So far, you believed that increased blood sugar was the cause and the repercussion of diabetes. You were not entirely wrong if you thought so because the allopathic treatment plan concentrated only on keeping a tight control over the blood sugar. However, this plan glosses over the fact that the elevated blood sugar does not happen in isolation.
Type 2 diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder and causes an imbalance in 4 body processes namely insulin resistance, inflammation, glycation, and oxidation. A holistic treatment that factors in all these processes can only help in better management and treatment of diabetes.
Insulin resistance is a precursor to diabetes
When you eat foods, primarily carbs – it breaks down into glucose. That explains the increased glucose level after you’ve eaten a meal. The surplus glucose keeps idling in the bloodstream until insulin hits the cells and unlocks them. After that, absorption of glucose by the cells to starts.
To put it simply, the food that you ate was broken down to glucose and insulin made it available to the cells to be consumed thereby giving you energy.
That very much explains why glucose level goes up after a meal. Glucose is your body’s fuel and if it doesn’t absorb it properly you will start feeling run down, lethargic and weak. The irony here is that the cells cannot use glucose on their own. They need a cue to unlock, which is insulin.
When the cells get resistant to insulin they don’t recognize the cue offered by insulin. As a result, the pancreas works harder and secretes more of insulin. Extra insulin promotes fat storage. In the long run, the pancreas gets tired of the overwork. That’s when artificial insulin has to step in to unlock the cells’ response to glucose.
Actually, type- 2 diabetes is not a disease where pancreas stops secreting insulin. Rather, it secretes more of insulin, but the cells are resistant to it. Extra-insulin promotes fat storage. Hence, insulin resistance and obesity go hand-in-hand. To break the vicious cycle, you need to manage insulin with the right dietary choices.
Recognize the early symptoms
The initial symptoms of insulin resistance before a full-blown episode of diabetes develops are
- Abdominal obesity
- High triglycerides
- Low levels of high-density lipoprotein (“good”) cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- Increased levels of sugar in the blood
At this stage, you can reverse diabetes. You need to step up your workouts, eat healthy fats and proteins at every meal, discard simple carbs (candies, sweets, cookies, cakes) and choose complex carbs like oats, brown rice, whole wheat grains.
Exercising discretion with carbs is critical and so is fasting because it makes your cells more responsive to insulin.
Chronic inflammation is another critical factor in diabetes
Chronic inflammation plays a key role in insulin resistance and diabetes. Diabetic complications like cardiovascular diseases, strokes, and kidney problems are largely due to chronic inflammation.
Inflammation is the natural body process that helps it to ward off any injury and attack by outside pathogens. This process helps to heal the body after the attack. But in some cases, the inflammation turns chronic as it refuses to recede even when the attack is over. It still keeps the immune system on high alert. The resultant chronic inflammation causes lasting damage to the tissues.
Insulin resistance is closely linked to obesity. The excess fat in the cells pour out into the bloodstream and congregate in the liver, muscles, and other organs leading to belly fat. The body tries to remove abnormal fat distribution by sending white blood cells called macrophage to clean the organs. This process results in the release of inflammatory substances that damage the arteries and set the stage for cardiovascular complications.
Your treatment plan must tackle chronic inflammation by including healthy food choices, reemphasizing on weight-loss, exercising, getting enough sleep and quitting smoking.
Diabetes results in increased glycation
To understand protein glycation you have to understand the browning of foods that occur when they are heated. A chemical bond is formed between a sugar and protein molecule known as Advanced Glycated End (AGE) product.
AGEs affect nearly every cell in the body. To a large extent, they are responsible for aging and accelerate many age-related complications like heart disease in diabetics, largely in patients who have poor control over their sugar level.
In diabetes, high blood sugar increases protein and lipid glycation. Both cause atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries) which raises blood pressure.
Protein glycation is both a cause and effect of diabetes and the solution is to move on to anti-glycation diet and cooking methods.
Anti-glycation diet
To reduce AGEs in your foods you should choose foods that have a lower amount of AGEs. Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grain, raw nuts, and other unprocessed and refined foods have a lower concentration of AGEs.
Also, pay attention to the way these foods are cooked. Avoid barbecued, roasted, grilled and fried foods. Cooking foods using intense heat and without water or liquids cause the sugar to bind non-enzymatically with proteins (collagen and elastin fibers) and forms glycotoxins – AGEs.
Oxidative stress and diabetes
Oxidative stress plays an important role in the progression of diabetes. It leads to insulin resistance and even increases the risk of diabetes-related complications like kidney, heart and eye complications.
Oxidative stress occurs when there are more free radicals than the body’s ability to provide electrons resulting in cellular and DNA damage.
To know more about oxidative stress and free radicals read SoulGuru’s article on 4 Body Processes that accelerate Aging.
So the treatment of diabetes should concentrate on bringing down the oxidative stress of the body.
A diet rich in antioxidants – fresh fruits, green/pigmented veggies, nuts, fish – help control diabetes by lending electrons to free radicals and thereby bring an end to their destructive streak. Vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E act as antioxidants by detoxifying the free radicals.
Create a holistic diabetes management plan
So far, the cornerstone of diabetes treatment has been controlling blood sugar. But that view is too myopic. If diabetes has to be nipped, you need to have a holistic view of your health. Create a holistic diabetes management plan that aims at correcting your metabolism by increasing insulin sensitivity of the cells, reducing chronic inflammation, oxidative stress and AGEs in the body.
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Pl suggest holistic treatment plan for diabitese
Ma’am, to create a treatment plan we would like to have an access to your health records. If you let us know which city you are from that would help us to connect you with the right alternative care doctor. Thanks