Broccoli, cauliflower and artichokes are among my favorite vegetables. I sometimes get them at the prepared food bar at Whole Foods on Wednesdays when they are $5.99 instead of $7.99/lb. It's too bad they don't have any butter at the bar to put on the steamed vegetables; I guess you have to bring that from home. Most of the other food at the bar is high carb and the choice of meat is limited (tuna and chicken, no beef).

I haven't tried the broccoli sprouts.

Dr. Bernstein was scheduled to be on dLife yesterday on CNBC to debate someone from the Joslin Diabetes Center. Apparently they put some, but not all, segments online (dlife.com). I hope they put that one online and soon.

I searched at that web site for Bernstein and found four of them that he was on. In one of them, a woman debating him seemed quite condescending (she stated that a low carb diet was not practical). I like the statement he made in another appearance that he thinks diabetics are entitled to the same blood sugar levels as non-diabetics. Even the guy debating against him agreed that would be a good thing though he didn't think it was possible.

Perhaps I can use this as ammunition to convince my doctor to prescribe some insulin. Even if I take the maximum dose of metformin (2000 mg extended release; I checked into getting genuine glucophage, but it would cost me over $200 extra or more per month since the insurance does not cover it), I can only get control to between about 100 and 140. To get to the 80s, I have to avoid eating anything for about 24 hours, which is too difficult to do. My most recent A1C was 5.5%.

When I look at my A1C levels for 2007, the Kaiser Permanente web site says that 4.2.% is the standard range. But for 2008 and later they have changed it to 4.8 to 5.9%. I'd like to get them to change it to Dr. Bernstein's recommendation (4.2 to 4.6%), but I'm not sure how to go about getting them to do this.

I want to remind to others reading this that Dr. Bernstein's monthly teleseminar is this Wednesday (diabetes911.net). I asked some questions regarding anemia and muscles in my calves and ankles seizing up during the night (unless I can manage to keep my knees bent all night long) that I hope I submitted in time to get answered this month.

Gretchen Becker, Health Guide

9/ 3/10 9:22am

I agree with Bernstein that people with diabetes deserve normal blood sugars. But I also think people with diabetes deserve a normal lifestyle, and hauling your own food to a potluck supper or going hungry, not being able to join your friends at a birthday party at a pasta place, finding nothing to eat when your friends invited you out for dinner, and going hungry on airplanes that serve only cookies is not a normal lifestyle.

 

Let me say that I'm on a very strict LC diet and have been for about 13 years. But I don't think mainstream America would be willing to undergo the same restrictions that I accept. So I think that for mainstream America, some kind of compromise is needed.

 

I once asked Bernstein how he recommended balancing the two needs for normal BG and normal lifestyle and he got quite angry and said that if I wanted to go blind and have my legs cut off, that was my business. That's not what I was talking about. I was wondering how he advised patients who simply can't achieve A1c's of 4.2 to balance these two needs.