Diabetes Expert David Mendosa shares Diabetes management news and commentary at MyDiabetesCentral.com. The HealthCentral Network, Inc. (www.HealthCentral.com) is one of the top health destinations on the Web, with more than 35 condition-specific, wellness and general health Web properties. http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17 http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/rss self application/xml en-us 15 120 19 http://www.healthcentral.com/images/hc_logo_sm.gif http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17 http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/95378/food Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:15:19 -0500 David Mendosa American agriculture changed more in the past 50 years than it did in the previous 10,000 years since humans started cultivating grains and domesticating cattle, pigs, and poultry. This affects all Americans, but none more than those of us who have diabetes, which started its steep rise at about the same time that our farms became so much more efficient under the management of just a few huge multinational corporations. This correlation... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/95378/food http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/94967/contour-usb-meter Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:40:37 -0500 David Mendosa Until now, the improvements in the blood glucose meters that all of us who have diabetes use have been tiny steps forward. In the 40 years since the Ames Reflectance Meter -- our first blood glucose meter -- came on the market, these little changes have added up to much greater convenience. And now a new meter is here that takes us so much further that I'm having a hard time to decide which improvements I should write about. Fittingly, this... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/94967/contour-usb-meter http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/94492/bad-science Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:37:24 -0500 David Mendosa   Whenever I become conscious of a word or concept new to me, I began to notice it everywhere. All of you probably have had this experience. It is so common that we even have a nice big word for it thanks to the great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: Synchronicity.A couple of weeks ago a member of the diabetes support group that meets in my apartment loaned me a book called Bad Science. A practicing physician in the U.K.'s... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/94492/bad-science http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/94022/fructose-pressure Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:36:53 -0500 David Mendosa If you have high blood pressure, your doctor has probably told you a dozen times to cut way back on salt (sodium). But this works only for people who have a "salt-sensitive phenotype," which results from both genetic makeup and environmental influences.New preliminary research offers another strategy that might work for more of us. If we cut back on the fructose that we eat from added sugars, we may be able to control high blood pressure.Most... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/94022/fructose-pressure http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/93444/eat Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:19:18 -0500 David Mendosa If you listen to all the so-called experts on nutrition, we can't eat anything. But here's the good news. We can at least drink one thing, water. Nobody argues against water itself, although some of the experts tell us that it has to be filtered and we shouldn't buy bottled water because it's not well tested and all those bottles are bad for the environment. Maybe I shouldn't even drink the sparkling water that I love. One correspondent told... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/93444/eat http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/93045/grain-drug Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:23:51 -0500 David Mendosa For more than a quarter of a century whenever I would mention coffee, a good friend of mine would smugly comment, "I don't do drugs." The caffeine in coffee is, of course, a stimulant drug. But he didn't know that he does use a drug, one that is even more common than caffeine.My friend didn't realize that the wheat bread and other grains that he eats every day contain chemicals related to morphine called opioids. The daily bagel is addicting.... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/93045/grain-drug http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/92498/cooking-made-human Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:39:41 -0400 David Mendosa Raw foodists might be happy to see some of what Dr. Richard Wrangham writes in Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. This book, which came out just this year, is one of the most stimulating reads I've ever found."Raw-foodism is a good way to lose weight," Dr. Wrangham writes. He is a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, the curator of primate behavioral biology at the... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/92498/cooking-made-human http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/92183/counting-eat Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:19:49 -0400 David Mendosa Few of us count the calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein that we eat. It is just too complicated and time consuming. And when we eat out, we can’t know for sure just how much anything weighs.   But unless we go to the trouble of counting what we consume we can’t do a good job of controlling our blood glucose levels and lose weight while at the same time making sure that we get enough – but not too much – of... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/92183/counting-eat http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/91690/crackers Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:28:36 -0400 David Mendosa Like Polly, people sometimes want a cracker. Sometimes we even need a cracker to serve ourselves or our guests some great dips. Even people who control their diabetes on a very low carb diet sometimes want a cracker. But almost all the crackers you can find either have too many carbs or taste terrible. Until recently the only low-carb crackers we could buy were largely made with fiber. Dr. Richard K. Bernstein wrote in the third edition of Dr.... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/91690/crackers http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/91258/plac-test Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:27:26 -0400 David Mendosa We now have a test that can determine hidden risks of heart attack and stroke. It's called the PLAC Test and is the only blood test that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved.   The PLAC test helps us identify hidden risks for heart attack and stroke by measuring for Lp-PLA2. This is the cardiovascular-specific inflammatory enzyme implicated in the formation of vulnerable, rupture-prone plaque.   The conditions that... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/91258/plac-test