closed loop because it makes things even harder for the insulin to work. And then, Vitamin E has been found in mice to reduce these protein markers of inflammation - etc etc etc it gets too complicated; so that's why I've kept the focus on the clear 10 points of what makes us diabetic.

And also bear in mind that some easy comments in my description, such as the help chromium gives, are not yet understood medically, meaning for example that how chromium serves as a "cofactor" for insulin action is yet to be fully understood. That's all for another time.

Given the direct mention of chromium above, I'll discuss more about that in another post.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Eating higher fatty acid content foods decreases appetite

Recent results from a study by UC Irvine pharmacologists showed that eating "fatty foods" curbed hunger.

Not your "normal" fatty foods of the junk food variety, but those rich in unsaturated fats such as avocados, nuts and olive oil (actually mono-unsaturated fatty acids MUFA) "have been found to play a pivotal role in sending a message to the brain that a person is full and to stop eating".

How's it work?

1. The researchers studied how a fat-derived compound (called oleoylethanolamide - OEA) regulates hunger and body weight.
2. They found that an unsaturated fatty acid called oleic acid stimulates production of OEA, which in turn decreases appetite.
3. Oleic acid is transformed into OEA by cells in the upper region of the small intestine.
4. OEA then finds its way to nerve endings that carry the hunger-curbing message to the brain.
5. There, it activates a brain circuit that increases feelings of fullness, researchers said.

In previous studies, researchers said they found that increasing OEA levels can reduce appetite, produce weight loss and lower blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels. 

That's all fantastic news for adult diabetics as improving all three of those factors seriously reduces our overall risk profile, and they are what we have to achieve as the basic goals when first setting out to control our diabetes.

How can this finding be used practically, by combining it with the MUFA foods such as avocado and also nuts for example which we've posted about many times.  It makes me feel good about my long-standing practice of eating a half-avocado each morning, which I always felt had had a positive effect on my blood cholesterol and triglyceride readings. (Protein plays in important role in limiting hunger as well, but by different means.)

Sorry, back to you - if you are setting out to lose weight as part of your diabetic management program, and let's say a 10% reduction in body weight, then start to introduce more MUFA foods - replacing other foods and hopefully those you take out have more calories - and this should start to make you feel full more easily.

Also, after exercise eat these MUFA foods as otherwise the exercise can stimulate your appetite and it doesn't take much to eat back on the calories you're just burnt off.

Just a note about the "correct" fatty foods - please don't mistake this feeling of fullness with being similar to the feeling from gorging on fast foods as diets high in processed foods that are riddled with saturated fats might throw a wrench into this system of metabolic control, the researchers said. What they are saying is that the fat in fatty fast foods actually stops the message to the brain and you keep eating until you are physically full - perhaps at that stage it is a message from the poor overstretched stomach?

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Why exercise could break the diabetes obesity cycle

The role of exercise in the management of diabetes still seems to have some reluctant advocates which surprises me (and I'm only talking about type 2 diabetes since that's mine as I know little about managing type 1).

Perhaps its more an argument about the type of exercise - whether moderate, intense, aerobic or resistance training.  Although it seems to me that overall the exercise component of our diabetes management programs isn't given quite the attention that it deserves and this is the real issue - that there is less support in diabetes education for exercise than for other parts of the advice offered.

The advice seems to be more like "make sure that you take a good walk most days of the week", without too much more except in the case of more diligent health counsellors.

It seems to me that muscles and muscle development will eventually be found to play a bigger role in managing diabetes, and also that exercise which creates substantial blood flow - I guess that can be aerobic at the right intensity level and resistance exercise - will be important.

So with that in mind I picked up on reports that a researcher at Indiana University in Indianapolis recently learned more about one kind of stem cell which exists on the outer lining of blood vessels.

Blood vessels have an inner lining which are called the endothelial cells, and they have an outer lining which contain these stem cells. The researcher, Ken March, and his colleagues, found that the two kinds of cells were interacting.

It turns out that the stem cells had the ability to keep the endohelial cells strong – as long as endothelial cells sent the right signals. But if the endothelial cells were diseased or damaged – for example, from high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar – stem cells on the exterior walls of blood vessels transformed themselves into fat cells.

There's the key for diabetics, because its the high blood sugar which causes an inflammatory response from the epithelial cells and what this research therefore tells us is that diabetics - who have unhealthy endothelial cells - are not able to restrain the stem cell from actually turning into a fat cell.

This can all turn into a self-reinforcing pattern which is one reason doctors call diabetes a "progressive disease" meaning it gets progressively worse:

1. The longer a person stays healthy, the less likely they are to develop fat cells and become obese;
2. But if blood vessels start to become unhealthy, it starts a cycle of increasing fat, which makes the blood vessels more diseased;
3. The more diseased blood vessels in turn create more fat cells;
4. Of concern is that the researchers say that once the signalling mechanism between the endotherial cells and the stem cells is lost, as they turn into fat, that signalling process are actually lost;
5. That not only reinforces the cycle but it makes for a bad prognosis for diabetics.

Right now, noone knows how these stem cells that line blood vessels become fat cells, and when they do those cells might provide a target for a drug that can help arrest the process of becoming obese.

In the meantime what can diabetics do, who apparently have lost that communication channel between the inner blood vessel linings and the "fat" stem cells?

This is where I swing back to my hobby-horse of exercise for diabetics and its potential benefits.  Let's say that you do regular exercise which is sufficient to pound your blood through your veins and arteries, then here is a theory:

• The blood vessels benefit from the muscular conditioning of their muscle layers, remaining more flexible and fit - that's been documented;
• The exercise typically has a positive effect on blood sugar, but reducing it or reducing the peaks, that's been documented as well;
• The exercise burns fat, and presuming that your food plan is aligned with your exercise program you will lose weight and fat and hopefully metabolic or visceral fat if you do the right exercises;
• That visceral fat is the kind of fat which reduces the ability of insulin to do its job, by both lining the blood vessels and restricting the flow of insulin into muscles and by lining other organs;
• If exercise can reduce that visceral fat and particularly around the blood vessels, and improve the condition of the blood vessels, and stimulate the muscles to pull more insulin, then you would expect that this would improve a type 2 diabetic's ability to use what insulin they have.  That is it would reduce the insulin resistance.

That's my connection between the research and exercise - who knows if I am correct.  I think that our understanding of diabetes management and exercise has quite a long way to go, and I am taking a very positive view ahead of the research.

What is particularly important is that diet without exercise and particularly resistance exercise has been found to have negative effects on bone mass in older adult diabetics.  When diet was combined with resistance exercise this bone mass loss was not noted.  Since some of the bone mass loss was found to have occured in the femoral neck and lumbar spine this is highly undesirable for older people. Hence, in older, overweight adults with type 2 diabetes, dietary modification should be combined with progressive resistance training to optimize the effects on body composition without having a negative effect on bone health.

What's the simplest recommendation - start with aerobic exercise since visceral fat reduction is significantly related to weight reduction during aerobic exercise, although a significant visceral fat reduction may occur without significant weight loss depending on your food plan. Then move to incorporate some resistance exercise into your program.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Sweet news from bitter melon for diabetics

Do we have another answer as to why bitter melon may be good for diabetics? (Studies suggest that bitter melon [ampalaya in Filipino] contains a hypoglycemic polypeptide, a plant insulin responsible for its blood sugar lowering effect.)

It's certainly an acquired taste, and bitter is its trademark. It's now been found that when this bitterness hits the gut bitter-taste receptors in the gut activate the production of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), a protein that stimulates insulin secretion in the pancreas which is beneficial for diabetics.

The reaction stems from a defense against toxins in food, first signalled by the tongue. Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that makes people want to spit them out. If toxins are swallowed, bitter-taste receptors in the gut sense them and trigger the production of a hormone called cholecystokinin that both suppresses appetite (presumably to keep them from eating more of the toxic food) and slows the movement of food from the stomach to the small intestine.

That bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it will be expelled - a finding from researchers at the University of California at Irvine.

At face value we can imagine that bitter melon stimulates that toxin-repelling reaction from the gut, generating GLP-1 and thus slowing digestion, the movement of food to the gut, and raising insulin secretion.

And since we know now that because bitter-taste receptors are expressed in the gut, a new avenue exists to identify ways to stimulate production of GLP-1 through drugs and also other plants and complementary medicines.

As an aside, the researchers also postulated that a low cholesterol diet, based on higher plant food intake, trained the gut to be more sensitive to toxins and bitterness, and that in this case such a person would be more responsive to say bitter melon than a person on a high-cholesterol (meat-based) diet.  That's an interesting avenue to be explored in relation to a diabetic food plan.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Combined training twice as good for diabetics, or is it?

There's a debate about which kind of exercise is best for diabetics, and at the University of Calgary a diabetes specialist has found that aerobic and/or weight training improves blood sugar levels, and that the improvements are twice as good with combined aerobic and weight training.

"Our study demonstrates that people with Type 2 diabetes who want to maximize their glucose control, and reduce their risk of long-term complications, should consider a combination of both aerobic and resistance training like weight lifting," said Sigal, associate professor in the faculties of medicine and kinesiology at the University of Calgary. "I suspected that high intensity weight training could help improve blood sugar levels in people with diabetes, and might also improve vitality and quality of life. That's why we decided to do this study."

The study included 251 people with Type 2 diabetes.

They were split into three groups, one doing aerobic exercise, one weight training, and one doing both exercises.  Those doing both exercises reduced their A1c reading by about 1-percentage point, whereas the single exercise groups reduced their A1c by half a percentage point each group.  Thus the basis of the claim that doing both is "twice as good".

It might actually be better than twice as good since weight training restores lean muscle mass which has other benefits as we age, such as maintaining a higher metabolism and thus keeping us in shape for the same calorie intake, and being able to use our muscles and bodies more effectively in our normal lifestyle.

Aerobic exercise training directly improves blood glucose levels and through that leads to a reduced risk of diabetes-related complications. In addition, aerobic exercise training has been found to improve cardiovascular risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes, such as lipid profile, hypertension and abdominal obesity (visceral fat and the waistline). Muscular strength training is also associated with improved glycemic control and the effects of aerobic and resistance exercise on glycemic control are additive, as reported above.

Progressive resistance training for older adults with type 2 diabetes has been found to increased lean muscle mass, reduced systolic blood pressure, and decreased body fat mass - all very positive outcomes. Furthermore the benefits of such training linger for at least 6 months after such exercise routines, especially in higher lean body mass and muscle strength, although not necessarily in fat mass or glycemic control.

What is particularly important is that diet without exercise and particularly resistance exercise has been found to have negative effects on bone mass in older adult diabetics.  When diet was combined with resistance exercise this bone mass loss was not noted.  Since some of the bone mass loss was found to have occurred in the femoral neck and lumbar spine this is highly undesirable for older people. Hence, in older, overweight adults with type 2 diabetes, dietary modification should be combined with progressive resistance training to optimize the effects on body composition without having a negative effect on bone health.

So what about just resistance exercise?

Good question, since it appears that resistance training seems to have more benefits, including the maintenance of bone health. And now we get to contradictory research results.

At the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna researchers found (2007) that resistance training produced significant benefits in blood glucose and insulin in type 2 diabetics, but that no significant changes resulted from an aerobic endurance training group. Furthermore baseline levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels were significantly reduced and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was significantly increased in the strength training group; in contrast, no such changes were seen in the aerobic endurance training group.

They concluded straight out:

Strength training was more effective than endurance training in improving glycemic control. With the added advantage of an improved lipid profile, we conclude that strength training may play an important role in the treatment of T2D.

Just for completeness, and reference, this endurance training was planned with an intensity of maximal oxygen consumption of 60% and a frequency beginning at 15 min and advancing to a maximum of 30 min 3x/week.

The Canadian study didn't measure lipids, the cholesterol factors, so we can't compare the two studies on that basis. The Canadians also measured a group doing one or the other or both types of exercise, whereas the Vienna study only compared the two different types of exercise.  That said, the Canadian study did report positive results for the group just doing aerobic training, whereas the Vienna study reported no benefits.

Just to throw in more "research" on this debate, also in 2007 the AHEPA Hospital in Greece measured the results of aerobic endurance training on 60 overweight type 2 diabetics and found that in comparison with a control group (no exercise) the exercise-treated patients "improved glucose control, lipid profile, exercise capacity (VO2 peak) and exhibited decreased insulin resistance and systolic BP considerably". And importantly the Greek researchers measured and found improvements in anti-inflammatory protection in the blood vessels, which means improved insulin sensitivity, in the exercise group.

What's the best plan for adult diabetics?

On the basis of the potential maintenance of bone mass, and the blood glucose and cholesterol improvements as reported above, it would seem that resistance training is the best maintenance exercise for type 2 diabetics.

Whether it is the best starting exercise, for those newly diagnosed and wishing to lose weight, or just starting exercise with the initial goal of weight loss, I'm not sure. In that case it may be more effective to start with a food plan and associated aerobic exercise - to avoid losing lean muscle mass - and to gradually incorporate some resistance training into the program to build muscle mass and to maintain bone density.

The key thing to take into account is that such exercises need to form a part of a lifestyle change and a long-term training schedule.  When you are diabetic it is your lifetime exercise profile which will provide the answers to some of your diabetes management challenges.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Blood glucose levels reduced by drinking chamomile tea, reduced diabetic damage

It was reported recently that drinking chamomile tea daily with meals may help prevent the complications of diabetes (which include loss of vision, nerve damage, and kidney damage), which was found by researchers in Japan and the United Kingdom.

The researchers fed chamomile extract to a group of diabetic rats for 21 days and compared the results to a group of control animals on a normal diet. The chamomile-supplemented animals showed a significant decrease in blood glucose levels compared with the controls, they say.

In the study, Atsushi Kato and colleagues point out that chamomile, also known as manzanilla, has been used for years as a medicinal cure-all to treat a variety of medical problems including stress, colds, and menstrual cramps. This was the first "scientific test" of some of the claims made for chamomile in relation to benefits for diabetics.

The article didn't mention this, but is it thought that chamazulene carboxylic acid may be the main cause of the "anti-inflammatory" activity which is of benefit to diabetics, and to be noted is that this also occurs in Yarrow (Achillea millefolium).  Yarrow has a long history as a medicinal herb, famously for soldiers to treat battle wounds and hence an old folk name "soldier's woundwort".

CCA also occurs in other Asteraceae species (besides chamomile) which is said to be "the largest family of flowering plants, with more than 25 000 species world-wide" and includes the daisy family, sunflower family, and thistle family (and dandelions). The most well known food product of the family is certainly sunflower oil and kernels. Other well-known foods are Jerusalem and French artichokes, lettuce, chicory and medicinally wild rosemary and wild camphor bush.

I'm fascinated that it includes thistles because I think that there is another story in thistles and their value for diabetics, as well as the value of dandelion roots.

The main consitutuent of chamomile is apigenin 7-O-glucoside and it is this which is thought to be responsible for its anti-cancer activities, which are believed to be facilitated in the gut (small intestine), and even have benefit for such cancers as prostate cancer.

It may be that chamomile can reduce blood pressure, which would be generally helpful for diabetics since they often have a range of associated conditions such as elevated cholesterol and blood pressure.  UK scientists (2005) found very positive effects of drinking chamomile tea for 2 week, including "increased urinary excretion of hippurate". In 2008 Nature published a paper wherein researchers from the UK, USA, Belgium, Japan, and China found an inverse relationship between the concentration of hippurate in the urine and blood pressure. 

Is there any downside with chamomile?

Well probably nothing yet as the research reported was the first "scientific test"  But we do know that the essential oil of chamomile contains considerable content of couramin which has been linked to cancer and liver damage in animals (download PDF). This is the undesirable product within Chinese cinnamon, whereas cinnamon is often recommended for diabetics but it should be the Ceylonese cinnamon which has one-tenth the couramin.  For example in bilberries, black rasperries and Angelica roots couramin is below "detectable levels" - that's important because bilberries are an important diabetic supplement to reduce neuropathy.

There are also various forms of chamomile, and many called "wild chamomile". For example Athemis Cotula is called "wild chamomile" but testing its extracts showed no "antibacterial activity"; German chamomile is also called wild chamomile and it has a long history of medicinal usages - so some care is needed in understanding which extracts and species are being used.

The orginal true medicinal chamomile, at least as know to the West, is the German chamomile "Matricaria recutita".

In terms of anti-oxidant activity, research has shown the following order: thyme > basil > rosemary > chamomile > lavender and cinnamon, with thyme and basil standing out.  Does this mean that you should be drinking thyme tea instead? I don't know ! And whether they have the same positive impact on lowering blood sugar I don't know.

So where are we?

There seem to be benefits and no harm in a regular cup of chamomile tea, and potentially specific positive benefits for diabetics.  You might like to also consider, for variety, as I do:

• Bilberry tea and extracts - for capilliary improvement and to ameliorate neuropathy;
• Green tea - for well know benefits;
• Dandeline root tea - not really sure here but I suspect benefits for diabetics.

Check your chinese grocery store for a good range at the right price - "yellow spring crysantemum" 黃春菊 although I can't say that this would be German Chamomile although I'm sure that the Chinese know what they're doing.

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Plastics linked to insulin and metabolic syndrome - diabetes

In a previous post we reported on the recent research which proved an association between BPA in plastics and humans with diabetes, and also mentioned the related work of Professor Nira Ben-Jonathan.

We listed Prof. Ben-Jonathan's work as one of the five reasons that we thought that the statistical finding of an association between BPA and diabetes was important.

Ben-Jonathan's research implicates the primary chemical used to produce hard plastics—bisphenol A (BPA)—as a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and its consequences. In a laboratory study, using fresh human fat tissues, her team found that BPA suppresses a key hormone, adiponectin, which is responsible for regulating insulin sensitivity in the body and puts people at a substantially higher risk for Metabolic Syndrome - MetS.

Her team are the first to report scientific evidence on the health effects of BPA at environmentally relevant doses equal to "average" human exposure (previous studies have primarily focused on animal studies and high doses of BPA).

That's the big deal here, that because we are learning how widely we are exposed to BPA, and using these likely normal contamination levels the research team found that exposing human tissues to these BPA levels resulted in suppression of adiponectin.

"These results are especially powerful because we didn't use a single patient, a single tissue source or a single occurrence," she reported. "We used different fat tissues from multiple patients and got the same negative response to BPA."

Metabolic Syndrome is bad enough in itself - a group of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, including abdominal obesity (internal tummy fat), insulin resistance (poor ability of the body to respond to fluctuations in blood sugar), low HDL (“good”) cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high triglycerides. When a person has three or more of these factors, they are said to have MetS (which affects an estimated 50 million Americans alone).

So the point is that if you have two MetS risk factors not including insulin resistance (Type 2 diabetes) and you become contaminated by BPA the research indicates you are then at risk of actually developing Type 2 diabetes and crossing the threshold into MetS. Your chances of being exposed to BPA are high - 90% of Americans had traces of BPA in their urine in a recent national health survey.

Of even more concern is that with the increasing obesity of younger people they are becoming more at risk of Type 2 diabetes, and with their high levels of potential exposure to plastics and BPA the risk is even higher - obesity + BPA means only one step to go to transition into MetS.  It's know that the impact of obesity and MetS on cardiovascular disease in (even non-diabetic) adolescents "is particularly worrisome". 

As we've commented elsewhere, the association of plastics and diabetes is out of the box and is not going to go away, not unless further research throws a different light on the association seen so far. And if you're concerned about what diabetics should do about BPA and plastics check this post where we outline the different plastics and their levels of BPA safety.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner

Strict blood-sugar control leaves diabetic benefits after lapsing

Its reported that diabetics who tightly control their blood sugar — even if only for the first years after they are diagnosed — have lower risks of heart attack, death and other complications 10 or more years later, a large follow-up study has found.

Legacy Effect

Controlling blood sugar for a period, ten years, and lapsing left positive benefits in terms of reduced risk of heart attack and death, whereas in comparison another diabetic group who strictly controlled only their blood pressure early on and then lapsed showed no reduction in potential diabetes-related risks.

The discovery of this "legacy effect" points to the importance of a new medical emphasis on rigorous treatment when people first learn they have Type 2 diabetes (the most common form and the type linked to the obesity epidemic).

Dr. Alvin C. Powers, director of Vanderbilt's diabetes center, said the studies underscore the need to treat diabetes in a holistic manner — managing blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

"The important message is that it re-emphasizes that glucose control is important," said Powers, "who is not connected with the research".

Diabetics In Control has a detailed report and a particulary important comment from Edwin Gale, M.D., "of Bristol University in England, who was not involved in the trial, [who] said the results represent a true legacy in that they reinforce the benefit of early, intensive glucose management. But even more important than the drugs used, Dr. Gale said, was the timing of the intervention -- that all the patients were newly diagnosed. 'The message is that while glucose control is important, early glucose control may be critical, ' he said. To gauge the clinical importance of early intervention, Dr. Gale contrasted the new findings with those of the VADT, reported at the American Diabetes Association meeting in June. The VADT found no benefit for intensive glucose management in a population that had established diabetes."

This fits with one element (early action) of my own program and I hope the longer-term benefits turn out the same.

It also provides more hope for medical and diabetic educators and paramedics since they tend to find people to doing exercise and dieting - the most common response being that "I don't have time".

If the effort is focused on controlling blood sugar levels, and not on dieting or exercise as the primary attack, then it may have more effect. Of course people have to change their diets and watch their food intake to even have a chance of controlling sugar levels, or take drugs, but the hurdle in getting people to change many things at once is gone.

I'm sure better results would be obtained and sustained by a more holistic approach, but the point of the study was to do a controlled experiment measuring controlling blood pressure or blood sugar and their lasting value on reducing the long-term risk for diabetics.

However do bear in mind that in order to control blood sugar, combined workouts are most beneficial for long-term control, so inevitably we come back to a holistic approach being necessary even if drugs played a role in the initial stages.

The study provides us a useful piece of information.

Is there a adult diabetes item that you think we should feature?  Email tips@diabetorati.com. Thanks!

Visit our customized Amazon shopping mall for diabetic books, food, and fun !

Subscribe to diabetorati

Sponsored Links & Partner Sites: > TWITTER diabetorati : Follow @diabetorati, be a Friend at Twitter > diabetorati Google Custom Search Engine: contribute to this customized diabetic Google search engine > Glycemic Index Books: Amazon books about the Glycemic Index > Subscribe to diabetorati by Email: Delivered by FeedBurner