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anyone have info on



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 31st, 2003, 06:07 PM
Anglea Woollcombe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here

thanks
angie


  #2  
Old December 31st, 2003, 08:58 PM
ray miller
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:07:04 -0500, "Anglea Woollcombe"
wrote:

i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here


Take a look on google ("no sugar" "no flour" diet). It looks like
there are lots of references to low-carb and ibd diets. But I also
found this in an article...
---------------------
To give you related information, I am sending you a copy of my Health
Report "Losing Weight" which includes my "no flour, no sugar" diet.
Other readers who would like a copy should send a long,
self-addressed, stamped envelope and $2 to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167,
Wickliffe, OH 44092. Be sure to mention the title.
--------------------

Can you tell us WHY you are looking for this diet?

Ray

--
rmnsuk
overall - 273/210/182
  #3  
Old December 31st, 2003, 09:52 PM
Anglea Woollcombe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

it is for my mother. she is dieabetic and she wants to give it a try. she
already has to stop eating sugar but she thought that this would help her to
lose a few pounds as well. she is trying to watch what she eats and she
wants to start it n the new yrs
thanks for the help any other info would be great
angie
happy new years guys good luck in the new year
"ray miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:07:04 -0500, "Anglea Woollcombe"
wrote:

i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for

info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web

but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here


Take a look on google ("no sugar" "no flour" diet). It looks like
there are lots of references to low-carb and ibd diets. But I also
found this in an article...
---------------------
To give you related information, I am sending you a copy of my Health
Report "Losing Weight" which includes my "no flour, no sugar" diet.
Other readers who would like a copy should send a long,
self-addressed, stamped envelope and $2 to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167,
Wickliffe, OH 44092. Be sure to mention the title.
--------------------

Can you tell us WHY you are looking for this diet?

Ray

--
rmnsuk
overall - 273/210/182



  #4  
Old December 31st, 2003, 11:52 PM
ray miller
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:52:03 -0500, "Anglea Woollcombe"
wrote:

it is for my mother. she is dieabetic and she wants to give it a try. she
already has to stop eating sugar but she thought that this would help her to
lose a few pounds as well. she is trying to watch what she eats and she
wants to start it n the new yrs
thanks for the help any other info would be great


Angie,

Your mum should get advice from a doctor before dietting. Tell her to
ask him about Atkins which I believe may be good for diabetics. A URL
that Laura found for us goes into some of this at length

http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/

Otherwise WW is good because she can eat her normal diet, but control
portion size etc

Ray
--
rmnsuk
overall - 273/210/182
  #5  
Old January 1st, 2004, 08:32 AM
Miss Violette
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

I have no answer for you but am curious what others come up, with. Have a
great year, Lee
Anglea Woollcombe wrote in message
. ..
i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for

info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web

but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here

thanks
angie




  #6  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 12:47 AM
Deb in Northern California
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

Actually Weight Watchers is recommended by most doctors of diabetic
patients. We have a member at my meeting that is an insulin dependent
diabetic and has been since she was a child of about 11. She is now in her
late 40s to early 50s. She just adjusts her intake of carbohydrates that
she knows her body can handle, but Weight Watchers has been the best for
her.

As Ray had suggested, she really needs to watch her diet on the advice of
her doctor and most doctors of diabetic patients will make an appointment
with a registered dietician to evaluate your diet and needs.

Debbie

"Anglea Woollcombe" wrote in message
...
it is for my mother. she is dieabetic and she wants to give it a try. she
already has to stop eating sugar but she thought that this would help her

to
lose a few pounds as well. she is trying to watch what she eats and she
wants to start it n the new yrs
thanks for the help any other info would be great
angie
happy new years guys good luck in the new year
"ray miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:07:04 -0500, "Anglea Woollcombe"
wrote:

i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for

info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the

web
but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here


Take a look on google ("no sugar" "no flour" diet). It looks like
there are lots of references to low-carb and ibd diets. But I also
found this in an article...
---------------------
To give you related information, I am sending you a copy of my Health
Report "Losing Weight" which includes my "no flour, no sugar" diet.
Other readers who would like a copy should send a long,
self-addressed, stamped envelope and $2 to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167,
Wickliffe, OH 44092. Be sure to mention the title.
--------------------

Can you tell us WHY you are looking for this diet?

Ray

--
rmnsuk
overall - 273/210/182





  #7  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 07:11 AM
Kristin
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

Dr. Gott in the newspaper claims that if you stop eating everything WHITE in
your diet, you will be healthy and lose in a good way. Maybe that's
something mom can try? No flour or sugar in any way shape or form. Yikes,
strict!

--

~Kristin O~
272/242.6/172

Here's our FAQ: http://www.didian.com/asdww/ and welcome notice:
http://www.geocities.com/welcomenotice/index.html



"Anglea Woollcombe" wrote in message
. ..
i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for

info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web

but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here

thanks
angie




  #8  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 10:36 AM
Celtic Gal \(Vanessa\)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

Hi Angie,
Jenny has a heap of info on her site.
Just click the link below and then go to "home" and check out all her other pages.
Best of luck finding some good info. P.S. Below is an example of what is on Jenny's site (hope she doesn't mind me copying from her site....) G.
Vanessa :-)

http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/diabetes.htm
Low Carbing to Control Type II Diabetes
A Simple, Cheap Treatment with an Undeserved Bad Reputation
Cutting your carbs, radically, is a controversial but effective strategy that increasing numbers of people with diabetes are using to keep their blood sugar levels within normal ranges without relying on medication.

There's no question it works. Cutting carb intake down to under 60 grams a day will make a radical decrease in the blood sugar levels of almost everyone who can stick with a low carb diet for a couple weeks.

If a Low Carb Diet Controls Diabetes, Why Isn't this Known?
If you mention the topic to friends or even some medical professionals you are likely to hear that low carbing will damage your kidneys, raise your cholesterol and damage your health in every way possible.

Is this true?

For most people the answer is a rousing and reassuring, "No!"

Won't Low Carbing Hurt My Kidneys?
The medical studies that show that high protein damages kidneys were done not only with a high protein, diet but with a high protein, high carbohydrate diet. If you accept Dr. Bernstein's contention that it is the high glucose levels caused by a high carbohydrate diet that damages kidneys (and eyes, and the peripheral vascular system) not the protein itself, you can see why these studies are not relevant to those of us who keep our dietary carbohydrate to extremely low levels.

Furthermore, many low carb diets are not "high protein diets." Think of it this way: if you eat a hamburger on a bun, with ketchup, and a side order of fries while I eat the meat patty, no bun, no fries and a salad with blue cheese dressing, we're eating the same amount of protein. But I'm eating a low carb meal that will not raise my blood sugar, even without medication, while your meal is high enough in carbohydrates that it would drive my blood sugar well over 200 mg/dl. Am I on a "dangerous high protein" diet compared to you? No. Yet the same dieticians who prescribe 75 grams a meal to diabetics would consider the burger and bun to be a healthier diet choice!

Far from destroying kidneys, There's even some anecdotal evidence that very low carb diet may reverse early kidney disease. To read about one woman's experience healing kidney disease with a low carb diet, read this newsgroup posting: Aramanth Dawes' Story

Dr. Richard Bernstein, a physician who has been a type I diabetic since the 1940s also reports reversing his own early diabetic kidney disease and that of many patients through the use of a low carb diet. He explains the science behind how this can happen in his excellent bookDr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. It has just come out in a second, revised edition

Won't a High Fat Diet Raise My Cholesterol?
A low carb diet gets most of its calories from fat, which is why people have assumed that these high fat levels must lead to damaging increases in cholesterol. But this is a false conclusion.

Many of the studies that were cited to show that a low carbohydrate diet raised cholesterol levels were done with diets containing levels of carbohydrate of 150 grams a day--which is high enough to raise blood sugar to damaging levels and much higher than the carb levels that you must adopt to control blood sugar.

Several recent long term studies done with a true low carbohydrate diet have shown that when a high fat diet is combined with very low carbohydrate levels, cholesterol generally goes down or stays the same, and triglycerides, which are implicated in heart disease often improve significantly.

To read up on the most recent medical research on the effects of Low Carb diets on health, visit this web page: http://www.lowcarbresearch.org/lcr/lce_results.asp

Furthermore, recent research has shown that the low fat, high carbohydrate diet doctors have been recommending for decades appears to cause liver inflammation. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/463483

Why isn't there More Research on Low Carb Diets?
Almost all medical research in today's world is sponsored by drug companies. Not so coincidentally, this research tends to study the effects of drugs on various diseases. Since people with diabetes consume more expensive drugs than just about any other group in the population, there is very little motivation for drug companies to study non-drug based intervention strategies that might keep people from needing their drugs.

In addition, low carbing was originally advocated by "get thin quick" diet doctors of the type who appear in infomercials. These people are viewed as "snake oil salesmen" by much of the public and have very poor reputations in the medical community. These doctors never submitted well-documented research to peer reviewed journals despite their claims that they had helped "hundreds of thousands" of patients. As a result, few legitimate researchers would associate themselves with low carbing.

It is only in the past few years that this has changed. Studies at Duke University, Ohio State, Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami and Albert Einstein Medical School have been published in the last few years, all reinforcing the once-radical idea that a low carb diet can have major health benefits. You can find these studies at http://www.lowcarbresearch.org/lcr/lce_results.asp

How Does Diabetes Cause Damage?
What really causes the ravages of diabetes appears to be high blood sugar levels--particularly those that occur an hour or two after meals.

What is a Dangerous Blood Sugar Level?
Many practicing doctors still tell patients that any blood sugar level under 200 mg/dl after meals is fine. Unfortunately, when such standards are used by the time most patients are diagnosed with diabetes, they have already suffered significant diabetic complications. Even worse, patients whose blood sugar routinely rises to 200 mg/dl or whose HBa1c tests, a measure of the long term blood sugar level, is above 8% deteriorate over time, continue to develop more and more "diabetic complications." Indeed, these complications occur to patients whose blood sugars are as low as 126 mg/dl for prolonged periods of time and whose HBa1c's are at 6.0--supposedly good measures of control.
What are "Diabetic Complications"?
The term "Diabetic Complications" is a euphemism doctors use to describe the ugly things that happen to people whose blood sugar is out of control. What it really means is "blindness, amputation, and death".

High blood sugars destroy nerves in legs. The first symptoms are tingling and pain, eventually the limbs become numb and fair to heal from small injuries that become infected and eventually turn gangrenous.

High blood sugar levels also destroy vision, which is why people with long standing diabetes often go blind.

High blood sugar is toxic to the filtration units in the kidneys. That's why long term diabetics end up on dialysis.

And if all this isn't bad enough, diabetics suffer heart attacks far more frequently than other people, though the exact mechanism is not completely understood.

To add to the misery, there's mounting evidence that these high levels of glucose are toxic to the beta cells of the pancreas which make the insulin the body uses to bring the high blood sugar levels back down. This ugly feedback loop that means that the higher your blood sugar, the less you are able to bring it down.

Controlling Blood Sugar Prevents Complications
If the previous paragraphs scared you, you can take comfort from the fact, shown by research, that though high blood sugar levels damage your body, lowering those blood sugar levels can prevent or even reverse this damage.

A famous ten year study by the NIH summarized here found that people with type I diabetes could avoid complications by keeping their blood sugar under what they called "good control." If you read the summary you may still come away saying, "But too many of these patients still developed complications despite their good control."

That is true, but there is more good news here! The blood sugar level the NIH study defined as "good control", 8%, was far higher than the level that is now being recommended to people with Type II diabetes. This gives hope that using great control as opposed to good control may prevent far more complications.

How High is Too High
In the past five years it has become clear to those who treat diabetes for a living that blood sugar levels over 120 mg/dl sustained over any significant period of time do this damage. Read the details in this article: Endocrinologists Recommend Lower Diabetes Screening Levels

An interesting piece of research about heart disease published by the American Diabetes Association includes even more data about the blood sugar levels that correspond with very low heart disease risk. Click here to read it.

The Joslin Diabetes Center suggests that a normal blood sugar level will not spike above 140 mg/dl one hour after a meal and 120 mg/dl two hours after a meal. They also say that fasting and pre-meal blood sugar levels should be under 110 mg/dl. click here for a PDF chart containing this data. This is very conservative, but these levels are still much lower than those many doctors suggest to their diabetic patients.

The standard advice given by most doctors now is that the recommended level for the hb1ac test is now 6.5%. (The level defined as "good control" in the NIH study was 8.0%.) However, the level recommended as truly normal by Dr. Richard Bernstein and validated by the American Diabetes Association heart disease study is 4.7%. Dr. Bernstein maintains that truly normal people--not those already well on the way to diabetes who are too often mixed into the statistical groups in these studies--maintain a blood sugar level of 85 mg/dl no matter what they eat or when they test. He recommends that people with diabetes who want to avoid complications shoot for this number. (He is using blood plasma values which is important to note if your meter gives you a choice. They are lower than the "whole blood" levels many meters use.)

But what is significant is that many people with diabetes, once they are given the tools, can and do bring their blood sugars down to these levels, often with nothing more than changes in their diet.

So How Do I bring My Sugar Levels Down?
If you've just been diagnosed with a blood sugar level in the 500s or an hb1ac of 12.0, you may find these figures frightening and depressing. But there's no reason to despair. The good news is that you can lower your blood sugar to these levels within a few weeks or months.


The key is to understand that most of us with diabetes can not handle more than 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrates at one meal without causing our blood sugar to spike too high.

You don't have to take my word for it. Note the number of carbs in a typical meal when you eat it, then use your blood sugar meter to test your blood sugar one and two hours later. Then eat a meal with only 12 grams of carbs way down three hours later and repeat your hourly testing. You should see a significant difference between your readings. If you cut your carbs to 12 grams or less for every meal and snack for a week or two you should start seeing a dramatic lowering of your post meal and fasting blood sugar.

If you need help determining the number of carbs in your meal, download this excellent piece of shareware LifeForm. It's shareware. Or use http://www.fitday.com an online nutrition counting web site.

Medications and Low Carbing
If you are on a medication like Glyburide that forces the pancreas to produce more insulin you need to talk to your doctor if you plan to cut your carbs down very low because without a huge dose of carbs in your system, these drugs can cause harmful hypos.

Drugs like Metformin (Glucophage), Avandia, and Actos, which work on your cell's insulin resistance, should not cause problems if you are low carbing.

Jennifer's Advice to Newbies
New visitors to the alt.support.diabetes newsgroup have long been greeted by a newsgroup regular, Jennifer, with this message which has proven extremely helpful to many. Visit Jennifer's web site to read it yourself: Jennifer's Smart Advice

If you want to learn more about how to test and control your diabetes, Gretchen Becker's book, Type II Diabetes: The First Year is a great place to start as is Richard Bernstein, M.D.'s Doctor Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. Both are available via Amazon. If you want to learn more about low carb dieting, I recommend Protein Power by the Eades. It has excellent scientific explanations and the charts of foods and their carb values is very helpful to the beginner. You do need to read up on the mechanics of how to make a low carb diet work, because there is a lot more to it than can be explained on any single web page.

As you craft your new low carb diet plan, you can find a host of useful information in the alt.support.diet.low-carb newsgroup. Use Google Advanced Groups Search to find information that may have been posted in the past. There are many recipes, tips, tricks, and warnings about the many foods with "hidden carbs" that cause unexpected blood sugar spikes.

EMAIL Jenny - cut the carbs from the address to contact me!

"Anglea Woollcombe" wrote in message . ..
i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here

thanks
angie



  #9  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 01:42 PM
Anglea Woollcombe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

but we need also breakfast ideas, lunches and dinners shouldn't be a
problem. she has to change her breakfast because she has a slice of toast
with cereal in the morning so that is why we need some kind of a basis for a
meal plan
any ideas
angie
"Kristin" wrote in message
...
Dr. Gott in the newspaper claims that if you stop eating everything WHITE

in
your diet, you will be healthy and lose in a good way. Maybe that's
something mom can try? No flour or sugar in any way shape or form.

Yikes,
strict!

--

~Kristin O~
272/242.6/172

Here's our FAQ: http://www.didian.com/asdww/ and welcome notice:
http://www.geocities.com/welcomenotice/index.html



"Anglea Woollcombe" wrote in message
. ..
i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for

info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web

but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here

thanks
angie






  #10  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 01:44 PM
Anglea Woollcombe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default anyone have info on

thank you so much i will defenitly check it out. maybe i can even find some ideas for myself.
thanks again for the info vanessa
angie
ps anything else would be greatfull

"Celtic Gal (Vanessa)" wrote in message ...
Hi Angie,
Jenny has a heap of info on her site.
Just click the link below and then go to "home" and check out all her other pages.
Best of luck finding some good info. P.S. Below is an example of what is on Jenny's site (hope she doesn't mind me copying from her site....) G.
Vanessa :-)

http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/diabetes.htm
Low Carbing to Control Type II Diabetes
A Simple, Cheap Treatment with an Undeserved Bad Reputation
Cutting your carbs, radically, is a controversial but effective strategy that increasing numbers of people with diabetes are using to keep their blood sugar levels within normal ranges without relying on medication.

There's no question it works. Cutting carb intake down to under 60 grams a day will make a radical decrease in the blood sugar levels of almost everyone who can stick with a low carb diet for a couple weeks.

If a Low Carb Diet Controls Diabetes, Why Isn't this Known?
If you mention the topic to friends or even some medical professionals you are likely to hear that low carbing will damage your kidneys, raise your cholesterol and damage your health in every way possible.

Is this true?

For most people the answer is a rousing and reassuring, "No!"

Won't Low Carbing Hurt My Kidneys?
The medical studies that show that high protein damages kidneys were done not only with a high protein, diet but with a high protein, high carbohydrate diet. If you accept Dr. Bernstein's contention that it is the high glucose levels caused by a high carbohydrate diet that damages kidneys (and eyes, and the peripheral vascular system) not the protein itself, you can see why these studies are not relevant to those of us who keep our dietary carbohydrate to extremely low levels.

Furthermore, many low carb diets are not "high protein diets." Think of it this way: if you eat a hamburger on a bun, with ketchup, and a side order of fries while I eat the meat patty, no bun, no fries and a salad with blue cheese dressing, we're eating the same amount of protein. But I'm eating a low carb meal that will not raise my blood sugar, even without medication, while your meal is high enough in carbohydrates that it would drive my blood sugar well over 200 mg/dl. Am I on a "dangerous high protein" diet compared to you? No. Yet the same dieticians who prescribe 75 grams a meal to diabetics would consider the burger and bun to be a healthier diet choice!

Far from destroying kidneys, There's even some anecdotal evidence that very low carb diet may reverse early kidney disease. To read about one woman's experience healing kidney disease with a low carb diet, read this newsgroup posting: Aramanth Dawes' Story

Dr. Richard Bernstein, a physician who has been a type I diabetic since the 1940s also reports reversing his own early diabetic kidney disease and that of many patients through the use of a low carb diet. He explains the science behind how this can happen in his excellent bookDr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. It has just come out in a second, revised edition

Won't a High Fat Diet Raise My Cholesterol?
A low carb diet gets most of its calories from fat, which is why people have assumed that these high fat levels must lead to damaging increases in cholesterol. But this is a false conclusion.

Many of the studies that were cited to show that a low carbohydrate diet raised cholesterol levels were done with diets containing levels of carbohydrate of 150 grams a day--which is high enough to raise blood sugar to damaging levels and much higher than the carb levels that you must adopt to control blood sugar.

Several recent long term studies done with a true low carbohydrate diet have shown that when a high fat diet is combined with very low carbohydrate levels, cholesterol generally goes down or stays the same, and triglycerides, which are implicated in heart disease often improve significantly.

To read up on the most recent medical research on the effects of Low Carb diets on health, visit this web page: http://www.lowcarbresearch.org/lcr/lce_results.asp

Furthermore, recent research has shown that the low fat, high carbohydrate diet doctors have been recommending for decades appears to cause liver inflammation. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/463483

Why isn't there More Research on Low Carb Diets?
Almost all medical research in today's world is sponsored by drug companies. Not so coincidentally, this research tends to study the effects of drugs on various diseases. Since people with diabetes consume more expensive drugs than just about any other group in the population, there is very little motivation for drug companies to study non-drug based intervention strategies that might keep people from needing their drugs.

In addition, low carbing was originally advocated by "get thin quick" diet doctors of the type who appear in infomercials. These people are viewed as "snake oil salesmen" by much of the public and have very poor reputations in the medical community. These doctors never submitted well-documented research to peer reviewed journals despite their claims that they had helped "hundreds of thousands" of patients. As a result, few legitimate researchers would associate themselves with low carbing.

It is only in the past few years that this has changed. Studies at Duke University, Ohio State, Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami and Albert Einstein Medical School have been published in the last few years, all reinforcing the once-radical idea that a low carb diet can have major health benefits. You can find these studies at http://www.lowcarbresearch.org/lcr/lce_results.asp

How Does Diabetes Cause Damage?
What really causes the ravages of diabetes appears to be high blood sugar levels--particularly those that occur an hour or two after meals.

What is a Dangerous Blood Sugar Level?
Many practicing doctors still tell patients that any blood sugar level under 200 mg/dl after meals is fine. Unfortunately, when such standards are used by the time most patients are diagnosed with diabetes, they have already suffered significant diabetic complications. Even worse, patients whose blood sugar routinely rises to 200 mg/dl or whose HBa1c tests, a measure of the long term blood sugar level, is above 8% deteriorate over time, continue to develop more and more "diabetic complications." Indeed, these complications occur to patients whose blood sugars are as low as 126 mg/dl for prolonged periods of time and whose HBa1c's are at 6.0--supposedly good measures of control.
What are "Diabetic Complications"?
The term "Diabetic Complications" is a euphemism doctors use to describe the ugly things that happen to people whose blood sugar is out of control. What it really means is "blindness, amputation, and death".

High blood sugars destroy nerves in legs. The first symptoms are tingling and pain, eventually the limbs become numb and fair to heal from small injuries that become infected and eventually turn gangrenous.

High blood sugar levels also destroy vision, which is why people with long standing diabetes often go blind.

High blood sugar is toxic to the filtration units in the kidneys. That's why long term diabetics end up on dialysis.

And if all this isn't bad enough, diabetics suffer heart attacks far more frequently than other people, though the exact mechanism is not completely understood.

To add to the misery, there's mounting evidence that these high levels of glucose are toxic to the beta cells of the pancreas which make the insulin the body uses to bring the high blood sugar levels back down. This ugly feedback loop that means that the higher your blood sugar, the less you are able to bring it down.

Controlling Blood Sugar Prevents Complications
If the previous paragraphs scared you, you can take comfort from the fact, shown by research, that though high blood sugar levels damage your body, lowering those blood sugar levels can prevent or even reverse this damage.

A famous ten year study by the NIH summarized here found that people with type I diabetes could avoid complications by keeping their blood sugar under what they called "good control." If you read the summary you may still come away saying, "But too many of these patients still developed complications despite their good control."

That is true, but there is more good news here! The blood sugar level the NIH study defined as "good control", 8%, was far higher than the level that is now being recommended to people with Type II diabetes. This gives hope that using great control as opposed to good control may prevent far more complications.

How High is Too High
In the past five years it has become clear to those who treat diabetes for a living that blood sugar levels over 120 mg/dl sustained over any significant period of time do this damage. Read the details in this article: Endocrinologists Recommend Lower Diabetes Screening Levels

An interesting piece of research about heart disease published by the American Diabetes Association includes even more data about the blood sugar levels that correspond with very low heart disease risk. Click here to read it.

The Joslin Diabetes Center suggests that a normal blood sugar level will not spike above 140 mg/dl one hour after a meal and 120 mg/dl two hours after a meal. They also say that fasting and pre-meal blood sugar levels should be under 110 mg/dl. click here for a PDF chart containing this data. This is very conservative, but these levels are still much lower than those many doctors suggest to their diabetic patients.

The standard advice given by most doctors now is that the recommended level for the hb1ac test is now 6.5%. (The level defined as "good control" in the NIH study was 8.0%.) However, the level recommended as truly normal by Dr. Richard Bernstein and validated by the American Diabetes Association heart disease study is 4.7%. Dr. Bernstein maintains that truly normal people--not those already well on the way to diabetes who are too often mixed into the statistical groups in these studies--maintain a blood sugar level of 85 mg/dl no matter what they eat or when they test. He recommends that people with diabetes who want to avoid complications shoot for this number. (He is using blood plasma values which is important to note if your meter gives you a choice. They are lower than the "whole blood" levels many meters use.)

But what is significant is that many people with diabetes, once they are given the tools, can and do bring their blood sugars down to these levels, often with nothing more than changes in their diet.

So How Do I bring My Sugar Levels Down?
If you've just been diagnosed with a blood sugar level in the 500s or an hb1ac of 12.0, you may find these figures frightening and depressing. But there's no reason to despair. The good news is that you can lower your blood sugar to these levels within a few weeks or months.


The key is to understand that most of us with diabetes can not handle more than 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrates at one meal without causing our blood sugar to spike too high.

You don't have to take my word for it. Note the number of carbs in a typical meal when you eat it, then use your blood sugar meter to test your blood sugar one and two hours later. Then eat a meal with only 12 grams of carbs way down three hours later and repeat your hourly testing. You should see a significant difference between your readings. If you cut your carbs to 12 grams or less for every meal and snack for a week or two you should start seeing a dramatic lowering of your post meal and fasting blood sugar.

If you need help determining the number of carbs in your meal, download this excellent piece of shareware LifeForm. It's shareware. Or use http://www.fitday.com an online nutrition counting web site.

Medications and Low Carbing
If you are on a medication like Glyburide that forces the pancreas to produce more insulin you need to talk to your doctor if you plan to cut your carbs down very low because without a huge dose of carbs in your system, these drugs can cause harmful hypos.

Drugs like Metformin (Glucophage), Avandia, and Actos, which work on your cell's insulin resistance, should not cause problems if you are low carbing.

Jennifer's Advice to Newbies
New visitors to the alt.support.diabetes newsgroup have long been greeted by a newsgroup regular, Jennifer, with this message which has proven extremely helpful to many. Visit Jennifer's web site to read it yourself: Jennifer's Smart Advice

If you want to learn more about how to test and control your diabetes, Gretchen Becker's book, Type II Diabetes: The First Year is a great place to start as is Richard Bernstein, M.D.'s Doctor Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. Both are available via Amazon. If you want to learn more about low carb dieting, I recommend Protein Power by the Eades. It has excellent scientific explanations and the charts of foods and their carb values is very helpful to the beginner. You do need to read up on the mechanics of how to make a low carb diet work, because there is a lot more to it than can be explained on any single web page.

As you craft your new low carb diet plan, you can find a host of useful information in the alt.support.diet.low-carb newsgroup. Use Google Advanced Groups Search to find information that may have been posted in the past. There are many recipes, tips, tricks, and warnings about the many foods with "hidden carbs" that cause unexpected blood sugar spikes.

EMAIL Jenny - cut the carbs from the address to contact me!

"Anglea Woollcombe" wrote in message . ..
i am looking for a website that has info on no sugar no flour diet.
it needs to have a diet plan and info about the diet. i am looking for info
for my mother. she wants to start it after the holidays. i tried the web but
couldn't find any good sites. will look there again.
hoping to find something out here

thanks
angie


 




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