“I just saw a post on families of type 1 diabetics in Houston – the mother said it was the 3rd time this year they were heading to the hospital in an ambulance because [her son with type 1 diabetes] was too low. He actually had a seizure. He’s 11 and is on a pump. This gives me encouragement to keep pressing on with a good diet even though it IS HARD!! I think it’s harder to be on the way to hospital with a seizing child…”

We are confident that putting the effort into a healthier lifestyle for our two boys with type 1 diabetes (and for our whole family) is much easier and better in the long run than dealing with possible complications from an unhealthy diet. More stable blood glucose control and possibly needing less insulin may avert these dangerous lows. Thank you, Kristin for these encouraging words to continue pursuing a healthier lifestyle.

Scientists at the University of Bath asked volunteers to perform two 20-second cycle sprints on exercise bikes, three times per week and after six weeks, researchers in the university’s department of health saw a 28% improvement in their insulin function.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when blood sugar levels build up to dangerously high levels due to reduced insulin function, often caused by a sedentary lifestyle. Regular exercise can help keep blood sugar levels low but busy lifestyles and lack of motivation mean 66% of the population are not getting the recommended five 30-minute sessions of moderate exercise a week.

Dr. Niels Vollaard, who is leading the study, said: “We already knew that very intense sprint training can improve insulin sensitivity but we wanted to see if the exercise sessions could be made easier and shorter.”

In the study the resistance on the exercise bikes could be rapidly increased so volunteers were able to briefly exercise at much higher intensities than they would otherwise be able to achieve. With an undemanding warm-up and cool-down, the total time of each session was only 10 minutes.

Dr. Vollaard said: “This is completely new. No one has ever found a program this easy and short to provide health benefits. At the moment it has only been done in lab conditions but it would be easy to create a bike that does this in a gym setting.”

Health-e-Solutions comment: It doesn’t seem to take much exercise to see improved blood glucose control, if you are able to perform at the intensity necessary. If intensity is problematic, then stick to moderate exercise 30 minutes each day.

A nonprofit research group called Extending the Cure published the latest in a fantastic series of maps based on public and privately collected data. Earlier iterations have looked at the incidence of various resistant organisms over time. This time, they decided to look instead at the major drivers of resistance, and focused on national data about antibiotic prescriptions, broken down by drug type and by state between 1999 and 2007.

The graphics they produced document both a troubling growth in the use of some precious (because still effective) antibiotic classes, and also a surprising differential in the amounts of antibiotics prescribed in different parts of the country. The rate of use of antibiotics, measured by outpatient prescriptions per 1,000 inhabitants, varied from a low of 533 in Alaska to a high of 1,214 in West Virginia.

When those usage rates were mapped, they looked like this to the right: A strand of states that runs through the Southeastern United States and along the Appalachians lights up for antibiotic overuse. That regional differential - along with an obvious pattern of greater use in the entire eastern US, compared to the west – is certainly what caught the eye of the media when the maps were released,

I am a member of the media, and I do see that story in this map. But I am also a public-health person, and looking through those lenses, I see something a little different.

The states that map to the greatest antibiotic use happen to be the same states that also map to the worst health status in the US – the greatest incidence of obesity, asthma, tobacco use, heart disease, heart attack, diabetes and stroke. Down here in the South, we not-so-jokingly call those states the Stroke Belt; Atlanta, where I live most of the time, is essentially the buckle.

Here, for instance, is what stroke deaths looks like, in a map from the National Stroke Mortality Atlas, produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (In this map, the Extending the Cure map, and all the maps that follow, the darkest color represents the greatest incidence, whether or not a legend specifies so.)

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Here’s a map of diabetes incidence in 2008, produced by the fantastic Slate Labs visualization project and based on data gathered by the CDC.

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Here’s one of obesity – BMI greater than 30 – in 2010, generated by the seriously useful map engine attached to the data vault of the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) project.

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And finally, here’s a map of incidence in 2010 of experiencing “at least one” heart attack, also from the BRFSS.

So what’s going on here? Let’s stipulate that correlation is not causation. Even so, it’s a bit of a mystery.

It is not new news that West Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama – and to a lesser extent, Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi – are seriously unhealthy places. They are notoriously among the poorest states in the US, and with poverty comes the worst access to health care and the greatest incidence of lifestyle diseases.

However, lack of access to health care doesn’t, to me, correlate with higher-than usual amounts of antibiotic use. That doesn’t make sense organizationally or economically; if you can’t access health care, where are you getting the prescriptions from? It doesn’t make sense behaviorally, either. Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are health-ignoring behaviors; they are among the things that happen when you don’t take care of yourself. But taking antibiotics is, at least on its face, a health-seeking behavior – after all, to obtain a prescription you must visit a health professional.

I asked Ramanan Laxminarayan, the director of Extending the Cure, what he thought was going on behind this unexpected concordance. He suggested that the antibiotic use might be an effect of poor health status, in that people who have many things wrong with them may go to the doctor more, and may obtain antibiotics – perhaps inappropriately – while they are there.

On the other hand, what if antibiotics cause these other health effects? That lines up with the work of Martin Blaser of New York University, who has proposed that taking antibiotics permanently kills off beneficial bacteria in the gut – and might therefore be responsible for changes in nutrient absorption and for the rise in obesity and diabetes.

This is just brightly colored pictures and speculation. But I’m intrigued, Is there something worth interrogating in this correlation between antibiotic overuse and poor health status?

Health-e-Solutions comment:  An interesting speculation backed by convincing statistics. If antibiotics are used in factory farms to increase animal weight and mass, then it is plausible that the same happens in humans who take antibiotics. The permanent destruction of beneficial bacteria is a particularly alarming possible outcome from taking antibiotics.

Most would agree that type 2 diabetes can be (not always of course) a health-ignoring behavior, but how many believe that type 1 diabetes can also be a health-ignoring behavior? Most scientists and doctors agree that there is an environmental component to type 1 diabetes that precipitates the development of this autoimmune disease in those genetically pre-disposed, It stands to reason that if those environmental factors are controlled, you could theoretically prevent the development of type 1 diabetes in many cases.

For example, if gluten is an environmental factor, as it is considered to be by many, then ignoring that factor and continuing to ingest gluten is a health-ignoring behavior. This is not to say that their health was ignored intentionally. Most type one diabetics did not intentionally ignore their health. They simply did not know there were risks associated with the behavior. But toxins, cow’s milk, gluten, genetically modified foods, and poor diet are all controllable risk factors. Others, such as a virus, stressful events and what your mother ate when she was pregnant are not controllable.

We think it behooves us to control what we can to mitigate the risk of developing this insidious disease. For those who already have type one diabetes (and type 2 as well) it is just as important to change our behaviors to minimize the risk of developing long term health complications.

With exceptional nutritional value due to their rich concentration of omega-3 fatty acids, salmon is a favorite among fish lovers and enjoyed even by those who are not always fond of fish. Salmon are incredible fish sometimes traveling thousands of miles throughout their life cycle and within two to five years returning to the very location where they were born to spawn and die. The specific characteristics and life cycles of salmon vary with each species. (For example, king salmon has a life cycle of approximately 4-6 years, sockeye, 4-6 years, and silver 3-4 years.)

A good portion of salmon can be classified either as Pacific (Oncorhynchus genus) or Atlantic (Salmo genus) salmon, according to the ocean in which they are found. There is just one native species of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), while there are many species of Pacific salmon including chinook (or king), sockeye (or red), coho (or silver), pink, and chum. Norwegian salmon, a popular type of salmon often offered on restaurant menus, is actually Atlantic salmon that is farm-raised in Norway. The flesh of salmon ranges in color from pink to red to orange with some varieties richer in important omega-3 fatty acids than others. For example, chinook and sockeye are fattier fish than pink and chum and contain great amounts of healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

The native habitats of Atlantic and Pacific salmon as described above no longer characterize most of salmon consumed in the United States or in many other countries. Because farmed salmon now accounts for about 80% of all salmon consumed worldwide, it is becoming harder and harder to find wild-caught salmon that live in their native habitat.

What’s New and Beneficial About Salmon

With so much focus on the amazing omega-3 benefits of salmon, other unique health benefits from salmon may have been inadvertently overlooked. One fascinating new area of health benefits involves the protein and amino acid content of salmon. Several recent studies have found that salmon contains small bioactive protein molecules (called bioactive peptides) that may provide special support for joint cartilage, insulin effectiveness, and control of inflammation in the digestive tract. One particular bioactive peptide called calcitonin (sCT) has been of special interest in these studies. The reason is because a human form of calcitonin is made by the thyroid gland, and we know that it is a key hormone for helping regulate and stabilize the balance of collagen and minerals in the bone and surrounding tissue. As researchers learn more and more about salmon peptides, expect to see more and more potential health benefits discovered related to inflammation, including inflammation of the joints.

Even though contamination with mercury, pesticides, and persistent organic pollutants (POPS) has become a widespread problem in salmon habitats and with the quality of salmon itself, there are still salmon runs that pose relatively low risk in terms of contaminants. Leading this low-risk category for wild-caught salmon are Alaskan salmon. Southeast Alaskan chum, sockeye, coho, pink, and chinook salmon, together with Kodiak coho, pink, and chum salmon have all been evaluated for contaminant consumption risk involving many POPs (including dioxins, dioxin-like compounds, or DLCs, and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs) and have been found to be the lowest risk category of wild-caught salmon for regular consumption. (While some salmon runs from British Columbia and the U.S. West Coast also stand out as lower risk in terms of contaminants, they have more precarious sustainability.)

Along with lower risk of contamination from wild-caught Alaskan salmon, the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California has recently determined Alaskan salmon to be the only low-risk salmon in terms of four sustainability criteria: the inherent vulnerability of the fish, the effects of fishing on the overall habitat, the status of wild stocks, and the nature of the by-catch (the other types of fish that are caught unintentionally during salmon fishing).

Regulations that have been adopted – but not yet officially implemented – by the National Organics Standards Board at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show the intention of the USDA to allow for organic certification of farmed salmon, but not wild-caught salmon. Limitation of organic certification to farmed salmon appears related to the USDA’s desire for certainty about compliance of salmon production with organic regulations. In the case of wild-caught salmon, the USDA appears to believe that compliance with organic standards would simply be impossible to verify.

At present, given the absence of officially implemented organic standards for seafood of any kind (including salmon), consumption of wild-caught Alaskan salmon is best because of their higher-quality environmental habitat. We also believe that it is desirable for salmon to live their lives in a natural habitat instead of an artificial fish farm setting.

While salmon have long been identified as a uniquely concentrated source of omega-3 fats, recent studies have now determined the actual bioavailability of these omega-3 fats from relatively small changes in diet. In fascinating research from a team of scientists at the Lipid and Diabetes Research Center at Saint Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, MO, only two servings of salmon per week (Norwegian Atlantic-farmed salmon and approximately 6 ounces per serving) were determined to significantly increase the presence of omega-3 fats in the membranes of red blood cells (RBCs). Only 4 months were required to raise the RBC omega-3 levels from 4% to 6%. This finding made it clear that the omega-3 fats from salmon, including its heart-supportive combination of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) effectively make their way into our body and directly support the function of our cells.

Equally interesting in this study was a comparison of dietary salmon intake to fish oil capsules containing purified salmon oil. Salmon oil capsules were also able to raise the percentage of omega-3s in the RBC membranes form 4% to 6%. However, intake of the fish oil capsules over this 4-month period also produced a small increase in some of the blood fats (in particular, triglycerides) of the participants. Since increased blood triglyceride levels can be a risk factor for cardiovascular problems, and since dietary salmon did not produce a similar rise in blood triglycerides for participants in this study, dietary intake of salmon appears to be a best bet for supporting cell function and simultaneously avoiding some unwanted increases in other blood fats.

Cooking Salmon

The best ways to cook salmon is by using methods that will keep it moist and tender. Salmon can be easily overcooked and become dry, so be sure to watch your cooking times.

Preheat the broiler on high and place an all stainless steel skillet (be sure the handle is also stainless steel) or cast iron pan under the heat for about 10 minutes to get it very hot. Place salmon on hot pan and broil for 7-10 minutes, depending on thickness. You do not need to turn the salmon.

While grilled salmon tastes great, make sure it does not burn. It is best to grill salmon on an area without a direct flame. Extra care should be taken when grilling, as burning can damage nutrients and create free radicals that can be harmful to your health.

Health Benefits

Salmon provides numerous potential health benefits including:

• Supports heart health
• Enhances mood and cognition
• Promotes joint protection
• Supports eye health
• Potential cancer protective properties

Nutritional Profile

The unique protein and amino acid composition of salmon is often overlooked in its nutritional profile. Salmon contains short protein molecules called peptides that have been shown to be bioactive and may have important anti-inflammatory properties. Salmon also provides important amounts of the antioxidant amino acid taurine. Salmon is an excellent source of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D as well as immune-supportive selenium. It is also a very good source of muscle-building protein and heart-healthy niacin and vitamin B12. Additionally, it is a good source of energy-producing phosphorus as well as heart-healthy magnesium and vitamin B6.

This is a transitional recipe in that it has meat included. We did not eat meat or any other animal protein for the first couple of years with our boys. This can also make a good recipe when transitioning into the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle.

If you are inclined to eat meat, we encourage you to do so with moderation (about once or twice a week) and make it wild-caught Alaskan salmon or grass-fed, free-range meat. Remember the 75-25 rule: at least 75% fresh, whole raw, low glycemic, alkalizing foods combined with 25% or less of cooked foods is a winning formula for healthy eating.

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Hayden in the hospital

The way Hayden’s story begins is all too familiar to most of us who have children diagnosed with type 1 diebetes. But that is where the similarities with most people end. The Hatston family went on a mission to vanquish the “beties” monster and put it back into the box from which it escaped to wreak havoc on their precious son, Hayden. Their son is now enjoying his freedom from insulin injections and stabilized blood sugars. We know you will be as inspired as we are by their unrelenting love for their son and their commitment and dedication to finding a more natural way to treat Hayden’s type 1 diabetes.

Jan 5 2012 I took my 4 year old to the hospital after about two weeks of observing thirst and urination abnormalities. I also noticed weight loss, and that was my red flag to get him checked. He was scared and I didn’t know it. I told him I am taking him to Chuckie Cheese after we make a very important stop on the way to check something.

Right away the staff figured diabetes. His blood sugar test was almost 54 mmol/L. That’s about 1,000 mg/dL American. The many needles for IVs, injections and blood tests were a slaughter. His blood and veins were not up to the task. That was how the nightmare started after up to 10 days or more of symptoms that are obvious to us now. Thinking back more than 7 months pre-diagnoses he had been showing dental issues at least that long. Strange holes were forming in a few of his teeth. Had his dentist had more training perhaps he may have caught on to the attack near the gum line as a possible sign of Diabetic trouble.

Five nights in the hospital seemed like a year. Some of the comments the staff made to my son gave me an angry chill that made me think how dare you mess with a child’s mind telling him he “will have needles every day for the rest of his life” with no reserve. I felt it a shallow and abusive thing to misuse their position in the medical profession to make such an assertion when it seemed pretty obvious something was wrong with this whole scenario.

I was not sure what exactly made me suspicious of the sentence handed down by the hospital staff.  But to start with, the diabetic diet that arrived 3 times a day as outlined by the nutrition expert contained milk (known to be a culprit in the development of diabetes), juice, white flour cookies and other refined carbs and grains, including an artificial sweetener that is a well-known toxin and cancer causing carcinogen. “Hmm, get us out of here”, we needed to get home to start the research into healing, not treating self-inflicted symptoms. All of the above spike blood sugar dramatically. A few weeks after our hospital stay, we learned from our doctor of integrative medicine that Hayden had leaky gut syndrome and antibodies to gluten and dairy.

Coming home was a magical feeling and for us, and the beginning of a sleep deprived couple of months. I started to search for causes and natural cures of type one diabetes, up to 20 hours per day, trying to make sure all threats in our home environment would be eliminated before settling in. Once I gave up researching the cause [of type 1 diabetes], I moved into a much more productive role of searching for a natural approach to deal with this insulin versus blood glucose issue. I found the PH Miracle for Diabetes by Dr. Young. The book was the only one I found that dealt with the food issue so directly and in relation to type one diabetes for a change. The tendency for diabetic books out there is only to discuss type 2, so I was relieved to finally have a resource that got us started.

The weeks went by and we capitalized on all the new information we were learning about the Alkalinizing of digestive systems (eating healthy food as our medicine) and the effects on blood sugar control and what roles other nutrients play in the body. Our minds were already geared towards orthomolecular medicine (that just means in mouth molecules) so this was easy to understand, and somewhat familiar to my own holistic-based knowledge picked up over 25 years working within the Natural Health and Wellness community.

[On the internet] I found a testimonial of the Roman family, the story of their two sons diagnosed with type one diabetes four months apart four years ago. Guess what, neither of those two boys ever had a drop of [injected] insulin. Fortunately the boys were diagnosed early enough that their parents got a head start on their own research and implemented a [diabetic]-alkaline diet before things got worse with the attack on their insulin producing beta cells. In my opinion these people have made history.

“BINGO!” I shouted. I knew this was it, how do you argue with living proven success. Hallelujah… Some say “if you want to get rich then do what rich people do.” I say “If you want to end the suffering that type one diabetes and complications of type one diabetes can cause, then do what the Roman family has done.” It won’t make you rich, but you will once again sleep at night if you can make it work for you as it has for us.

Just eat mostly raw alkaline foods. There is no secret message that gets unlocked if you send money somewhere. The message is free, and it sure is good to have some support along the way because the food is hard to get used to at first. We are not used to being so involved in the actual process of preparing our foods, rather than just bringing home processed foods to serve. It took a while but we love the food now, except our 10 year old. He is still a fungus-feeding high carb/glucose food junkie. One night, at one of our early green dinners he actually barfed right into his dinner plate. That’s similar to taking the junk away from a junkie. It’s an addiction that has been invented by modern food processes and ingredients that make a highly marketable food sell faster than the competition.

Anyway, it has been two months to the day since my diabetic child has required insulin injections. Don’t get me wrong, if he eats a piece of store bought bread or any grains/gluten, or any dairy or fruit juice or processed foods period, his “beties” will kick the lid off the box we’ve worked so hard to stuff the bugger into and raise havoc. Is this the “honeymoon period” they tell us about? Maybe, well in a way, except with a little more studying you will find books by respected doctors that say insulin producing beta cell preservation is possible for an indefinite period.

My boys are thriving – all three of them – gaining weight and eating like princes. It’s funny to think they have come such a long way in a short time. At 3 and 4 years old they could teach endocrinologists how to manage type one diabetes without insulin injections if only they were allowed to learn. We all get much needed deep sleep at night now, not to mention we need it to keep up with all the shopping, food preparation and research into how some of these recipes and supplements will work for us.

Even if Hayden needs to start the insulin again for some strange reason he will have a step up on the blood glucose control game. There is a lot to learn, it’s all simple but you’re probably going to have to forget what your TV looks like or what it feels like to chill out on your couch for a few months. I took a partial leave of absence from work for 3 months, it would have been impossible for my wife to find and implement the changes without support. At the end of every day our kitchen looks like we just hosted a huge thanksgiving dinner, seems like not a dish or implement remains in the cupboard.

Knowing what I know now, we probably could have stabilized [Hayden’s blood sugar control] in 48 hours and not required any injections after the initial rescue and diagnoses. Instead we took it slow because the transition off the SAD (Standard American Diet) is a rough one for a child. And you may not figure out how to implement the diet overnight. In our case we had very little knowledge. We still learn every day how to make it a bit more sustainable, effective, and delicious.

We are right on coarse now, and the Roman family is here to answer your questions because there are many, so write them down. We would love to help too. Seeing the results of natural therapeutic methods, including strict alkaline food implementation that heals type one diabetics, to gain blood glucose readings in the normal non diabetic range is the key to it all.

I emailed the Roman family this message “You have done more to ease human suffering than the Dali Lama could ever hope to in his lifetime,” just by getting the word out. I found out for myself that turns out to be their only goal. Their recipe book is our anchor. It has helped numerous families create their own spin off recipes that we all share. Now that the Romans have insured we all can keep in touch with each other through a social network for type one diabetic families it has made it easy to view and discuss all aspects of type one diabetes recovery around the globe 24 hours a day. We have relied heavily on the support we have received through these wonderful people. Try it out. Just think how well you will sleep, once again.

Is it a cure for type one diabetes? Close enough for me, although we refer to it as a natural treatment for type one diabetics to be insulin injection free. We are all ears if someone can bring new and better information to the table.

The Hatston Family

An accelerated decline in brain function is an important risk that needs to be examined further in relation to glycemic control in older people with long-standing diabetes.

Starting in October 2003, researchers recruited 2977 participants from the ACCORD trial, 1469 of whom were in the intensive glycemic control group (targeting hemoglobin A1c [HbA1c] to below 6%), and 1508 of whom were receiving standard therapy (targeting HbA1c to between 7% and 7.9%).

There was a correlation between higher HbA1c at baseline and lower DSST score. A relationship was also seen between increasing duration of diabetes and decreasing total brain volume. However, at 40 months, the researchers found no differences in DSST score between patients in the intensive therapy or standard therapy groups. “Both groups declined from baseline but there were no differences between the groups,” she said.

In terms of brain volume, MRI did demonstrate “very significant” differences between the groups, with individuals in the intensive treatment group showing less decline in total brain volume than the standard therapy group.

Dr. Lenore Launer, PhD, director of neuroepidemiology at the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland suggested that although cognitive decline is similar in both treatment groups, it may not remain that way.

“We postulate in this age group structural changes in the brain happen before cognitive changes and that, over time, the cognitive differences between the groups will emerge,” she said.

Research suggests that total brain volume in cognitively stable non-diabetic people in their mid-70s declines by about 0.4% per year, compared with 0.8% in those who eventually convert to mild cognitive impairment or dementia.

“In our study of 62-year-olds, there was decline of 0.4% in the intensive treatment arm — similar to the cognitively stable non-diabetic people in their 70s — but there was a 0.57% decline in the standard treatment group,” Dr. Launer noted.

Anne Peters, MD, professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC) and director of the USC Clinical Diabetes Program in Los Angeles, who was not part of the study, commented that, “It is likely that the cause for the impairment in cognitive function in diabetes is multi-factorial and includes dyslipidemia, hypertension, and inflammation.”

Dr. Peters said recent studies have suggested that to optimize benefit, patients need to have near-normal glucose levels starting early after their diabetes diagnosis and maintain at near-normal levels for many years.

Health-e-Solutions comment: The diabetic-alkaline Lifestyle has delivered near-normal glucose levels in our two type 1 diabetic boys and in me (pre-diabetic). It has helped others maintain near-normal glucose control in type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes through what Dr. Richard Bernstein calls the law of small numbers. Our recipe e-books, workshops and home study course will teach you how to transform your lifestyle in a practical, livable way for long term sustainability.

A rare genetic disorder has given researchers at the University of Exeter a surprising insight into how the pancreas develops. The finding provides a clue to how it may be possible to ‘program’ stem cells — master cells in the body that can develop into specialized cells — to become pancreatic cells.

Rare mutations in the genes PDX1 and PTF1A have previously been shown to cause pancreatic agenesis, a rare condition in which the body is unable to produce a pancreas, but have only been identified in a handful of families affected by the condition. Until now, the underlying causes of most cases have been unknown.

In a paper recently published in Nature Genetics, an international team of researchers led by scientists from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Exeter report a mutation in the gene GATA6 found in 15 out of 27 individuals with pancreatic agenesis. The study, funded by organizations including the Wellcome Trust, Diabetes UK and the National Institute for Health Research, establishes a key role for GATA6 in the development of pancreatic cells.

The finding was particularly surprising because switching off the GATA6 gene in mouse models seemed to make no difference to the development of the pancreas.

Professor Andrew Hattersley from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry said: “This rare genetic condition has provided us with a surprising insight into how the pancreas develops. What is it that programs cells to become pancreatic beta cells? Our study suggests that GATA6 plays a very important role in this process and we hope this will help the crucial work to try and make beta cells for patients with type 1 diabetes.”

Health-e-Solutions comment: The surprising difference between humans and mice found in this research may give clues to why so many mouse studies do not translate into success with humans. There are more similarities than not, but the dissimilarities make the difference between success and failure in many research projects. We will continue to keep our bodies in a position of strength, health and optimal condition with the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle until such time as a better solution is found. Our Home Study Course can help teach you how to implement the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle in a practical and sustainable way. It has been a wonderful way to manage our two boys’ type 1 diabetes without requiring insulin injections or any other medication.

Researchers have widely believed that the organic compound, allicin – which gives garlic its aroma and flavour – acts as the world’s most powerful antioxidant. But until now it hasn’t been clear how allicin works, or how it stacks up compared to more common antioxidants such as Vitamin E and coenzyme Q10, which stop the damaging effects of radicals.

“We didn’t understand how garlic could contain such an efficient antioxidant, since it didn’t have a substantial amount of the types of compounds usually responsible for high antioxidant activity in plants, such as the flavanoids found in green tea or grapes,” says Chemistry professor Derek Pratt, who led the study. “If allicin was indeed responsible for this activity in garlic, we wanted to find out how it worked.”

The research team questioned the ability of allicin to trap damaging radicals so effectively, and considered the possibility that a decomposition product of allicin may instead be responsible. Through experiments with synthetically-produced allicin, they found that an acid produced when the compound decomposes rapidly reacts with radicals.

“Basically the allicin compound has to decompose in order to generate a potent antioxidant,” explains Dr. Pratt, who is Canada Research Chair in Free Radical Chemistry. “The reaction between the sulfenic acid and radicals is as fast as it can get, limited only by the time it takes for the two molecules to come into contact. No one has ever seen compounds, natural or synthetic, react this quickly as antioxidants.”

The researcher is confident that a link exists between the reactivity of the sulfenic acid and the medicinal benefits of garlic. “While garlic has been used as a herbal medicine for centuries and there are many garlic supplements on the market, until now there has been no convincing explanation as to why garlic is beneficial,” says Dr. Pratt. “I think we have taken the first step in uncovering a fundamental chemical mechanism which may explain garlic’s medicinal benefits.”

Along with onions, leeks and shallots, garlic is a species in the family Alliaceae. All of these other plants contain a compound that is very similar to allicin, but they do not have the same medicinal properties. Dr. Pratt and his colleagues believe that this is due to a slower rate of decomposition of the allicin analogs in the onions, leaks and shallots, which leads to a lower level of sulfenic acid available to react as antioxidants with radicals.

Health-e-Solutions comment: Makes you want to grab some garlic and put it on your salad, doesn’t it. I heard, just today, from a mother of twins that when her children got ear infections, she would crush garlic and put the extract in their ear and the next morning they would be fine. The antioxidant effect of garlic has the benefit of reducing advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) in our bodies as well. So grab a clove and eat it to stay young!

Inflammation and diabetes, or is it diabetes and inflammation? Research now tells us that these conditions are definitely related, although they are not completely sure of the sequence.

We do know that chronic inflammation can play a part in insulin resistance, high glucose levels, and high lipids; chronic low level systemic inflammation is also tied to obesity since fat tissue can release inflammatory molecules. Low level chronic inflammation can increase the aging process and break down the endothelial lining of the vascular system; this leads to complications including MI, stroke, renal failure, retinopathy, and nerve damage. Inflammation, such as a fever response to an infection can help the body respond to stress, but low level chronic inflammation can be fatal.

There is solid evidence that this condition can lead to inflammatory state diseases including: coronary heart disease or atherosclerosis, fatty liver disease, asthma, and diabetes. Since we know there is a correlation between the immune system and metabolism, we need to maintain proper nutrition, a reasonable weight, and a positive lifestyle to achieve balance for optimal immunity.

WAYS TO REDUCE INFLAMMATION:

1. Omega 3 fish oils have been known to decrease inflammation. The usual dosage is between 1000-4000mgs per day in a capsule form and it should include a high amount of EPA and DHA. Keeping them cold in the refrigerator can reduce a fishy after-taste; find a brand from non-polluted waters. If you are not interested in supplements, you should consume at least 3 fatty fish meals in a week including wild salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines, black cod or herring.
2. Fresh [alkalizing] fruits and vegetables from the complete color spectrum, organic when possible, can also reduce inflammation; even if they are cooked, they offer many benefits. Leafy greens that contain folate, such as kale, spinach and endive are known to decrease homocysteine – a marker for inflammation. Foods that contain carotenoids, like spinach, help reduce inflammation. Onions and garlic have sulfur compounds that increase immunity and quercetin – an antioxidant that fights inflammation. Fresh spices such as ginger, cinnamon, or turmeric, which can be added to recipes, also fight inflammation.
3. Nuts and seeds – small as amounts of flax seeds, hemp seeds, or pumpkin seeds, as well as walnuts, extra virgin olive oil and avocados, which contain mono-unsaturated fats can help reduce inflammation.
4. Fiber – insoluble fiber found in vegetables like psyllium husk, celery and kale or soluble fiber have an effect on inflammation. Get 30 grams of fiber a day.
5. No smoking.
6. Check for periodontal disease and treat it if you have it; it sustains low level inflammation and can increase the risk of heart disease.
7. Avoid processed foods, trans-fat foods, saturated fats and simple sugar foods as much as possible. They all add to inflammation.
8. A decent night of sleep is proven to help lower inflammation so concentrate on getting a minimum of 7-8 hours each night. Catch up during the weekend if you have to.
9. A moderate exercise program can reduce inflammation. Include weight training as well as aerobics, like walking or bicycle riding. Too intense a program may even add to inflammation so speak with your doctor prior to adding a rigorous regimen to your routine.

All this advice is helpful for everyone but especially for those with diabetes. Hopefully, you will be able to reduce the low level inflammation and enjoy better health!

Health-e-Solutions comment: It sounds like the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle is perfect for controlling inflammation! Inflammation plays a big role in the progression of diabetes, both type 1 and type 2. Controlling it is important for long term health and wellness.

Our Recipe e-Books provide alternatives to the typical high-carb, low nutrition foods that are standard fare for the average western diet. Our Home Study Course teaches you how to implement the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle in a practical and livable way. We think it can form the foundation for a natural, way to better manage all types of diabetes.

We have met so many doctors, researchers, people and parents of type 1 diabetic children who have been part of the help for which we were looking. Doctors and researchers have supplied us with much-needed research, understanding and information. Other people with type 1 diabetes and type 1 parents have provided insight and incredible support.  Our desire is to turn around and lend a hand to others. Now, looking back over the last several years, I am amazed at the countless ways the cry of that prayer has been answered. It has provided us with incredible encouragement and hope along the way. Our goal and passion is to do the same for others.

Beta cell function can improve after just 12 weeks of weight loss in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Hana Kahleova, MD, from the diabetes center at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague, Czech Republic, reported that, for the first time, these changes have been shown to correlate with a decrease in pancreatic polypeptide.

Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora stated that, “This is a novel suggestion of a mechanism through which weight loss might improve beta cell function. This is new, and it might help with therapeutic choices.”

The study involved 74 subjects with type 2 diabetes who were treated with oral hypoglycemic agents. Mean age was 56.6 years, mean body mass index was 35.8 kg/m², and mean glycated hemoglobin level was 7.7%. Subjects were prescribed 12 weeks of a weight-loss diet alone (a reduction of 500 kcal/day) followed by 12 weeks of the same diet but with aerobic exercise added.

In the cohort, mean weight loss was 5.0 kg (P = .001) after 12 weeks of dietary intervention; weight did not change significantly after the addition of exercise.

Both fasting and stimulated plasma glucose and insulin concentrations decreased in response to the diet. In the case of glucose, there was no change after the addition of exercise, but plasma insulin decreased further with exercise. Similarly, plasma concentrations of C-peptide decreased in response to the diet and further in response to exercise.

In addition, peripheral insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion increased, and glucose sensitivity of beta cells increased by 26% in response to the diet without a significant change after the addition of exercise.

They also observed a marked decrease in both fasting and hyperinsulinemic concentrations of pancreatic polypeptide in response to dietary intervention and there was no significant change in other gastrointestinal peptides.

Pancreatic polypeptide is a novel marker, and the authors are showing for the first time in the context of caloric restriction that a reduction in pancreatic polypeptide correlated with an improvement in beta cell function. The main point is that it showed an improvement in beta cell function following a guidelines-based diet. Preventing the decline of beta cell function is very valuable.

Health-e-Solutions comment: In this study diet correlates with improved beta cell function. We believe we may have seen a correlation between the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle and the improved function in our two type 1 diabetic boys. Our recipe e-books are filled with the recipes we used to achieve our rsults. The Home Study Course, equips those wanting to implement a diabetic-alkaline lifestyle with the tools to make the transition to a healthier lifestyle easier and sustainable.

According to James Rosenzweig, MD, of Boston University, fructose’s links with hypertension, adiposity, and increased uric acid levels could potentially outweigh its immediate blood sugar benefits, especially among patients with diabetes, who already have or are at risk for such comorbidities.

Rosenzweig stated that, “There are conflicting results, regarding the effects of fructose, but fructose itself may have metabolic risks compared with glucose.”

Fructose which is the main sugar found in fruits is a monosaccharide like glucose. But unlike glucose, which requires insulin to move it into the body’s muscle tissue where it’s processed into energy, fructose is metabolized by the liver. There, it’s converted into glycogen, a starch, and lipids.

Some studies have shown that fructose intake is linked with higher levels of serum triglycerides, potentially contributing to adiposity and weight gain, Rosenzweig said. It’s also been tied to increased levels of uric acid, which can lead to gout and kidney stones, he said. Chronically high levels of uric acid have also been linked with atherosclerosis, which Rosenzweig said is troubling given that hardening of the arteries is already a known complication of diabetes itself.

And fructose overload also may be associated with high blood pressure — another common comorbidity among diabetics — and some of that data have come from large-scale epidemiological studies such as the National Health and Nutrition and Examination Survey.

The same problems could be associated with high-fructose corn syrup, which is a polysaccharide. The molecule is [basically] half fructose and half glucose, but the gastrointestinal tract breaks it down into its respective monosaccharides, Rosenzweig said. Thus, diabetics get the initial dumping of blood glucose, plus the liver hit of fructose, which generates lipids, he explained.

Moreover, the American Diabetes Association doesn’t recommend fructose as a substitute sweetener for glucose, he said. It does, however, recommend fruit intake as part of a healthy diet — though the amount of fructose in fruits is hardly enough to contribute too significantly to obesity, he added.

Health-e-Solutions comment: Fructose is problematic partly because of the large amounts being consumed today, primarily in the form of “wet carbs;” sugary drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. This stresses not only the pancreas, but the liver as well. There has been a sharp rise in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that correlates with the time period when consumption of high fructose corn syrup began to increase.

The diabetic-alkaline lifestyle minimizes exposure to fructose and all other sweeteners. We really use only stevia, since it is a natural herb sown to have no impact on blood glucose levels.

An intermittent, low-carbohydrate diet was superior to a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for reducing weight and lowering blood levels of insulin, a cancer-promoting hormone, according to recent findings.

Researchers at Genesis Prevention Center at University Hospital in South Manchester, England, found that restricting carbohydrates two days per week may be a better dietary approach than a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for preventing breast cancer and other diseases, but they said further study is needed.

“Weight loss and reduced insulin levels are required for breast cancer prevention, but [these levels] are difficult to achieve and maintain with conventional dietary approaches,” said Michelle Harvie, Ph.D., SRD, a research dietician at the Genesis Prevention Center, who presented the findings at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Harvie and her colleagues randomly assigned patients to one of the following diets: a calorie-restricted, low-carbohydrate diet for two days per week; an “ad lib” low-carbohydrate diet in which patients were permitted to eat unlimited protein and healthy fats, such as lean meats, olives and nuts, also for two days per week; and a standard, calorie-restricted daily Mediterranean diet for seven days per week.

Data revealed that both intermittent, low-carbohydrate diets were superior to the standard, daily Mediterranean diet in reducing weight, body fat and insulin resistance. Mean reduction in weight and body fat was roughly 4 kilograms (about 9 pounds) with the intermittent approaches compared with 2.4 kilograms (about 5 pounds) with the standard dietary approach. Insulin resistance reduced by 22 percent with the restricted low-carbohydrate diet and by 14 percent with the “ad lib” low-carbohydrate diet compared with 4 percent with the standard Mediterranean diet.

“It is interesting that the diet that only restricts carbohydrates but allows protein and fats is as effective as the calorie-restricted, low-carbohydrate diet,” Harvie said.

Health-e-Solutions comment: Calorie-restricted diets have been shown to be very effective with type 2 diabetes, however, it is not sustainable long term. The diabetic-alkaline lifestyle is sustainable. We believe, as Harvie’s findings confirm, that a diet that restricts carbohydrates with even a modest glycemic load is the best approach to managing diabetes (type 1 and type 2), and improving general health.

It is interesting to note the cancer link to high levels of insulin in the blood. This is important for insulin-dependent diabetics to be mindful of when they are eating diets high in carbohydrates, injecting high doses of insulin and building up insulin resistance.

Sarah enjoys drinking this raw, alkaline, fresh, nutrient-dense Lime Slushy with her daughter. Things taste so much better when you know they are doing your body good!

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Their disease started us on the journey to find a natural way to treat, manage, prevent or cure type 1 diabetes. Our doctors told us food did not matter, but it didn’t make sense to us. Through research and personal experience, we discovered that the SAD led to higher highs and lower lows when it came to blood sugars. But the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle minimized blood sugar spikes.

We have also learned of the large body of research indicating that healthy, nutritious foods, supplements and lifestyle changes can have a preventative effect for the development of type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune and lifestyle diseases. We are thankful for the results we have experienced. Our two boys with type 1 diabetes have benefitted greatly from the lifestyle changes we have made – that have become the fabric of our everyday lives.

Here is a recent comment from a mother of two type 1 diabetic children:

“The [diabetic-alkaline lifestyle] has been beneficial in stabilizing blood sugar. It is far more steady for both kids. Before the diet we were on a CONSTANT rollercoaster of highs and lows. For our son we were literally checking him every two hours, sometimes through the night as well. It is not the life any parent should have to live! I think having our daughter diagnosed over a year ago was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We knew something had to change. Their A1C’s have improved also, however not to the range we would like yet. We also feel the [lifestyle] is preventative for our two other kids, who we assume are at risk for type 1 if we were on a “normal American diet.”

The SAD may be more fun to eat because that is what we have trained our bodies and taste buds to enjoy – even crave – but the roller coaster highs and lows can be detrimental to our health. They can be downright dangerous. We have come to enjoy a kinder, gentler lifestyle that results in undulating blood sugar levels. Think of them like the soft, rolling plains. There are no high hills or mountains to try to overcome and no deep valleys out of which to climb.

I now prefer the rolling plains to the roller coaster.

Maintaining good glucose control early in the course of type 1 diabetes could lessen the long-term risk of kidney disease, as measured by a common test of kidney function.

This finding comes from more than two decades of research on preventing life-shortening complications of type 1 diabetes. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the longitudinal study.

Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and several collaborating institutions in the United States and Canada examined the effects of early, intensive glucose-lowering therapy on glomerular filtration rates (GFR). This measurement estimates how much blood passes each minute through tiny filters in the kidneys. A GFR blood test checks the kidney’s ability to rid the body of a muscle-generated waste product, creatinine. If the kidneys can’t filter fast enough, the substance builds up in the blood.

People with type 1 diabetes are prone to kidney disease and related complications resulting in disability and premature death. Until this study, no interventions for this population have been shown to prevent impaired GFR.

According to Dr. Ian de Boer, UW assistant professor of medicine, Division of Nephrology, led the group that researched the effects of intensive diabetes therapy, compared to traditional diabetes treatment, on the development of impaired GFR.

The project draws on continuous studies over 28 years of 1,441 participants with type 1 diabetes mellitus. These patients originally enrolled between 1983 to 1989 in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). At the time, the participants were between 13 and 39 years of age. The enrollees either showed no small blood vessel complications of their diabetes, or had only mild signs.

Participants randomly assigned to intensive therapy had three or more insulin injections a day, or used an insulin pump. Those in conventional therapy had the goal of preventing symptoms of low blood sugar and high blood sugar with one or two daily insulin injections.

On average, participants in the intensive diabetes therapy group achieved a hemoglobin A1c of 7.3 percent, compared with 9.1 percent for participants in the conventional therapy group. Hemoglobin A1c is a quarterly blood sugar level test that indicates how well diabetes is being controlled.

Examining results collected each year from 1983 through 2009, the researchers found that 70 participants developed impaired GFR: 24 from the initial intensive therapy group, and 46 from the group that had started out on conventional therapy.

This represented a reduced risk of developing impaired GFR by 50 percent over a total median participant follow-up of 22 years, they reported.

“This effect was only evident more than 10 years after the patients were randomized in the initial Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, beyond the period of the trial’s intervention,” the researchers noted.

In the present study, end-stage kidney disease developed in 8 participants in the intensive diabetes therapy group and 16 in the conventional therapy group. This represented a 51 percent reduction in risk that was not statistically significant, possibly due to the small numbers of participants reaching kidney failure.

The researchers added that the study results reported today reinforce findings of other studies on the importance of early, intensive control of blood sugar levels in type 1 diabetes. Previous research has shown benefits in reducing retina damage, nerve damage and cardiovascular disease.

Health-e-Solutions comment: We believe that intensive therapy is vital, as this study shows. However, their definition of intensive therapy as being three insulin injections a day as opposed to two per day hardly meets our criteria for intensive therapy (and their A1c results demonstrate this). Better blood glucose control starts with eating the right foods; foods that do not spike blood glucose levels so heavily. We believe the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle is a very healthy way to provide intensive self-management for long term health.

Our recipe e-books, workshops and home study course will teach you how to transform your lifestyle in a practical, livable way for long term sustainability and better living. You will enjoy a natural way to help manage type 1 and type 2 diabetes with healthy, alkaline-forming, low-glycemic foods.

Low levels of vitamin D are much more common in obese children than in those who aren’t obese and are associated with insulin resistance, a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, researchers have found.

The study included 411 obese children and 87 children who weren’t overweight. Researchers measured the children’s vitamin D levels, blood sugar levels, serum insulin, body mass index and blood pressure.

The children were also asked about their daily consumption of soda, juice, milk, fruits and vegetables, and whether or not they routinely skipped breakfast.

The findings are slated for publication in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

“Our study found that obese children with lower vitamin D levels had higher degrees of insulin resistance,” lead author Dr. Micah Olson, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society. “Although our study cannot prove causation, it does suggest that low vitamin D levels may play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.”

Obese kids who had poor dietary habits, such as skipping breakfast and drinking lots of soda and juice, also tended to have lower vitamin D levels, the study found.

Future research should look at whether making sure obese kids get adequate vitamin D could also help with insulin resistance, Olson added.

Past studies have linked low vitamin D levels with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. It’s not fully known how obesity and associated conditions are related to vitamin D deficiency.

Health-e-Solutions comment: “The sunshine” vitamin keeps popping up in all sorts of research. Based on all of the studies that connect vitamin D deficiency to disease, including type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and many other autoimmune diseases, clearly this is a vitamin in which to make sure we are not deficient.

There are 14 billion hamburgers consumed each year in the United States alone. The people who eat those burgers, though, have little knowledge of what’s actually in them. Current USDA regulations, for example, openly allow beef contaminated with E. coli to be repackaged, cooked and sold as ready-to-eat hamburgers.

This simple fact would shock most consumers if they knew about it. People assume that beef found to be contaminated with E. coli must be thrown out or destroyed (or even recalled), but in reality, it’s often just pressed into hamburger patties, cooked, and sold to consumers. This practice is openly endorsed by the USDA.

According to the FDA, farmers feed their cattle anywhere from 1 million to 2 million tons of chicken feces each year. This cross-species contamination practice worries critics who are concerned it may lead to increased risk of mad cow disease contaminating beef products. So they want to ban the practice and disallow the feeding of chicken litter to cows.

Now, you might wonder how chicken feces could pose a mad cow infection risk to cows? It’s because chickens are fed ground up parts of other animals such as cows, sheep and other animals as part of their daily feed. Some of that chicken feed spills out and gets swept up as chicken litter, and then fed to cows.

So now we have a bizarre experiment in animal feed lots where dead cows, sheep and other animals are fed to chickens, and then chicken feed spills onto the floor where, combined with chicken poop, it gets swept up and fed to cows. Some of those cows, in turn, may eventually be ground up and fed back to the chickens.

Why not to feed animals to each other? First off all, in the real world cows are vegetarians. They don’t eat other cows, or chickens, or feces for that matter. Chickens don’t eat cows in the real world either. If given free range, they live primarily on a diet of bugs and weeds.

But through the magic of horrific factory food production practices in the USA, dead cows are fed to chickens, and chicken feces are fed to cows. This is precisely how mad cow disease could contaminate this unnatural food cycle.

You might think that cooking a burger destroys the mad cow disease prions? Not true, even burgers that are fully cooked and handled according to federal safety standards can infect consumers with mad cow disease, and it’s only a matter of time before humans start to be stricken with the disease.

Sources for this story include

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/31/business/fi-feed31
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/coli-concern-tainted-beef-makes-consumers/story?id=8987973#.Tt5gcGMr2nA

Health-e-Solutions comment: the average hamburger contains beef parts from as many as 1,000 different cows. That certainly raises the risk of contamination. So do yourself and your family a favor and instead choose the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle. If you feel you must eat meat, choose organic and pasture-fed products.

Planning your meals – from deciding what you’ll cook to making a grocery list to shopping to leftover planning – is where saving money starts

Without a meal plan, you’ll spend more at the store at each trip, make more trips to the store and throw more food away, potentially costing you hundreds of extra dollars a month.

Not only will a meal plan help you save money, you’ll also help to protect the environment by reducing waste.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t make a meal plan because it can take hours each week. Our Recipe e-Books provide alternatives to the typical high-carb, low nutrition foods that are standard fare for the average western diet and include meal planning tools. Our Home Study Course teaches you how to implement the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle in a practical and livable way. We think it can form the foundation for a natural, way to better manage all types of diabetes.

Since laughing is supposed to be good for your health, hoping this provides for a giggle and a healthier day!

Scientists in Canada have overcome a key research hurdle to developing regenerative treatments for diabetes and liver disease with a technique to produce medically useful amounts of endoderm cells from human pluripotent stem cells. The research published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering, can be transferred to other areas of stem cell research helping scientists to navigate the route to clinical use known as the ‘valley of death’.

“One million people suffer from type 1 diabetes in the United States, while liver disease accounts for 45,000 deaths a year,” said Dr Mark Ungrin from the University of Toronto. “This makes stem cells, and the potential for regenerative treatments, hugely interesting to scientists. Laboratory techniques can produce thousands, or even millions, of these cells, but generating them in the numbers and quality needed for medicine has long been a challenge.”

The research focused on the process of using pluripotent stem cells (PSC) to generate endoderm cells, one of the three primary germ layers which form internal organs including the lungs, pancreas, and liver. The ability to differentiate, or transform, PSCs into endoderm cells is a vital step to developing regenerative treatments for these organs.

This team was able to detect cell inefficiencies and develop a new understanding of the underlying cell biology during the differentiation of PSCs. This allowed the team to increase effective cell production 35 fold.

“Our results showed significant increases in the amount of endoderm cells generated,” said Ungrin. “This new concept allows us to scale up the production of useful cells, while ensuring PSC survival and effective differentiation.”

Overcoming this bottleneck in research will also help future stem cell researchers navigate the often long and challenging route from laboratory testing to clinical use, and accelerate the time from biomedical advance to beneficial therapy, often referred to as the bench-to-bedside process.

“Most research in this field focuses on the purity of generated cell populations; the efficiency of differentiation goes unreported,” concluded Dr Ungrin. “However our research provides an important template for future studies of pluripotent stem cells, particularly where cells will need to be produced in quantity for medical or industrial uses.”

Health-e-Solutions comment: A cure for type 1 diabetes via stem cell research may still be a long way off, even though there are doctors already using stem cells to treat people with type 1 diabetes. In the meantime, living within the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle may be one of the best ways to keep your body healthy and fit, free of complications so that if the cure for type 1 diabetes arrives, you are ready for it. Or, it may be that you will find you don’t need to take drastic measures that might accompany the “cure.” We believe that any “cure” will still require lifestyle changes to avoid going right back to the condition the transplant was supposed to cure.

In a classic case of contradictory government policy the pyramids in this graphic clearly show the inverse relationship between federal government agriculture subsidies and federal nutrition recommendations.

The chart was put together by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, but its figures still, alas, look quite relevant. Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that we’re supposed to eat less of.

Of course, there are surely other reasons why burgers are cheaper than salads. These might include production costs, since harvesting apples is probably more naturally seasonal than slaughtering cows (even though both are in demand year-round). Transportation and storage costs might also play a role, as it’s probably easier to keep ground beef fresh and edible for extended periods of time, by freezing it, than cucumbers.

Whatever the cause of the pricing change, there is little doubt that many healthful foods have gotten much more expensive relative to unhealthful ones. David Leonhardt showed this in another remarkable chart that displays how the prices of different food groups have changed relative to their pricing 30 years ago:

This chart, put together with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the price of different foods and beverages over the last three decades. The price of each food or beverage is set equal to 1 in January 1978, and the chart then shows how the price has changed since then.

It’s a fairly striking pattern. Unhealthful foods, with the exceptions of cookies (the blue line), have gotten a lot cheaper. Relative to the price of everything else in the economy, sodas (the orange line) are 33 percent cheaper than they were in 1978. Butter (dark brown) is 29 percent cheaper. Beer (gray) is 15 percent cheaper.

Fish (the yellow line), by contrast, is 2 percent more expensive. Vegetables (purple) are 41 percent more expensive. Fruits (green) are 46 percent more expensive.

The price of oranges, to take one extreme example (not shown in the chart), has more than doubled, relative to everything else. So if in 1978, a bag of oranges cost the same as one big bottle of soda, today that bag costs the same as three big bottles of soda.

Health-e-Solutions comment: Apart from meat, the food agri-crops currently subsidized the most are corn, soy, wheat and rice. What do you end up with? A fast food diet!  These charts show statistically what we know to be true at the grocery store. More importantly, they tell us why this is true.

Nevertheless, we still must shoulder some of the blame because we keep demand high for unhealthy foods by purchasing them. It would be nice if governments would subsidize healthier foods and stop doing the same for unhealthy products. However, it would be more powerful if we as consumers would create the demand for change though our purchasing habits.

Our recipe e-books, workshops and home study course will teach you how to transform your lifestyle in a practical, livable way for long term sustainability and better living. You will enjoy a natural way to help manage type 1 and type 2 diabetes with healthy, alkaline-forming, low-glycemic foods.

“Sugar, rum and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.”  ~ Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations,” 1776

That quotation, from the great philosopher of capitalism, appeared at the start of an article in The New England Journal of Medicine. The article argued for taxing Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, Red Bull and any other sugar-sweetened beverage, largely to combat obesity.

The authors were Kelly Brownell, a longtime obesity researcher at Yale, and Thomas Frieden, the New York City health commissioner. Since the article appeared, President Obama appointed Dr. Frieden to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So one of the nation’s top public health officials is now a fierce proponent of a soda tax. Meanwhile, other Obama advisers and some Senate staff members have been talking about such a tax — which wouldn’t apply to diet soda or real juice — as a way to help pay for expanded health insurance. Among 15 options for paying for health care reform, a new Senate Finance Committee analysis lists a “sugar-sweetened beverage excise tax.”

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo hate this idea, of course, and they’re fighting hard (if quietly) against it. Given the messy politics of tax increases, the industry seems likely to win this time. But the soda tax has already made the journey from unthinkable to plausible. It isn’t too hard to imagine that, someday soon, Congress or a state legislature will see the tax as the least bad way to raise desperately needed revenue.

The tax code has layer upon layer of subsidies, deductions, exemptions and extra taxes that serve no good purpose. On the other hand, activities that really deserve to be taxed — activities that place a cost on the rest of society — often go untaxed or under-taxed. Economists refer to taxes on such activities as Pigovian taxes, after the 20th-century English economist Arthur Cecil Pigou who advocated them.

Pigovian taxes have the double advantage of discouraging costly activities and helping to cover the costs that remain. Tobacco taxes have become the shining example. Yet alcohol taxes have fallen 35 percent since the early 1990s, adjusted for inflation.

The average 18-year-old is only a fraction of an inch taller than the average 18-year-old three decades ago, but 15 pounds heavier. Gene pools don’t change in three decades.

Soda consumption has changed — a lot. The typical person now consumes 190 calories a day from sugary drinks, up from 70 a day in the late 1970s. That 120-calorie increase represents about one-half of the total daily caloric increase during that span, C.D.C. data shows.

Of all foods and beverages, says Mr. Brownell, the obesity researcher, “the science is most robust and most convincing on the link between soft drinks and negative health outcomes.”

Just as important for the purposes of a soda tax, economic research has found that soda drinkers are price sensitive. In the past, when the price of soda has risen by 10 percent, consumption has dropped by an average of roughly 8 percent. This means a soda tax may not be quite as regressive as it sounds, because poor people would end up buying less soda than they now do.

It’s certainly true that a soda tax, by itself, won’t solve the multibillion-dollar obesity problem. A true Pigovian approach would be much broader. It would get rid of the current government subsidies for corn syrup. It would use taxes and subsidies to reverse the long-term decline in the price of junk food and the long-term rise in the price of fruits and vegetables. Some economists say health insurance premiums should be lower for people who keep fit.

If we could cut back on our soda drinking, we would be both thinner and richer.

Health-e-Solutions comment: As a used-to-be long-time soda drinker, I have paid a heavy price for the “privilege” of drinking cheap soda. I attribute my pre-diabetic condition directly to my daily soda consumption. An increase in the price of soda certainly would have given me pause to reconsider my consumption. But if diet sodas are left out of any such tax, will we really see the health benefits we seek? I don’t think so. They may be worse than sugar for consumption.

Perhaps this explains some of the push by Coca-Cola and Pepsi to bring to market stevia-sweetened sodas. Perhaps they believe these drinks would bypass such a tax on sugary drinks.

Check out Sysy Morales’ very nice blog site, The girl’s guide to Diabetes at:

http://thegirlsguidetodiabetes.com/

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Now, 4 years after Gabriel’s diagnosis, I have peaceful sleep.  I am truly thankful for this.  Hearing this mom’s sad story triggers the desire to fight harder to help other parents with type one diabetic children to have peaceful sleep too.  Overall, we believe children taking insulin have a much more stable blood glucose level when practicing the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle. Usually, there is a lower insulin need which prevents those dramatic blood glucose swings.  This more stable management can help these parents relax their shoulders more, and hopefully, one day, they will sleep much better.

After four months of a calorie-restriction diet, obese diabetes patients were able to come off insulin, and 75% were able to remain insulin-free for more than a year, even though they returned to their regular diets. These patients also had significant improvement in diastolic function that was durable over 18 months, they reported. The improved heart function correlated with persistent reductions in pericardial fat, they reported.

Sebastiaan Hammer, MD, PhD, of Leiden University Medical Center, and colleagues reported the findings suggest that lifestyle interventions may have greater cardiac benefits than medication, and that it’s “striking” to see how a “simple” intervention like reducing caloric intake can diminish the need for insulin.

To assess the long-term effects of calorie restriction on pericardial fat content and cardiac function, the researchers recruited 15 diabetic patients and put them on a calorie restriction diet, limiting their intake to just 500 kcal per day for four months.

They found that four months of caloric restriction led to a drop in body mass index [BMI] — from 35.3 kg/m2 at baseline to 27.5 kg/m2 — and that the reduction was still significant after an additional 14 months of being back on a regular diet (BMI 31.7 kg/m2, P<0.05).

Hammer said that patients were able to come off insulin on the first day of the diet solely because of the diminished carbohydrate load. Moreover, he said that only four patients returned to insulin use by the end of the 18-month study period.

Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels were also reduced after four months on the diet, but not significantly so, and they rose back to pre-intervention levels at 18 months, they reported.

The diminished pericardial fat was associated with several benefits in heart function at both four and 18 months, including significant improvement in diastolic function, as measured by improvements in E/A ratio at both time points compared with baseline (P<0.05).

David Hovsepian, MD, of Stanford University, said the diet was “extreme,” but that “if you don’t have to give yourself insulin that is clearly a motivating factor.” He was not involved in the study. Hovespian said he was surprised by the low dropout rate, but theorized that the short duration of the study might explain the patients’ willingness to stay with the program. “If you knew that if you did this for a limited period of time and that it is not a permanent lifestyle change and that the benefits were sustained, I think that would be highly motivating.”

Health-e-Solutions comment: Calorie restriction has also been shown to slow down the aging process. The SAD diet has increased in average calorie content over the years, adding health consequences along the way. The diabetic-alkaline lifestyle does not restrict calories, but rather focuses on eating food with the right calories. For children with type 1 diabetes, calorie restriction is not advisable. However for adults, it may be beneficial to reduce the amount of even right calories ingested each day.

Our Recipe e-Books provide alternatives to the typical high-carb, low nutrition foods that are standard fare for the average western diet. Our Home Study Course teaches you how to implement the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle in a practical and livable way. We think it can form the foundation for a natural, way to better manage all types of diabetes.

Hemp seeds, are the most nutritionally complete food source in the world! Hemp has been eaten for thousands of years in different parts of the world. It’s beneficial in terms of protein and essential fatty acids. There’s evidence that goes back thousands of years that it was being eaten in China and other places around the world for their health benefits.

Hemp seeds have an astonishing balanced nutritional make-up. It is one of the plant kingdom’s most concentrated, complete and balanced sources of all 10 essential amino acids (EAA’s) and essential fatty acids (EFA’s) which are necessary to maintain healthy human life. You can divide it roughly into three components.

First: There are the essential fatty acids in the oil — omega-6, omega-3, omega-9 — and also minor fatty acids like gamma linolenic acid (GLA) and stearidonic acid, which is biosynthesized from the alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).

GLA and ALA cannot be made by the human body and must be obtained through the diet, so they are called essential fatty acids (EFA). EFAs govern growth, vitality and state of mind. Still, much is unknown about their functioning in the body. This oil comprises 35% of the total seed weight and has the lowest amount of saturated fatty acids at 8%, and the highest amount of the polyunsaturated essential fatty acids at 80%. Flax seed oil comes in second at 72% combined total essential fatty acids.

Second: 35% of hemp seeds are fiber, both soluble and insoluble. Insoluble fiber possesses passive water-attracting properties that help to increase bulk, soften stool and shorten transit time through the intestinal tract. Soluble fiber undergoes metabolic processing via fermentation, yielding end-products with broad, significant health effects.

Thirdly: Hemp seeds contain 25% highly-digestible proteins; 65% high-quality edestin protein, the most potent protein of any plant source, 35% albumin protein and glutamic acid. The globulin edestin in hemp seed closely resembles the globulin in blood plasma, and is compatible with the human digestive system. It is vital to the maintenance of a healthy immune system and is also used to manufacture antibodies. The high quality amino acid composition of hemp seeds is closer to “complete” sources of proteins (like meat, milk, eggs) than all other oil seeds except quinoa and soy.

Hemp seeds are also high in essential nutrients including chlorophyll, magnesium, potassium, sulfur, phytosterols, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, calcium, fiber, histidine, iron, phosphorus, riboflavin, niacin and thiamin.

Omega 3 to Omega 6 Ratio:

A variety of studies have documented the importance of the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 consumption. Hemp seed oil is the closest to this optimum ratio of any naturally occurring oil. Hemp seed oil has a ratio of at least one-to-three, Omega 3 to Omega 6. Oils with unbalanced ratios have been shown to have detrimental physiological effects.

Hemp seeds have a great nutty flavor with a variety of uses. Look for certified organic hemp seeds grown without any chemical pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers and not genetically modified. Another great way to get the health benefits of hemp seeds is to purchase, ‘Cold-Pressed Hemp Seed Oil‘, which is nutritionally superior to olive or flax oil, and so, makes a great alternative in salads, smoothies, and other non-frying uses.

It should be noted that you can also purchase ‘whole hemp seeds’ that are not ‘hulled’ (outer shell removed). They are a bit harder to find at your local grocery store, but there are lots of places on the internet where you can buy them. Whole hemp seeds are an excellent source of minerals and much more stable out in the air than hulled seed.

How To Eat Hemp Seeds

Incorporating hemp seeds in your diet is so easy. You can purchase whole hemp seeds, hulled hemp seeds, hemp seed protein powder, and hemp seed oil. Eat them raw, add them to a salad, replace olive oil with hemp seed oil, etc. Add 2 tablespoons of Hemp Seeds every day to your ‘health shake’

Remember it’s best to keep hemp seeds refrigerated and air tight. This will help protect the seed and the nourishing Omega-3s which are sensitive to heat and oxygen.

Where to Buy Hemp Seeds:

You can buy them at Whole Foods and many grocery and health stores, they’re usually located in the vitamin department. Some grocery and health food stores have hemp seeds in the ‘dry bin’ section. However, hemp seeds should be stored in a dark, sealed, air tight container and then kept at a cool temperature to preserve the nourishing Omega-3s which are sensitive to heat and oxygen, With the ‘dry bins’ you don’t know where the hemp seeds came from, how long they have been there and they’re usually not sealed, in a cool place or certified organic.

Environmentalists cite meat production as one of the biggest contributors to global warming, and the USDA’s new food pyramid (MyPlate) suggests the healthiest choice is making vegetables and fruit the biggest part of every meal by reducing consumption of animal proteins. Kale is far more nutritious than other leafy greens, but these seven reasons why it is such an important future food may just surprise you.

1. Anti-inflammatory: Inflammation is the number one cause of arthritis, heart disease and a number of autoimmune diseases, and is triggered by the consumption of animal products. Kale is an incredibly effective anti-inflammatory food, potentially preventing and even reversing these illnesses.
2. Iron: Despite the myth that vegetarians are anemic, the number of non-vegetarians with iron-deficiencies is on the rise. Per calorie, kale has more iron than beef.
3. Calcium: Dairy and beef both contain calcium, but the U.S. still has some of the highest rates of bone loss and osteoporosis in the world. Kale contains more calcium per calorie than milk (90 grams per serving) and is also better absorbed by the body than dairy.
4. Fiber: Like protein, fiber is a macronutrient, which means we need it every day. But many Americans don’t eat nearly enough and the deficiency is linked to heart disease, digestive disorders and cancer. Protein-rich foods, like meat, contain little to no fiber. One serving of kale not only contains 5 percent of the recommended daily intake of fiber, but it also provides 2 grams of protein.
5. Omega fatty acids: Healthy fats play an important role in our health, unlike the saturated fats in meat. A serving of kale contains 121 mg of omega-3 fatty acids and 92.4 mg of omega-6 fatty acids.
6. Immunity: Superbugs and bacteria are a serious risk to our health. Many of these come as a result of factory farm meat, eggs and dairy products. Kale is an incredibly rich source of immune-boosting carotenoid and flavanoid antioxidants, as well as vitamins A and C.
7. Sustainable: Kale grows to maturity in 55 to 60 days versus a cow raised for beef for an average of 18-24 months. Kale can grow in most climates and is relatively easy to grow at home or on a farm. To raise one pound of beef requires 16 pounds of grain, 11 times as much fossil fuel and more than 2,400 gallons of water.

Conversion of starch to sugar

Heat can help increase the rate at which vegetable starches get converted into vegetable sugars. A baked Russet potato, for example, will lose about 10% of its raw-form total starch content and convert that starch content into sugar. Thus, thee baking of a starchy vegetable can raise its glycemic index (GI) value (even higher than it already is). This increase in GI (often related to the conversion of starches to sugars) holds true for vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, plaintains, and carrots. A raw carrot typically has a GI value in the 15-20 range. A cooked carrot’s GI will typically fall into the 35-50 range. (You can find a reliable list of GI values in the website established by David Mendosa and based on research at the University of Sydney in Australia at http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm)

Changes in resistant starch

Research studies show definite changes in levels of resistant starch naturally occurring in vegetables (and other foods). Resistant starches are generally viewed as helpful carbohydrates that resist breakdown in the digestive tract long enough to reach the large intestine and support the metabolic needs of helpful bacteria and cells lining the large intestine. However, the precise relationship between vegetable cooking and resistant starch is not yet clear. In some cases, the cooking of vegetables has presented some very favorable results with respect to the amount of available resistant starches. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower may be of more benefit from light cooking.

When it comes to the carb content of vegetables, ratios of sugar to starch may change during cooking, as can amounts of available resistant starch and GI value. Among all of these factors, GI value may be the most important factor to consider for individuals who are following a lifestyle that is focused on blood sugar control and insulin balance, like the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle.

Creating a healthier world is a revolutionary act that begins with an individual changing toward a healthier lifestyle. As an individual changes to a healthier lifestyle, they influence others to do the same. A community of support takes shape and begins to influence, not just at the individual level, but also at the group level.

Our global health crisis is blamed on the personal failures of weak-will individuals, but little attention is given to society’s influence over its individuals. When all of society’s systems seem to be running toward the proverbial cliff of poor health through cheap, nutrition-poor, artificial, genetically modified, industrially-processed foods, is it any wonder the individuals within the society find it so difficult to opt for better health and nutrition?

Within the type one diabetes community, the “eat whatever you want” mantra has won the day. Yet I am concerned for the long term health of those who choose to follow that most popular path. Some may be able to get away with eating whatever they want and just dosing for it with insulin. Our experience, however, when talking to people looking for another way (what we consider a more natural way to manage diabetes) is that many people cannot have great health eating the standard American diet; at least not for very long. Complications begin to set in.

We believe many realize that even with type 1 diabetes we must be personally responsible for changing our lifestyles. It begins at the individual level. As more of us follow an alternative path for managing diabetes – one that includes customized nutrition, exercise, stress reduction and sleep improvement – we may see the diabetes world begin to change. The research supports this approach.

This is our goal and passion: to find the healthiest way possible to manage, treat and overcome this chronic disease rather than it doing the same to us. Now with a few more thoughtful, committed citizens we may be able to change the world around us…

As the saying goes, “time heals all wounds.” But what if you have been suffering with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity (GS) for decades and just want to feel better today? Besides a gluten-free diet, is there anything else you can do to enhance the healing process?

I frequently encourage newly diagnosed clients to start a course of nutritional supplements for six months to a year depending on the severity of their condition. Not only do the nutritional supplements listed below promote intestinal health and healing, they can actually accelerate your recovery.

According to the National Institutes of Health, diet alone will heal existing intestinal damage and prevent further damage. Yet, the amount of time it takes to heal completely varies depending on a number of factors, particularly age. For example, in children, the small intestine can take three to six months to heal; however, in adults, it may take several years before healing is complete.

While waiting for the gut to heal, many of the nutrients you consume are lost. A healthy intestine has an abundance of villi (tiny, finger-like projections that increase the intestinal surface area), which allows for the absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream. With celiac disease these villi are flattened and proper absorption of nutrients is compromised. The continued malabsorption of nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, B vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids can contribute to mood disorders, lower energy levels, poor bone health, insomnia, attention problems, and a host of other issues.

Until recently, conventional medical wisdom presumed that only those with celiac disease suffered from severe intestinal degradation, the kind that destroys your villi. In the spring of 2011, however, Dr. Alessio Fasano completed a research study that found that those with gluten sensitivity suffer from intestinal permeability issues similar to those with celiac disease, but to a lesser degree. In other words, people with gluten sensitivity — not just those with celiac disease — have absorption issues caused by an immune response to gluten.

Nutrition Supplements to Support Healing

The following nutrition supplements are effective and work independently of each other. These supplements also complement each other, so taking them together can help heal many aspects of the gut at once. Glutamine, probiotics, and fish oil (in that order) are my “Top Three” choices.

Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body. It is a protein building block and is involved in more metabolic processes than any other amino acid. Glutamine also serves as a source of fuel for the cells lining the intestine and can promote healing in these cells when they are damaged by gluten. How much Glutamine you should take depends upon several factors. I suggest you consult a dietitian for the dosage that is right for you.

Probiotics are live bacteria that improve the intestinal microbial balance and enhance overall health. They are the “good” bacteria found in the gastrointestinal track. Inflammation or toxins in the gut can disrupt the balance between “good” and “bad” bacteria. In addition, a preventative dose of probiotics is a good idea as these microbes promote immune health, and they are frequently absent in modern diets. Probiotics come as capsules, tablets, liquids, powders and contain many different strains of bacteria. Be sure to purchase your probiotics from a reputable company that ensures the potency and efficacy of their products. Contact these companies for documentation stating probiotic viability and research studies using the strains in their formulas — or visit their websites. I normally recommend that my patients receive a daily dose of at least 10 billion (or more) live, viable, organisms per gram containing: Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus bifidobacteria, Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus.

Omega 3 fatty acids are comprised of the fatty acids EPA and DHA and are found in fish and fish oil supplements. These essential fats are not made by the body and must be eaten or taken in supplement form to ensure the body’s adequate functioning. In addition to reducing inflammation, these fats help to support healthy heart, brain, skin, and bone function. Significant health problems may result when these nutrients are not adequately absorbed. I recommend a dosage of 1,000 mg EPA and 1,000 mg DHA be taken daily from a high quality product with low mercury and toxin levels.

Digestive enzymes aid the body in digesting and breaking down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Digestive enzymes from either animal or plant sources should be taken on an empty stomach, 20 minutes before meals or snacks. Enzymes help break down food into forms that the body can use. When the gut is damaged a condition called “leaky gut syndrome” occurs, and undigested food particles can pass through the intestinal wall into the blood stream in a form the body cannot use. These unusable food particles then activate an immune response because the body has detected an “invader.” This immune response adds inflammation to the ongoing food sensitivity issues. Digestive enzymes assist in breaking food down into the right form for the body to use. In general, plant- or microbial-derived enzymes are more effective and work in more areas of your digestive system than their animal-derived counterparts.

Anti-inflammatory herbal formulas can help reduce inflammation and promote healing. Look for herbs like turmeric, aloe vera, ginger, and boswellia in formulas or by themselves as a part of your healing regime.

What to Consider if You Are Not Getting Better

There are some people with celiac disease that show no improvement on a gluten-free diet. One of the most common reasons for a poor response to the diet is that small amounts of gluten are still being consumed. Hidden sources of gluten include medications, additives such as modified food starch, preservatives, and stabilizers made with wheat. Additionally, those with severe sensitivities may not be healing because of cross contamination caused by production facilities. Most corn and rice products are produced in factories that also manufacture wheat products. For some people, even these minute amounts of cross contamination can add up. Some people should only consume packaged foods from GF certified facilities, or in extreme cases, consume no packaged foods at all.

Some people with celiac disease continue to have intestinal flare ups despite being on a strict gluten-free diet. People with this condition, known as refractory celiac disease, have severely damaged intestines that heal very slowly — if at all. Because their intestines are not absorbing enough nutrients, these celiac sufferers may need to receive many of their nutrients intravenously.

Cross reactivity to some gluten-free grains can also be a problem. Intolerances to grains that do not contain gluten, of which people on gluten-free diet tend to eat more, can also develop. Many times these secondary intolerances develop because of gut permeability and the body’s response to foreign material outside the gut lining, where it is not supposed to be. Cyrex Labs offers a Gluten Cross Reactive Foods Test that looks at the 24 most common foods that cross-react with gluten. This test will help you identify and avoid other foods that are preventing you from healing and feeling better.

In my experience, time does heal these wounds, but the amount of time varies widely from person to person. I have seen many people’s symptoms — in particular, severe cases that have gone unresolved for decades — abate faster and more thoroughly thanks to additional supplementation. Any time the gut has undergone stress, the supplements mentioned above can be of benefit — and always be mindful when purchasing supplements to be sure they are gluten-free.

Health-e-Solutions comment: The incidence of celiac disease and leaky gut is far more common people with type 1 diabetes than it is for the general population. There seems to be a strong link between the gut and the development of type 1 diabetes, as well as most other autoimmune diseases. For this reason (and also because grains are acidic and higher glycemic) the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle steers clear of all grains.

Gluten intolerance is only one reason among many that grains are problematic. Our Recipe e-Books provide many wonderful, natural, low-glycemic, healthy alternatives to grains, including bread, “rice”, pizza, pancakes, tortillas, and more. You can learn how to transform your life and your kitchen through our Home Study Course.

Perceived stress and stressful life events predict the development of impaired glucose metabolism (IGM) over 5 years in previously normo-glycemic individuals, according to results from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle study (AusDiab).

The study by Emily Williams, PhD, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, showed that perceived stress increased the risk for incident IGM over 5 years. Using the same models, high levels of stressful life events also increased the risk for incident IGM.

Dr. Williams reported, “We think stress management should be incorporated into multiple health behavioral interventions for the most effective prevention and management of diabetes.”

“We used the outcome of a polled analysis of fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, and diabetes to have a larger category of impaired glucose metabolism to try and tap into a wider range of abnormal glucose metabolism, and by measuring perceived stress as well as the experience of stress, we tried to measure both objective and subjective markers of stress. Only subjects who were normo-glycemic at baseline were included in the analyses,” said Dr. Williams.

At 5-year follow-up, 474 subjects had progressed to IGM. Adjusting for age, sex, and education, logistic regression analyses, and health behaviors, results showed that perceived stress increased the odds of IGM. The same model also showed that those reporting high levels of stressful life events had a 35% higher risk of developing IGM compared with those reporting low levels of stressful life events. Adding obesity to the mix attenuated the effect of perceived stress and stressful life events as a risk factor for IGM but not by much.

Investigators also evaluated how stress affected glycemic control over time among subjects who already had diabetes at baseline. Interestingly, said Dr. Williams, there was no relationships between stress and glycemic control was observed in men, but among women with diabetes at baseline, both perceived stress and stressful life events were shown to predict elevated glycosylated hemoglobin at follow-up, after adjustment for other risk factors.

Dr. Williams stated that, “All of the evidence in CVD suggests that stress is a key independent risk factor for the development of heart disease, but it hasn’t been done in diabetes, and yet they are on the same chronic disease trajectory. So there is no reason to think stress isn’t involved in the development of diabetes too and even more so because diabetes requires so much daily management it’s bound to affect a person’s experience.”

Health-e-Solutions comment: We agree that “stress management should be incorporated into multiple health behavioral interventions for the most effective prevention and management of diabetes.” It is an essential component of the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle. In our fast-paced world, this can be a difficult area to control, but it is imperative to look for ways to mitigate not only life stressors, but also perceived stressors. We have talked to several people who directly attribute the cause of their type 1 diabetes to a specific stressful period in their lives. If stress can cause or precipitate the onset of type 1 diabetes, then stress management could be crucial to prevention and management of this autoimmune disease.

A diet high in saturated fat is a key contributor to Type 2 diabetes, a major health threat worldwide. Several decades ago scientists noticed that people with Type 2 diabetes have overly active immune responses, leaving their bodies rife with inflammatory chemicals.

In addition, people who acquire the disease are typically obese and are resistant to insulin, the hormone that removes sugar from the blood and stores it as energy.

For years no one has known exactly how the three characteristics are related. But a handful of studies suggest that they are inextricably linked.

New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine adds clarity to the connection. The study finds that saturated fatty acids but not the unsaturated type can activate immune cells to produce an inflammatory protein, called interleukin-1beta.

“The cellular path that mediates fatty acid metabolism is also the one that causes interleukin-1beta production,” says senior study co-author Jenny Y. Ting, PhD, William Kenan Rand Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

“Interleukin-1beta then acts on tissues and organs such as the liver, muscle and fat (adipose) to turn off their response to insulin, making them insulin resistant. As a result, activation of this pathway by fatty acid can lead to insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes symptoms.”

Health-e-Solutions comment: The clear distinction between saturated fats and unsaturated fats is important to remember when choosing foods. The diabetic-alkaline lifestyle eliminates most saturated fats, thereby reducing overall exposure to the unhealthy varieties.

Our recipe e-books, workshops and home study course will teach you how to transform your lifestyle in a practical, livable way for long term sustainability and better living. You will enjoy a natural way to help manage type 1 and type 2 diabetes with healthy, alkaline-forming, low-glycemic foods.

Many factors can affect the tendency of an oil to become rancid. The first is too much exposure to air. Since oxidative rancidity is the most likely kind of rancidity to affect your food oils, you always want to keep those oils in bottles that are tightly capped. (A tightly capped bottle will help prevent your oil from being unnecessarily exposed to oxygen.)

The next factors are heat and light. Since both of these factors can also speed up the rancidity process, protection from heat and light are also important when it comes to your food oils. With respect to light, your best bet is to purchase oils in bottles made from darker (tinted) glass (usually dark brown or dark green glass). You’ll also want to store your oils in a cabinet that is lightproof. With respect to heat, many oils are best kept in the refrigerator where the temperature remains continuously low. (I will explain in a moment why I do not believe refrigeration is necessary for extra virgin olive oil, but why I still believe it is very important to store this oil in a cool spot.) Protecting your food oils from light and heat is a moment-by-moment process. For example, it means paying attention to the spot you place a bottle of oil when using it in a recipe. You never want to place it directly next to or above a stove that is turned on due to the increased risk of damage from heat. You also want to take the trouble of capping the bottle whenever you are not pouring oil from it.

The chemical composition of an oil is also a key factor in the risk of rancidity. Here the basic principles involve saturated and unsaturated fat. The more saturated fat contained in an oil, the less susceptible it is to rancidity. The greater the amount of unsaturated fat in an oil, the more likely it is to become rancid. Since the healthiest plant oils are all highly unsaturated, they are especially susceptible to rancidity.

Some unsaturated oils, like extra virgin olive oil, are a little less susceptible to rancidity because a larger amount of their unsaturated fat falls into a special category called “monounsaturated.” Extra virgin olive is about 75% monounsaturated, which is somewhat unusual for plant oils. Plant oils usually have more polyunsaturated fat than monounsaturated fat, and that is one reason why they are particularly susceptible to rancidity. While the highly monounsaturated nature of extra virgin olive oil doesn’t mean that you can forget about the issue of rancidity, it does mean that this unique oil is a little more stable than oils that have much fewer monounsaturated fatty acids.

Both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are polyunsaturated. When it comes to plant oils, if you are trying to make sure that your diet contains an ample supply of omega-3s, you are always at the greatest risk for rancidity. Flaxseed oil, for example, contains about 15 grams of alpha-linolenic acid per ounce. Alpha-linolenic acid is a polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid not found in a wide variety of foods, and it’s the basic building block for all other omega-3 fatty acids. Many food scientists look upon the alpha-linolenic acid found in flaxseeds oil as the most delicate part of its composition that needs to be protected from oxidative rancidity. In a case like flaxseed oil, where the chemical composition of the oil places it at great risk for rancidity, it’s best to avoid any type of heating at temperatures above 150°F (66°C) and to store the oil in the refrigerator.

Health-e-Solutions comment: Virgin, unprocessed, organic coconut oil is almost entirely saturated fat, so it is very stable and rarely becomes rancid. Fish oils taken for their omega-3 content should always be stored in the refrigerator. They are likely only sold in dark glass bottles to protect them from light. Remember to keep the cap on any oil bottle – even when using it for cooking.

Our recipe e-books, workshops and home study course will teach you how to transform your lifestyle in a practical, livable way for long term sustainability and better living. You will enjoy a natural way to help manage type 1 and type 2 diabetes with healthy, alkaline-forming, low-glycemic foods.

It also became clear while watching this program how many ways we have jeopardized our food supply through our industrial-scale farms, factories and processes – all designed to produce more with less. Genetically modified organisms to combat pests, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) where not a single blade of grass to feed cattle can be found, crop dusters now dropping over 200 different chemicals on crops, food manufacturers creating foods with over 2,000 addictive calories per serving to keep us coming back for more, bee-keepers who transport our dwindling supply of bee hives to pollenate all the toxic crops across our nation.

Watching this program may just enlighten you further why it is so important to consume a diet of whole, real, fresh food that has been prepared in a kitchen instead of a factory. This way of eating has been shown to prevent and even reverse type two diabetes. We believe this type of lifestyle, specifically the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle, has provided our two boys with type 1 diabetes a level of disease management that some would call a cure. Eating foods prepared in the kitchen instead of the factory has broad-ranging benefits for our health that can fix underlying causes of disease.

So the next time you get dressed to go to work, remember to take a lunch prepared from your kitchen!

Health-e-Solutions comment: Both of our type 1 diabetic boys have been having trouble staying asleep lately. They wake up very early, sometimes also having trouble getting to sleep. We are definitely interested in trying these suggestions to see if they help. We were going to try going back to our Fast Fudge recipe (you can find it in our Super Simple Recipe e-Book) as a night time snack to avoid night time hypoglycemia. It is simply raw almond butter, cinnamon and a touch of stevia.  Instead, after talking to dr. Mona Morstein, we are taking a different approach. We are aiming for at least 12 hours of fasting overnight. This is supposed to help the body “re-set” its metabolism. We hope it will also help with sleep.

The supplement recommendations are for adults. We suggest you consult with your doctor before taking any additional supplements to see if they are right for you.

I also have trouble staying asleep at night. I have tried melatonin without much long term success. I have recently been trying tryptophan with better results. However, the combinations suggested in this article, along with Fast Fudge (also called Fudge in a Flash), may prove to be more beneficial.

What is Insomnia?

Insomnia refers to a difficulty in achieving or maintaining normal sleep. There are two basic forms of insomnia. In sleep-onset insomnia a person has a difficult time falling asleep. In sleep-maintenance insomnia a person suffers from frequent or early awakening.

What causes Insomnia?

The most common causes of insomnia are psychological: depression, anxiety, and tension. If psychological factors do not seem to be the cause, various foods, drinks, and medications may be responsible. There are numerous compounds in food and drink (most notably caffeine) that can interfere with normal sleep. There are also over three hundred drugs that interfere with normal sleep.

What dietary factors are important in Insomnia?

Eliminate caffeine. It is essential that the diet be free of natural stimulants such as caffeine and related compounds. Coffee, as well as less obvious caffeine sources such as soft drinks, chocolate, coffee-flavored ice cream, hot cocoa, and tea, must all be eliminated. Even small amounts of caffeine such as those found in decaffeinated coffee or chocolate, may be enough to cause insomnia in some people.

Other food compounds that can act as stimulants include some food colorings. Adverse food reactions such as food sensitivities and allergies can also cause insomnia. Although not considered a stimulant, sugar and refined carbohydrates can interfere with sleep. Eating a diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrate and eating irregularly can cause a reaction in the body that triggers the “fight or flight” part of the nervous system, causing wakefulness.

Eliminate alcohol. Alcohol causes the release of adrenaline and disrupts the production of serotonin (an important brain chemical that initiates sleep).

Avoid nocturnal hypoglycemia. In my clinical experience I have found nocturnal hypoglycemia (low nighttime blood glucose level) is an important cause of sleep-maintenance insomnia. When there is a drop in the blood glucose level, it causes the release of hormones that regulate glucose levels, such as adrenaline, glucagon, cortisol, and growth hormone. These compounds stimulate the brain. They are a natural signal that it is time to eat. Good bedtime snacks to keep blood sugar levels steady throughout the night are oatmeal and other whole grain cereals, whole grain breads and muffins [none of these suggested options should be used on the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle], and other complex carbohydrates [nuts and nut butters would be best for diabetics]. These foods will not only help maintain blood sugar levels, they actually can help promote sleep by increasing the level of serotonin within the brain.

Foods high in the amino acid tryptophan, such as turkey, milk, cottage cheese, chicken, eggs [these suggestions should be avoided on the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle], and nuts, especially almonds [excellent option for diabetics], may help to promote sleep. In the brain, tryptophan is converted to serotonin and melatonin, which are natural sleep-inducing compounds.

What nutritional supplements should I take for Insomnia?

• Green Drinks – a great tasting “greens drink” containing highly concentrated “greens” like chlorella, spirulina, wheat grass juice, barley grass juice, etc., and herbal extracts. Take one serving (one tablespoon) in 8 ounces of water daily.

• Omega-3 – A true pharmaceutical grade fish oil supplement. Take two capsules daily.

• B12 Methylcobalamin (not cyanocobalamin). Methylcobalamin is the body’s active form of vitamin B12. Methylcobalamin has been shown to help some people suffering from what is referred to as sleep-wake disorder. This disorder is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, restless nights, and frequent nighttime awakenings. It is very common in shift workers and the elderly. In people with sleep wake disorders, taking methylcobalamin (3 mg daily) has often led to improved sleep quality, increased day time alertness and concentration, and improved mood. Much of the benefit appears to be a result of methylcobalamin influencing melatonin secretion. Low levels of melatonin in the elderly may be a result of low vitamin B12 status – one of the most common nutrient deficiencies, especially in the elderly.

One study specifically evaluated the effects of methylcobalamin versus cyanocobalamin on circadian rhythms, well-being, alertness, and concentration in healthy subjects. The twenty subjects (mean age 36 years) were randomly assigned to treatment for 14 days with 3 mg cyanocobalamin or methylcobalamin after 9 days. The results indicated a significant advantage for methylcobalamin. Methylcobalamin supplementation led to a significantly improved sleep quality, shorter sleep cycles, increased feelings of alertness, better concentration, and a feeling of waking up refreshed in the morning. Some of the interesting findings included the fact that methylcobalamin was significantly more effective even though blood levels of cobalamin increased more significantly in the cyanocobalamin than the methylcobalamin group.

I have found having people take 3 sublingual tablets of B12 Methylcobalamin (3 mg total) the first thing upon arising is very important in helping people with a history of insomnia.

Melatonin is an important hormone secreted by the pineal gland, a small gland in the center of the brain. Melatonin is one of the best aids for sleep. In several studies, supplementation with melatonin has been found helpful in inducing and maintaining sleep in both children and adults, for both people with normal sleep patterns and those suffering from insomnia. However, it appears that the sleep-promoting effects of melatonin are most apparent only if a person’s melatonin levels are low. In other words, taking melatonin is not like taking a sleeping pill or even 5-HTP. It will only produce a sedative effect when melatonin levels are low. A dosage of 3 mg at bedtime is more than enough. I prefer products that provide sublingual (under the tongue) tablets.

5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) is converted in the brain to serotonin – an important initiator of sleep. 5-HTP has also been reported, in numerous double-blind clinical studies, to decrease the time required to get to sleep and to decrease the number of awakenings.6 Because tryptophan is currently available only by prescription, 5-HTP is an obvious substitute. The recommended dosage is 50 to 100 mg.

L-theanine is a relaxing amino acid found in green tea available as a supplement. Clinical studies have shown L-theanine to induce a sense of calm in patients with anxiety. At typical dosages, e.g., 100-200 mg L-theanine does not act as a sedative, but it does significantly improve sleep quality. Hence it is a good support agent to melatonin and 5-HTP. At higher single dosages, e.g., 400 mg L-theanine does exert sedative action.

Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) is the most popular herbal sedative. Several double-blind clinical studies have substantiated valerian’s ability to improve sleep quality and relieve insomnia. In fact, it has shown effectiveness equal to benzodiazepines. The advantage of valerian is that it does not cause daytime sleepiness, diminished concentration or impairment of physical performance. The dosage for the standardized valerian extract (0.8% valerenic acid content) is 150-300 mg 45 minutes before bedtime. I would reserve use of valerian after giving melatonin, then 5-HTP a try.

Again, I would definitely start with the B12 Methylcobalamin in the morning (3 mg) and 3 mg of melatonin at night. In many cases, just this little nudge to a good night’s sleep is all that is needed. If after 4 or 5 nights, no significant improvement has been noted, I would recommend adding 5-HTP and L-theanine to the mix. If after another 4 or 5 nights no significant improvement is noted, add valerian. The real key factor on how the program is working is daytime energy levels.

Intermittent fasting reduces oxidative stress, enhances cellular repair processes and appears to be a key strategy for anti-aging and longevity.

During times of food scarcity, our cell membranes become more sensitive to insulin. This is especially important when food is scarce because it ensures that every bit of food be efficiently used or stored.

During times of food abundance the body desensitizes the cells to insulin in an effort to avoid the stress of a heavy calorie intake. This results in elevated insulin levels, increased fat storage and increased oxidative stress and inflammatory conditions in the body. Insulin also enhances cellular division, which is a risk factor for cancer formation.

Intermittent fasting acts to turn on certain genetic repair mechanisms that enhance cellular rejuvenation. This appears to allow certain cells to have a longer lifespan during. It is energetically less expensive to repair a cell than it is to divide and create new cells. This has a positive effect at shutting down cancer cell formation and proliferation.

These genetic repair mechanisms are turned on through the release of human growth hormone (HGH). HGH is known to create physiological changes in metabolism to favor fat burning and protein sparing. The proteins and amino acids are utilized to repair tissue collagen which improves the functionality and strength of muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones. HGH also improves skin function, reduces wrinkles & heals cuts and burns faster.

HGH and insulin are opposites in function. HGH is focused on tissue repair, efficient fuel usage and anti-inflammatory immune activity. Insulin is designed for energy storage, cellular division and pro-inflammatory immune activity. Insulin is the dominant player in this game. When conditions demand an insulin release (carbohydrate intake), HGH is inhibited.

Intermittent fasting is one of the most powerful modalities for reducing inflammation, boosting immunity and enhancing tissue healing. This is one of the reasons why many people feel nauseated when they have infections. This innate mechanism is the body’s way of influencing us to fast so it can produce the right environment to boost natural immunity.

Researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute found that men, who had fasted for 24 hours, had a 2000% increase in circulating HGH. Women who were tested had a 1300% increase in HGH. The researchers found that the fasting individuals had significantly reduced their triglycerides, boosted their HDL cholesterol and stabilized their blood sugar.

The best way to begin fasting is by giving your body 12 hours between dinner and breakfast every single day. This allows 4 hours to complete digestion and 8 hours for the liver to complete its detoxification cycle. After this is a standard part of lifestyle, try taking one day a week and extending the fast to 16-18 hours. Eventually, you may choose to do a full 24 hour fast each week.

Sources for This Article Include

• http://www.ajcn.org/content/86/1/7.full
• http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/imc-sfr033111.php
• http://www.naturalnews.com/029298_aging_industry.html
• http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fasting/

Health-e-Solutions comment: There seems to be a growing body of evidence supporting calorie restriction (in adults) and fasting for a plethora of health benefits, not the least of which is improved insulin sensitivity and reduced oxidative stress and inflammation. These three benefits are important to long term management of diabetes. It may be that the diabetic-alkaline lifestyle can be improved by implementing intermittent fasting. The suggested 12 hour break between dinner and breakfast should be fairly easy to execute.