If you or someone you care about is suffering from diabetes, I am certain you will find this video quite interesting. From all my years of treating patients, there are few diagnoses that create more fear, confusion, and overwhelm than receiving the news that you now have diabetes. I created this video exactly for people like you! Also, if you already have diabetes, and may feel that you understand what it is all about, I guarantee that you’ll learn some new things in this video. Also, as I always like to do, I also provide you some good inspiration and insight into how you can improve your diabetes.
For, as you all know, getting control over any disease you have, and creating optimal health is what it is all about!
Enjoy the video.
If you prefer to read the content of the video, click here: Diabetes
What Is Diabetes….Really?
Diabetes is one of the more well-known chronic diseases today. However many laypeople, and sometimes even healthcare workers, misunderstand the exact nature of the disease. So let’s take a moment and see what diabetes is all about and why it is fast becoming a major health concern in the world today.
There are two types of diabetes -- type I or type II. Type I diabetes was traditionally known as ‘juvenile onset diabetes’ because it manifests itself in children and adolescents. Thankfully this type is less common and accounts for about 10% of all diabetes cases. The other 90% of diabetes is type II and is traditionally known as ‘adult onset diabetes’. This happens primarily because of a poor diet and excess weight gain. While this was originally named ‘adult onset diabetes’ because it typically manifested itself around age 40 onwards, today 45% of diabetes cases in children are now type II. This is indeed a sad reflection of our children’s health.
Both types have their origin in problems concerning glucose metabolism. The normal process of metabolizing sugar begins with the body breaking down the carbohydrate portion of our food, producing glucose. Once glucose enters the bloodstream, insulin is secreted by the pancreas. This is because insulin acts as the facilitator for the transportation and distribution of glucose all throughout the body. This is why insulin is essential because it’s presence is needed to allow the glucose to enter different cells, to be converted to whatever form that particular cell needs.
This is where the problem of diabetes comes in, because the metabolic process is stopped in its tracks because either insulin is lacking in the body, or the body is unable to use the insulin. For type I diabetes, the pancreas no longer contains insulin producing cells which renders the body unable to produce insulin at all. This occurs because of an autoimmune disorder where the body perceives the cells in the pancreas as invaders cells and proceeds to eliminate them. Type II diabetes on the other hand is when the body can still secrete insulin, but for some reason, insulin is not able to elicit the desired result from the body. This is due to a condition called insulin resistance where the body does not react to the presence of insulin. It actually requires higher and higher levels of insulin to get the same effect.
Thus in both cases, the body is unable to make use of the blood sugar which results in elevated levels of sugar in the body. The inability to metabolize sugar and the increase in sugar levels leads to many serious conditions. These include heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, renal disease, amputation and many others. As you can imagine, these conditions are heartbreaking when experienced by children. To make matters worse, the medical community has long maintained that modern drugs and surgery cannot provide any cure for diabetes.
However, researchers have been able to see that diabetes is more common in certain populations. Moreover the differences between the populations with high rates of diabetes and those with low rates had to do primarily with what the populations were eating. In fact, many studies demonstrated a clear relationship between carbohydrate intake, fat intake and death rates from diabetes. This relationship is such that when carbohydrate intake is high and the fat intake is low, the death rates from diabetes plummet. The reverse is also true because low carbohydrate intake and high-fat intake result in a high death rate from diabetes. This provided the first glimmer of hope that diabetes is actually preventable and even reversible. Today, many feel that the state-of-the-art treatment and prevention of diabetes is simple: a plant-based diet. No drugs, no operations. By adopting such a diet completely, diabetic patients suffering from either type I and type II can enjoy a healthier and longer life.
