Thank you.. Wow ! That is amazing about grains.... sometimes I feel we crave carbs because it can calm us also. I want to mention that I just tried an Organic Non dairy
frozen dessert called "Purely Decadent" from Turtle Mountain. I tried it tonight because it is sweetend with agave syrup. I am not on meds, and so far I have had a great response -- as far as its glycemic index. This is made with coconut milk, and I saw it in vanilla and chocolate. Even though there are many sugar free ice creams, I don't love sugar alcohols. This also has 6 grams of fiber, which may be why it hasn't spiked. Only seven ingredients... I got the chocolate one.... and added some nuts. Speaking of addictions, I have to have chocolate especially during this darker season ( SADS). I hope this is a healthier choice for me.
Agave syrup consists primarily of fructose and glucose.
If you watch the Robert Lustig You Tube video Sugar: The Bitter Truth you will understand better why fructose needs to be strictly limited.
In Gary Taubes Dartmouth Lecture about obesity, around 47 minutes into the talk (slide 48) Gary Taubes explains fructose metabolism and his last words on that slide as an aside are "Indeed Fructose may be 90% of the problem"
I have a comment regarding guiltless pleasures. I don't understand why when I eat "ORGANIC" chocolates such as Bug bites, Dagoba, or even Whole Foods Chocolate Truffles, it doesn't spike my blood glucose like sugar... In fact, there is not too much of a climb in my numbers. Is it because the sugar is organic ? Also, organic cane juice in chocolate has been mild. I do not eat this all the time, but when I have tried them, it is a large difference than say from eating a snickers bar. And when I eat them, smaller amounts are satisfying. I am just wondering if that is unusual, or if the organic ingredients make a difference in the glycemic load. Thanks.
I am getting more and more discouraged every time I read something here (and other places) about what NOT to eat. I don't know what to eat. I wish I didn't have to eat. I'm almost 66 years old and I'm just sick of it all. Is it really supposed to be this hard? It CHANGES all the time. WHO is one supposed to believe? Sorry to vent - but it seems as tho I just keep spending money reading one book after the other by experts with differing opinions. The only thing I can think of they are secretly authored by members of Congress.
I understand this frustration very well! My husband (46 yrs old) has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and I (61 yrs old) have had a thyroid condition and high cholesterol for several years. The more research I do to try to figure out what we should eat or not eat to minimize our health problems, the more discourged I become. Every article contradicts some other article. "Eggs are bad for you." "Eggs are good for you." "Coffee is bad for you." "Coffee won't hurt your health." "The South Beach diet is good for cholesterol and diabetes." "No, the low-glycemic diet is better." No, both of those are wrong. It is extremely confusing and downright aggravating trying to figure out what to eat and who to believe. It really seems that one has to give up anything that tastes good and anything that is enjoyable. If that's true, what kind of miserable existence is that and why would anyone want to prolong it? I just need some simple rules on what to fix for dinner and what to drop from our diet. Where can I get this information?
Great! I look forward to it. In the meantime, I've been reading some of your other articles, and I think we'll try a low-carb diet for today. I went on South Beach a few years ago and dropped 40 lbs. (which I gained back when I stopped paying attention to what I was eating). At least I have an idea of where to start with that.
Thanks for this web site.
SSC
BTW, I noticed on your profile that we have the same birthday, August 5th.
I sometimes feel the same way, but then I try to listen to my body. My body tells me that I shouldn't eat sugar by giving me weird up's and down's in energy. It's almost as bad as caffine. Now it's starting to tell me that grains are bad becuase I'm getting those same energy spikes. But then again, I've read bad things about tofu and I just flat out disagree. I feel just fine when I eat it.
I think we spend so much time listening to everyone else that we forget to listen to ourselves...
A correspondent who is also named David wrote me privately that somehow he wasn't able to post this comment and asked me to post it for him. So here is David's comment:
Hi David
I read your blogs and articles with great appreciation and have been meaning to email you about my lap banding.
Unable to tolerate Metformin I have been slowly stacking on kilos with Diamicron and more so with a top up from Actos (I tried Avandia also but had side effects of a daily 11:00AM sneezing session).
So after thinking about the operation for 18 months I finally went in for it Sept 21, stayed overnight and then home sore with 3 holes and one slit in my stomach.
I noticed that on the post operative clear liquids with diabetes drugs suspended my sugars were normal. So 48 hours later I decided to try a carb free diet. And guess what acceptable sugars.
Since starting the procedure including the 2 weeks before the op on Optifast & a bowl of vegetables a day I have lost over 10 kilos in just 7-8 weeks. Dropped the supplementary Actos tablet for the 2 weeks and reduced my Diamicron intake to 2 MR per day then zilch from the operation forward.
My endocrinologist last week was not overly surprised by my ability to stop medicating and I am determined to try and keep my diet carb free as far as possible.
I did note however that when I had a splurge on soft blue cheese and crackers one lunchtime I was hungry all day after that. Therefore it seems true for me I am addicted to Carbs and they do make me hungry. Even a little sweet corn kernels mixed in with other vegetables (from one of the easy to use micro steam packs we get here in the freezer section) will make you crave to eat and eat.
What doesn't seem to make me hungry is fruit...in the small quantities I have tried to date.
Oh and I had a run in with the Emergency Department of the local teaching hospital 2 days after I came home due to muscle freeze up that wouldn't allow me to empty my bladder. I got a free full medical examination and an essential drain and was as right as rain from then on.
The lap band operation here is not on our Medicare all inclusive public health scheme yet - they are talking about it - so you end up using part Medicare funding, part private health scheme and pay a gap which depends on your surgeons and excess for hospital stay. All our hospital stays are private rooms under our private health care cover, my excess is A$500 and the gaps amount to about A$3500.- all up. Medicare pays for band fills with my surgeon.
The lap band is filled 4 weeks after and again 4-5 weeks on from that. It doesn't stop you eating the wrong things but restricts quantity you can eat in one go and slows your eating speed down. Also beef steaks are out but corned soft beef can be tolerated without causing a blockage, however trial and error will show you quickly what is suitable. I am eating lots of salmon, tins of Alaskan, or fresh or smoked salmon from Tasmania depending on where I am a 100g tin of salmon travels well to work, as does smoked, otherwise chicken and recently for a special occasion treat Duck breast (skinless). Turkeys good too!
Other things, bacon (weight watchers 98%fat free brand), 1 egg scrambled, & 1 tomato for breakfast and vegetables with other meals, mixed. Add a daily vitamin pill and some fat free yoghurt as a gap filler or low calorie jellies with small amount of fruit and that’s it aside from tea, white (as in white with milk), white (as in tea type) and water. No coffee - it makes you hungry!!! and just water to suit. I also eat (virtually suck) a small bag (snack pack) a day of nuts and raisins if I get hungry due to boredom.
I tried to post this to the site but ether my password was wrong and then it went on maitainenece so here it is. Do post if you want to.
Hope this helps some other Type II's - BTW my pre op BMI was 38.5%, not overly high but 35% is considered to be suitable for banding diabetics here and there was no way beforehand I was even holding my weight stable!!! Now...10-20 years have been gotten back providing I stick with it.
Kind regards and thanks as always for your valuable information.
David
If eating was an UNpleasent experience, wouldn't that be a counter-survival reaction on a species level?
This is the lamest implied explanation I've heard in 50+ years for why people get diabetes. Food doesn't cause type 2 diabetes, people give themselves type 2 diabetes by abusing food and abusing themselves. Type 2 diabetes is caused by ignorance and mental illness.
Suggesting that the small amount of opiate-type substances producted by the human metabolism of grains causes addiction to grains, and by extension is dangerous is analogous to sugesting that because running stimulates the production of endorphins, running causes running. Runners don't get an endorphin high until they have been running for prolonged periods and are pushing their limits.
The "problem" with grains is not that eating them can be a peasant experience, but that some people eat to excess. The majority of people categorized as having diabetes are type 2; they have dietary stress-induced hyperglycemia. They didn't become obese and hyperglycemic because they craved the reaction to eating grains. They crave food because they continue to overload themselves with food. Their bodies react to signals that their cells aren't getting enough nourishment, not because it isn't available, but because they haven't enough insulin to metabolize it.
Grains don't cause type 2 diabetes, uncontrolled mouths do.
I am sure overeating is an illness...mental or physical or both. I am a member of overeaters anonymous and it addresses this illness. I would hope someday we recognize this disorder and learn how to treat it.
Diet is of some importance but mainly acknowledging the basic addiction as in drugs and alcohol will bring success.
I do believe genetics have some role in diabetes. As a nurse I have seen many obese individuals who don't have diabetes.
Yeah. Along with food and exercise, you can add having great sex, giving birth, nursing a baby, being in love, hugging your child, enjoying your work, etc. as mechanisms that release endogenous opioids. We are supposed to enjoy our lives as human animals. The problem is one of excess, not the foods we eat or don't eat.
not so. there are plenty of skinny type 2s. plenty. overeating can lead to obesity, but obesity doesn't necessary cause diabetes.
there are many factors determining which individuals will 'contract' diabetes (of the type 2 variety, i think the causative factors for type 1 are fairly well-established). in my family, it was thought I never would get diabetes because i was so active. but my mother now notes how differently I reacted when given something with sugar (typically fruit juices). maybe that was it.
the tone of your message is like MANY physicians who don't have more than 1 semester of nutrition in their entire careers blaming the victim. true, overeating can lead to being overfat. but uncontrolled eating does not equal diabetes in the average adult. if it does, please point me to the literature citation.
Perhaps exceptions can be made for rye and buckwheat as both have been found by researchers to be anti-hyperglycemic. Yes, I am aware that buckwheat is not a type of grain and neither is it related to wheat. I wish there were more rye and buckwheat products around - why all the fascination with or, as you said, addiction to wheat when it is known to have allergenic properties as well. I am very wary of food from bakeries that are mostly tied to food additives like bromides and the use of bleached flour. Add to that the horrors of MSG, sugar and transfats from shortenings. Bleached flour is said to derive from the use of alloxan, the very substance used to induce diabetic conditions in rats, etc in the lab for experimental purposes. It would be instructive if research could study the explosive growth rates of bakeries in most major cities with the explosion in the growth rate of diabetes and see if they correlate.
As for coffee, it is seldom pointed out that it increases the level of cortisol in the body and it can remain for as long as 14 hrs! Cortisol is tied to ageing and is the one and only hormone that appears to increase with age, in contrast to the rest of the adrenal hormones. In contrast, black tea has been found to decrease cortisol level, according to a BBC report.
Cjuan
Dear Cjuan,
Yes, buckwheat is interesting (and tasty). It is a pseudograin that is actually fairly low glycemic. Still, it is high in starch, something that people with diabetes don't need any more of.
Both buckwheat and rye started to be used by our ancestors only within the past 10,000 years. That's one reason why along with Dr. Loren Cordain, the author of The Paleo Diet, I have reservations about consuming either of them. Here is the link to an engrossing presentation that he made recently: //www.youtube.com/user/miladskaya#g/c/7227FC56E6473A9B
Thanks for your coffee comment. With great difficulty I have now completely broken my addiction to coffee, even decaf coffee, as well as the caffeine in tea. I hope.
Best regards,
David
David
thanks for your reply to my comment. Yes, I am aware that rye and buckwheat contain starch but there are tradeoffs that exist too. The following research findings speak for themselves!
"Rye bran and rye fibre have positive effects on the prevention of diabetes in experimental studies performed on both humans and animals."
"The protective effects of rye bran on the diabetic syndrome were also found in rats and mice." (Nygren et al. 1981; Lundin et al. 2001b).
"Rye bran lowered blood glucose levels slightly and led to slower weight gain in normal rats and mice, and prolonged the survival of diabetic mice (Berglund et al. 1982).
"Buckwheat found to help in the management of diabetes, found to increase sensitivity to insulin." Study focused on Type 1 diabetes. Journal of Agriculture andFood Chemistry 2003; 51: 7280-7286.
Researchers in Canada have found that buckwheat, which is sometimes found in pancakes, may be beneficial in the management of diabetes. In a recent study, extracts of the seed lowered blood glucose levels by 12 to 19-percent in diabetic rats. Researchers say the findings could someday lead to new treatments for people with diabetes. They also remind people that it's the buckwheat found in the pancakes that could be beneficial, not the pancakes themselves. The study was led by researchers at the University of Manitoba in Canada and published in the "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry."
Wheat does not compare so favorably with either rye or buckwheat as the following research findings show. The impact is not only relative to diabetes but also on overall health:
Lectin is a type of 'wheat germ agglutinin' (WGA) and glycoprotein. Through thousands of years of selectively breeding wheat for increasingly larger quantities of protein, the concentration of WGA lectin has increased proportionately.
WGA is largely responsible for many of wheat's pervasive ill effects.What's more, WGA
is found in highest concentrations in "whole wheat," including its supposedly superior sprouted form.
What is unique about the WGA glycoprotein is that it can do direct damage to the majority of tissues in your body without requiring a specific set of genetic susceptibilities or immune-mediated articulations...
The potential of WGA to disrupt human health is high.
Pro-Inflammatory: WGA lectin stimulates the synthesis of pro-inflammatory chemical messangers, even at very small concentrations. Immunotoxic: WGA lectin may bind to and activate white blood cells. Neurotoxic: WGA lectin can pass through your blood-brain barrier and may attach to the protective coating on your nerves known as the myelin sheath. It is also capable of inhibiting nerve growth factor, which is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain target neurons. Cytotoxic (Toxic to cells): WGA lectin may induce programmed cell death. Further, research shows WGA lectin may even: Interfere with gene expression Disrupt endocrine function Adversely affect gastrointestinal function Share similarities with certain viruses
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EXCELLENT commentary, and perfectly timed for me. I will now avoid ALL dairy, w/ my being both (1) an NIDDM as well as (2) having vasculitis, an inflammatory-vascular issue. Having lost 27% body weight (70 lbs) is NOT enough, although I thought (and you might) it would be. "27%" is merely mindless "QUANTITY-THINK", and David is speaking to the "qualitative" of what one is taking onboard. The, often intertwined, dual aspects of "addiction" and "inflammation" are fascinating to me in that they INDEED for me (for you?) ARE the really core issues.