Diabetes

Managing Diabetes

More than 24 million Americans have diabetes, and another 57 million are considered to be “pre-diabetic.” Although a small percentage of them have type 1 diabetes, caused by an inability to produce adequate insulin, more than 90 percent have type 2 diabetes. They produce plenty of insulin, but their cells are resistant to its signals to allow glucose and other nutrients in. As a result, blood sugar levels soar.

Diabetes rivals heart disease and cancer as our nation’s most debilitating disease. It not only increases your risk of death by heart attack, but also systematically damages the blood vessels and nerves and is a leading cause of kidney failure, blindness, and amputations. Click here to read about these and other diabetic complications.

The Conventional Approach to Diabetes

The conventional approach to diabetes is an almost neurotic fixation on lowering blood sugar, either with insulin or oral drugs. If your doctor diagnoses you with diabetes, you’ll likely be advised to lose weight and watch your diet. But nine times out of 10, you’ll also get a prescription.

Although diabetes drugs do lower blood sugar, they do so at a price. Not only are they rife with side effects, but they do not protect against the complications of diabetes—which should be the primary treatment goal. Click here to read about the many dangers of diabetes medications.

Alternative Therapies for Diabetes

This pharmacological hammering of blood sugar totally ignores the fact that diabetes is, by and large, a lifestyle disease and, as such, can be treated with lifestyle changes. Even in more advanced stages, when patients are riddled with complications such as neuropathy, retinopathy, and heart disease, many of the signs and symptoms of diabetes can be halted and even reversed with noninvasive treatments.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy speeds wound healing and has saved many an infected limb from amputation. Infrared light and microcurrent therapy reduce neuropathic pain and enhance blood flow. IV infusions of vitamins and minerals rapidly restore nutrient reserves. And enhanced external counterpulsation dramatically improves circulation. To read more about these noninvasive therapies for diabetic complications, click here.

Nutritional Supplements for Diabetes

Several nutritional supplements, such as alpha lipoic acid, are also excellent therapies for treating neuropathy and other common diabetic problems. Others, including vanadyl sulfate, chromium, and glucomannan, are quite effective at lowering blood sugar. But equally important are supplements that protect against diabetic complications.

Diabetes is a nutritional wasting disease. High blood sugar overwhelms the kidneys’ capacity to reabsorb glucose and other water-soluble nutrients, so they end up in the urine. In fact, diabetes mellitus comes from the Greek words meaning to pass through and honey, referring to excessive glucose-laden urination. A broad-based, high-dose nutritional supplement program is imperative for replacing lost nutrients, protecting the nerves and blood vessels, and staving off the many complications of diabetes. To learn about how nutrient losses contribute to diabetic complications, click here.

Lifestyle Changes for Diabetes

Our current rise in diabetes follows on the heels of our even larger epidemic of obesity. Among overweight people, type 2 diabetes is as common as a 42‑inch waist. That’s because obesity interferes with insulin resistance, the underlying cause of type 2 diabetes. For more on the relationship between obesity and diabetes, click here.

The good news is that weight loss is, in many cases, all it takes to reverse diabetes—drop excess pounds and you drop the disease. And the best way to do this is with a multifaceted program of diet, exercise, and targeted nutritional supplements. Click here to read about my four-step program for diabetes.

By tackling lifestyle issues head on, you can control your blood sugar without drugs and sidestep the complications of diabetes.