Beauty-Full Spa has received permission to use the following two articles from Dr. Gabe Mirkin’s Fitness and Health E-Zine (www.drmirkin.com). The first article was published on October 11, 2009, entitled “Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes” and the second on May 9, 2009, entitled “Type 2 Diabetes is Preventable”. We selected these two articles as they clearly and simply are very informative regarding Type 2 Diabetes and since we are also educators on this subject we wanted to share the clarity that Dr. Mirkin brings to the understanding of this killer that in the not too distant future will be the number one killer disease in North America!
Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes (October 11, 2009)
As the standard of living in a country increases, so does the incidence of Metabolic Syndrome. Today, one of three North Americans will suffer premature death from the consequences of Metabolic Syndrome, which is caused too little activity and too much food (The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, September 2009). Warning signs include: abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, low good HDL cholesterol, overweight, high blood sugar and high HBA1C. (HBA1C is a blood test that measures sugar stuck on cells. An HBA1C greater than 5.7 shows that you have Metabolic Syndrome).
Metabolic Syndrome means that you are in the early stages of diabetes. If you store fat primarily in your belly, you probably have high blood insulin levels, a sign that your body cannot respond adequately to insulin. High insulin levels are caused by high blood sugar levels that cause blood sugar to stick to the surface of cell membranes. Once there, sugar can never get off. It is eventually converted to sorbitol which destroys the cell to cause all the side effects of diabetes. As long as your pancreas still makes insulin, you can reverse metabolic syndrome and diabetes. However, once your pancreas dies you cannot make insulin and your diabetes is not curable.
Type 2 Diabetes is Preventable (May 10, 2009)
More than 90 percent of adult onset cases of diabetes are preventable and if caught early enough, are curable (Archives of Internal Medicine, May 2009). Usually, you can tell if you are pre-diabetic or diabetic because you store fat primarily in your belly, rather than in your hips. This is a sign of high insulin levels since insulin specifically causes fat to be deposited in the abdomen. The first sign of diabetes occurs when your body loses its ability to respond to insulin, causing your pancreas to release increasing amounts of insulin to keep your blood sugar levels from rising too high.
When blood sugar levels rise too high, sugar sticks to the surface membranes of cells and can never get off. It eventually is converted to sorbitol that destroys cells to cause heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, blindness, deafness and the other consequences of diabetes.
The following actions help to prevent and treat diabetes:
1) Exercise. Contacting muscle draw sugar from the blood so rapidly that they usually prevent a high rise in blood sugar.
2) Don’t be overweight. Full fat cells release hormones that cause inflammation and block the body’s insulin receptors from responding to insulin. You should not be able to pinch more than an inch of abdominal fat.
3) Get sunlight (with appropriate cautions to prevent skin cancer). Lack of vitamin D causes ionizable calcium levels to drop. This causes the parathyroid glands to put out huge amounts of parathyroid hormone that prevents cells from responding to insulin.
4) When you are not exercising, avoid foods containing refined carbohydrates that cause the highest rise in blood sugar. The worst offenders are sugar in liquid form (fruit juices, sugared soft drinks, sugar in coffee or tea) and foods made from flour.
5) Do not take more than two alcoholic drinks in a day. (A drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 2/3rds of a shot glass).
6) Do not smoke.
7) Eat plenty of vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts and other seeds.