Diabetes Is Not A Disease Of Blood Sugar!

[Guest guest]

http://www.mercola.com/2005/may/31/diabetes_disease.htm

 

Diabetes Is Not A Disease Of Blood Sugar!

 

By Ron Rosedale, MD

 

As I have stated previously, and one concept that I would like to make

well-known to save thousands and perhaps millions of lives as soon as

possible, is that diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar, but a

disease of insulin and perhaps more importantly leptin signaling, and

until that concept becomes well-known in the medical community,

articles like the one published in this issue will fortunately

continue to be published revealing the inadequacy of current

conventional medical treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes

and heart disease, and the falsity of their advice about nutrition.

 

Typically treatment concentrates on fixing a symptom, in this case

elevated blood sugar, rather than the underlying disease. Symptoms are

generally the way that nature has taught our bodies to deal with a

disease. For instance, a runny nose is a symptom designed to cleanse

the nose and sinuses of viruses and bacteria when one has a " cold. "

Taking a decongestant just inhibits our own body's mechanism for

dealing with that infection and will therefore prolong it.

 

Similarly, treatments which concentrate merely on lowering blood sugar

for diabetes while raising insulin levels can actually worsen rather

than remedy the actual problem of metabolic miscommunication. It just

trades one evil for another.

 

Elevated insulin levels are highly associated and even causative of:

 

* heart disease,

* peripheral vascular disease,

* stroke,

* high blood pressure,

* cancer,

* obesity and

* many other so-called diseases.

 

Since most treatments for (type 2, insulin resistant) diabetes utilize

drugs which raise insulin or actual insulin injections itself, the

tragic result is that the typical, conventional medical treatment for

diabetes contributes to the manifest side effects and the shortened

lifespan that diabetics experience.

 

To Be Victorious, One Must " Know Thy Enemy.

 

Traditional medicine appears certainly not to, especially with

diabetes. For two millennia diabetes has been considered to be a

disease of sugar. Despite centuries of scientific progress including

the discovery of insulin and more recently leptin, that has not

changed. It appears that medicine has made little to no progress with

that myth. Furthermore, the actual purpose of insulin is widely, if

not uniformly, mistaken even among the medical community.

 

The Main Purpose Of Insulin Is Not To Lower Blood Sugar.

 

It may surprise you, as well as your doctor, that insulin's main role

is not to control blood sugar. The control of blood sugar is mostly in

an upward direction, not a downward direction. A few types of tissues

and cells in our body such as red blood cells require glucose for

energy (the rest can and even desires to burn fat or byproducts of fat

metabolism called ketones). Thus it is important to always have a

little bit of glucose dissolved in our blood.

 

The trick throughout most of our ancestral history was to keep sugar

in our blood from falling too low since there was not that much sugar

to be had. Most starches and grains that would turn into sugar are

mostly indigestible unless cooked. You might even strain your jaw

trying to eat an uncooked potato.

 

The major source of sugar was fruit, and that was mostly available

only seasonally, and even then we had to work and exercise to obtain

it, burning the sugar and preventing it from spiking very high. The

hormones cortisone, epinephrine, norepinephrine, glucagon, and growth

hormone make sure that we always have some glucose available to the

tissues that need it.

 

High Blood Sugar Was A Rarity.

 

However when our blood sugar did become elevated it was a sign that we

had more energy available than we could currently burn and thus it

would be a good idea to store the extra. " Waste not, want not. " Food

was not always available; feast or famine was the rule. When blood

sugar becomes elevated it is a signal for insulin to be released to

direct the extra energy into storage.

 

A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen in our body, but

the majority is stored as our main energy supply -- fat. Thus, in this

regard insulin's major role is not to lower sugar, but to take the

extra energy when available and store it for future times of need.

Insulin lowers glucose as a side effect of directing the extra into

storage.

 

Insulin's purpose may go far beyond even that. Insulin is being

researched very heavily by scientists who study the biology of aging.

It has been found that when insulin is kept low either through diet or

via genetic manipulation animals live much longer and the rate of

aging is significantly reduced. This appears true in many different

species of animals from single cell yeast, to worms, to flies, and

appears likely to be true also in primates.

 

Apparently, low insulin is a signal that energy is scarce and animals

need to focus their energy needs on maintaining and repairing

themselves so that they can outlive the famine to be able to reproduce

at a future, more opportune time. Insulin's purpose has gone from

controlling blood sugar, to directing energy stores, and now to

actually regulating the rate of aging including the major symptoms of

aging -- diabetes, heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis, dementia, and

even cancer.

 

All Chronic Disease Is Due To Miscommunication Of Messages Between And

Within Cells.

 

As stated in a prior newsletter, all chronic disease is due to

miscommunication of messages between and within cells. Certainly

diabetes is a disease of insulin miscommunication, and recognizing

insulin's true purpose certainly goes much deeper to the roots of

diabetes and other chronic diseases. Yet we can go even deeper.

 

Insulin May Not Even Be The Most Important Hormone In Diabetes Or

Other Chronic Diseases Of Aging.

 

That honor likely goes to leptin.

 

It appears that the hormone leptin is largely responsible for the

accuracy of insulin signaling and whether one becomes insulin

resistant or not.

 

Leptin, a relatively recently discovered hormone produced by fat,

tells the body and brain how much energy it has, whether it needs more

(saying " be hungry " ), whether it should get rid of some (and stop

being hungry) and importantly what to do with the energy it has

(reproduce, upregulate cellular repair, or not).

 

Recent compelling research reveals that the two most important organs

that will determine whether one becomes (type 2, insulin resistant)

diabetic or not are the liver and the brain and it is their ability to

listen to leptin that will determine this (perhaps link to article in

prior newsletter).

 

Leptin largely influences, if not controls, the manifest functions of

the hypothalamus in the brain, including:

 

* Reproduction,

* Thyroid function,

* Adrenal function and the

* Sympathetic nervous system.

 

Fat, and leptin, strongly influences chronic inflammation and

therefore diseases associated with this including heart disease,

Alzheimer's, and diabetes. It appears now that rather than your brain

being in control of your body, fat, by way of leptin, is really in the

driver's seat.

 

The Enemy Is Not Only Foreign To The Medical Community; It Appears To

Not Even Be Recognized.

 

It is no wonder that (type 2) diabetes has not been conquered.

 

By some estimates, diabetes has increased over 700% in the last 50

years. This reveals two very important facts.

 

*

 

Diabetes cannot be primarily a genetic disease, since the prior

statistic has taken place within the same generation and presumably

essentially the same genetics.

*

 

Something that we have been doing is obviously wrong and needs

to be changed.

 

That something is diet.

 

It is difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to actually prove that

something is true. However, it is not difficult to prove that

something is false. Americans have been following (at least

partially), for the last 50 years, the nutritional recommendations of

a high complex carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet from the:

 

* American Dietetic Association,

* American Heart Association, and the

* American Diabetes Association

 

That, in itself, is an oxymoron since most of those " complex "

carbohydrates, such as potatoes, rice, cereals, pasta, and breads

rapidly turn to sugar and the excess sugar (glucose) rapidly turns

into long-chain saturated fatty acids (palmitic acid; " palm oil " ).

Concomitant with that recommendation the incidence of diabetes and

obesity has skyrocketed and has become one of the worst worldwide

epidemics the world has ever seen.

 

Eating a high " complex " carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet for

health and longevity has been shown, and perhaps even " proven, " to be

wrong. Minimal common sense would say to try something else.

 

Diabetes Is A Disease Of Nutrition, And It Is The Science Of Nutrition

That Must Treat It.

 

Science is telling us that we must eat a diet that maximizes the

accuracy of insulin and leptin signaling allowing cells, you, to

better listen to their life-giving messages. (The need for those

hormones to have to " yell " to be heard is reduced and the levels of

insulin and leptin are therefore lowered.)

 

That would be the eating plan emphasizing good fats and reduced

nonfiber carbohydrates/starches as outlined in my book " The Rosedale

Diet " and Dr. Mercola's " Total Health Program " . Doing so will greatly

improve and even reverse type 2 " insulin resistant " diabetes, heart

disease, hypertension, many other chronic diseases of aging, and even

aging itself, as many of my patients who have been able to totally

eliminate the use of their drugs, including insulin, can attest.

Following those guidelines will let you -- and your genes -- " be the

best that you can be. "