Do you have diabetes or are you at risk? Are you worried about your blood sugar? Then keep reading. Here you can learn how to normalize your blood sugar and become healthier and slimmer – as thousands of others have already done.

The disease diabetes, whether type 1 or 2, means that you’re getting too much glucose in the blood. But it’s easier than you think to control and influence with a change of your lifestyle choices. The problem is that the advice that you’re given in the health care system is the opposite of what you should be doing.

FACT: Since 1985 to 2011, we’ve gone from 30 million to 366 million people with diabetes – a 1120% increase in 26 years.

 

The Diabetes Epidemic

More and more people get diabetes, why is that?

In the past, before our current diet, diabetes was extremely rare. Now the disease is becoming more common. The number of people with diabetes is increasing rapidly and is heading for 500 million. It’s an ongoing world epidemic. How sweet is your blood?

Those who suffer from the most common form of diabetes, type 2, will normally never be healthy again. Instead, we expect them to be a little sicker for each year. Over time, they need more and more medications. Yet the complications come sooner or later. Blindness. Dialysis due to broken kidneys. Dementia. Amputations. Death.

The diabetes epidemic leads to a suffering that can hardly be imagined. Fortunately, there is something to do. We just need to look through the mistake that led to the explosion of disease – and correct it. It can normalize your blood sugar again. Many have already succeeded!

 

Where’s your blood sugar level at?

A quick course in diabetes and high blood sugar.

Common symptoms of diabetes:

• Abnormal thirst and abnormal urination. This is because blood sugar is periodically so high (over 15 mmol / L) that it leaks into the urine and draws liquid out of the body, which increases the thirst.
• Degrading vision is also common. All the sugar causes the lens in the eye to swell and you become more near-sighted
• Tiredness and overall less energy
• In youth diabetes, sudden weight loss and bad breath is a warning signIn mild forms of diabetes you often feel nothing. But all the sugar in the blood can still gradually damage the body.

 

Get yourself checked out! Either at your local clinic/hospital or with your own blood sugar meter which you can buy in most pharmacies. A stick in your finger and a drop of blood is all that is needed:

• Normal blood sugar is up to 6 mmol / L fasting, or up to 8.7 after meals
• Slightly higher values ​​is a varning signal for pre-diabetes
• Over 7.0 fasting or over 12.2 after a meal means you have diabetesYou can also test your urine with a urine stick: sugar in the urine usually means you have diabetes.

There are two kinds of diabetes

Type 2

Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common form with around 90 percent of all cases and also the one that increases the most. It mainly affects overweight middle aged people or those later in life. Another common factor for those with type 2 is high blood pressure. Pregnancy diabetes is an occurring special form of type 2.

In type 2 diabetes, the body have more and more difficulty to handle all the sugar in the blood. Lots of the blood sugar lowering hormone insulin is produced but it is not sufficient, as the sensitivity of the hormone decreases. When diagnosed, type 2 diabetics often have ten times more insulin in their body than normal. As a side effect, all insulin stores fat and result in weight gain, which often has been going on for many years before the disease is diagnosed.

Why do more and more people get type 2 diabetes today? The answer to that is: Sugar.

Type 1

Type 1 diabetes mainly affects children and young adults. Those who get type 1 diabetes are often normal weight. Most commonly, some months before the disease has been diagnosed, the affected usually have experience sudden weight loss.

Type 1 diabetes is caused due to most of the body’s insulin-producing cells have died (for unclear reasons). Severe deficiency of the hormone insulin causes high blood sugar and rapid weight loss. The treatment is done by supplying the lacking insulin through an injection. In addition to this, a non-glucose-raising diet can dramatically facilitate a stable and normal blood sugar.

Where comes all that sugar from?

The sugar in the blood comes from the food we eat. The foods that become different types of sugar already in the stomach are called carbohydrates. It means sugar (as in soft drinks, juices, sweets) and starch (as in bread, pasta, rice and potatoes).

For example, the starch in bread is broken down into grape sugar in the stomach. When the sugar is absorbed into the blood, it is called blood sugar. The more carbohydrates we eat at one meal, the more sugar is absorbed into the blood. The more sugar taken up in the blood, the higher the blood sugar.

Reverse dietary advice
In recent decades, dietary advice has looked similar throughout the western world. While more and more people are getting diabetes, and while the suffering people have become increasingly sick, they have been advised to eat just that which increases blood sugar, making it even worse.

Here is a good example, the Swedish plate model for diabetics:

The most common diet today includes bread and potatoes which are starch, milk that contain milk sugars and fruit that contains ordinary sugar, these are foods that dramatically raises blood sugar.

People with diabetes who try to eat this way will not become healthier or slimmer. On the contrary, they usually need more and more medication and become increasingly overweight every year.

The advice above is thus not just illogical, they also work very poorly. They lack complete scientific support according to a current knowledge on the topic. On the contrary, similar carbohydrate-rich dietary advice has in recent years been shown to increase the risk of getting diabetes and in the long-term impairing blood sugar in those who already have diabetes. The advice does not improve the health of any one in any way.

The only reason yet to give these bad advice is the lingering fear of natural fat. If one is to avoid fat, one needs to eat more carbohydrates to be measured. But the old theory of fat danger has been proven to be wrong later and is on its way out today. Light products are simply rubbish!

Is there an alternative that provides better health and better weight? Food that doesn’t raise blood sugar?

Normalize your blood sugar

What happens if you remove the blood sugar increasing food? What is left?

More and more diabetics have tried to eat foods that do not raise blood sugar. Food with Less Carbohydrates and a Higher proportion of Fat, LCHF.

What they usually notice is that the blood sugar gets better from the first meal. The need for medicines, primarily insulin, decreases dramatically. Obesity usually gradually decreases considerably. Finally, they usually feel much better, feel more energetic and improve many health values.

More and more doctors today have finally start to understand this and give similar advice with great results. More and more people are now questioning the old blood sugar-increasing carbohydrate-rich dietary advice, even in the media reaching out to more and more. As of autumn 2011, the National Board of Health and Welfare also recommends low-carb diets for diabetes.

Believe in science and the facts, try it yourself!

Nothing new under the sun

Do you think that low-carb diabetic diet is a new idea? It is not. There is long experience of the positive effects. In the past, before we were afraid of fat and before there were modern medications to lower blood sugar, other advice was given than today. Then you only had the manipulating of the diet to rely on for helping diabetics.

Dietary guidelines over 100 years ago.

Strictly forbidden foods for diabetics:

Bread
Cookies
Rice
Pasta
Sweet drinks
etc.

This absolutely forbidden food now belongs to the recommended guidelines for diabetics. This while we are getting more and more diabetics who need more and more medication and are becoming increasingly sick. Coincidence?

Especially valuable foods for diabetics:

Butter
Olive oil
Cheese
Meat
Fish
Eggs

These are the advice that diabetics received already a hundred years ago. If we just replace all the sugary and starchy foods with plenty of vegetables instead, we are on our way to the solution. Most of the overweight people then gradually lose weight and can cope with less medication.

 

Science

Today’s carbohydrate-rich dietary advice to diabetics is based on the outdated fear of natural fatty foods. There are no good studies that show that such a carbohydrate-rich diet does any benefit. No actual scientific evidence has been found for today’s advice on a low fat and whole grain rich diet. As for stricter low-carb diets such as LCHF, only limited-scale scientific studies exist. However, the studies made do show that LCHF-like dietary advice gives better effect on blood sugar and weight than today’s low-fat advice.

The National Board of Health has now updated its guidelines for dietary recommendations and are open for several different alternative diets in diabetes cases, one of those recommendations are the low-carb diets as a first-choice alternative. Advice on LCHF was stated according to the National Board of Health’s investigation to be in accordance with science and proven efficient. In other words, licensed healthcare professionals who give such advice can now do so with confidence. The US Diabetes Association (ADA) has since 2008 approved advice on low-carb diets for diabetes.

Diabetics can be dramatically improved by less carbohydrates and no safe science speaks for carbohydrate-rich dietary advice that increases blood sugar. Despite this, health care still often provide diabetics with poorly functioning dietary advice, encouraging patients to keep eating the foods that makes, and keep, them sick.

 

Different energy profiles

How much is your blood sugar affected by the food you eat? Very much. As you see in the figure above, glucose (sugars/carbohydrates) are very unstable fuel sources, especially when compared to fats.

Sugars and starch is a quick reacting energy source, which needs constant stimulation for staying on a high level. Since it has this quick burn rate profile, you get an instant response in energy but also a quick crash that follows. No wonder kids who eat cereals are suffering from low energy in school!

Fats and protein on the other hand, are a more stable sources of energy which last for a much longer duration and is more stable, since its energy structure is very dense it will also leave you feeling satiated for longer and requiring less frequent meals. Although, an overconsumption of protein will convert into glucose, resulting in sugar spikes as well.

The worst combination you can do however, is the two together – high amounts of fats and carbohydrates, thats when serious obesity issues occur.

 

The billion dollar industry

In health care, diabetics are often advised on blood sugar increasing food. They are handed nice and inviting brochures stating that foods that raise blood sugar slowly are good. Examples of such foods are fruits, rice, pasta, potatoes and bread!

Why is it good for diabetics to eat foods that increase blood sugar? Who is it good for? Who is giving away these free brochures? Well, usually it is a pharmaceutical companies themselves that printed the brochure. They sell medication that lower blood sugars. And then they distribute brochures with dietary advice that increases blood sugar and makes diabetics needing more medication. Pharmaceutical companies thus make more money by distributing dietary advice that makes diabetics worse. There is no conspiracy theory. It’s just a simple market economy. Supply and Demand

The advice on carbohydrate-rich foods means that a diabetic type 2, for example, may need to start treatment with insulin injections. One year’s consumption of insulin can easily cost 1,000 $ or more. Multiply that figure by the 415 million diabetics in the world and you have a pretty good business going.

Exercise

For people who have diabetes—or almost any other disease, for that matter—the benefits of exercise can’t be overstated. Exercise generally helps with

• Weight control
• Lower blood pressure
• Strengthen muscles and bones
• Reduce anxiety
• Fights depression
• Improves sleep
• Promotes organ function
• Slows down aging
• Improve your overall well-being.

There are added benefits for people with diabetes: exercise lowers blood glucose levels and boosts your body’s sensitivity to insulin, countering insulin resistance. In general, the best time to exercise is one to three hours after eating, when your blood sugar level is likely to be higher. If you use insulin, it’s important to test your blood sugar before and after exercising or any particularly grueling activity to check if its stable.

If you stay fit and active throughout your life, you’ll be able to better control your diabetes and keep your blood glucose level in the correct range. Controlling your blood glucose level is essential to preventing long-term complications, such as nerve pain and kidney disease.

When most people are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, they are overweight, so the idea of exercising is particularly daunting. For your health, you have to get started on a good, reasonable exercise plan, just start by going out walking and doing some light bodyweight exercises are a great start on the way to a healthier life!

Clean up your diet, be more active and monitor the changes that follows, this is the key to taking over the control of your body!