Hi, this is Andreas Moritz and I am responding to a question that I receive quite frequently about children who become obese and develop type II diabetes and this is an escalating problem nowadays and I would like to address that.
We now know that diet plays a major role, but that’s not the only role that we find present in obese children or children that become diabetic. One of the major reasons is actually sleep deprivation or in some instances, having too much sleep and/or the wrong type of sleep. Many children, teenage children, they are up many hours during the night and sleep during the day, particularly during vacation time, holiday time, and they find themselves like sleeping until ten o’clock in the morning which I discussed in my book “Timeless Secrets Of Health And Rejuvenation”. it’s very detrimental to a person’s health.
Now research has shown, and that’s done at the children’s hospital of Philadelphia, that too little sleep and too much sleep both contribute to an increase in type II diabetes and what it was found that sleep deprivation basically increases blood sugar levels, suppresses insulin secretion, and once insulin is suppressed in the body, the extra sugar in the blood can then be converted into fat and that contributes to the escalation of obesity among teenagers.
There have been many studies that found, in adults… these are adult studies… that have found the same thing… that adults who become sleep-deprived or who do not sleep at the proper night hours, for example people who work the night shift, have a higher risk of developing type II diabetes. The insulin suppressing effect of lack of sleep, that when we sleep less, the insulin is not secreted in the correct amounts to keep the blood sugar at the right levels, is certainly something that we have in control.
We do have the choice to sleep early, and sleeping early should be before ten o’clock in the evening so that we wake up when the day begins and not much later than that, because the longer we sleep the worse it becomes, because once we sleep past sunrise or at least an hour or later than sunrise, our digestive ability becomes suppressed and our elimination capacity of waste products becomes suppressed, and the body is forced to hold on to urine, fecal matter, and lymph toxins, which then backwash into the system and contaminate our body.
So going to bed early, early to rise, is a very important piece of advice that I can give to teenagers and adults who want to keep the risk of developing type II diabetes and obesity at bay.
There are many studies to show that for every hour of sleep we have lost, or deprived… or being deprived of, the person increases the rate and the blood sugar levels. So this is simple advice, doesn’t cost anything and it’s very effective.
I have seen people lose weight simply by sleeping early before ten o’clock and get up early in the morning at around six o’clock, and they find that they have more energy during the day, the digestive system picks up, it’s far more effective than in a person who is sleep-deprived because when we are tired it’s not just that we feel tired but our digestive system is tired, our liver is tired, our brain and nervous system are tired, the heart becomes tired, because there is far more congestion building up in the body because of the sleep-deprivation that it makes it harder for our system to circulate blood, to circulate lymph, to eliminate waste, and to digest food.
So simple advice, please take it at heart and follow the natural rhythms of life. The circadian rhythm teaches us exactly how to live if we listen to nature, and to the advice that nature gives us simply by showing us how the light changes from light to dark, and when it’s getting dark that we are slowing down, eventually follow our instincts, our feelings, because there is a natural time where we feel tired.
It’s good not to stimulate ourselves with coffee or food so that we actually feel sleepy at the right time and go to sleep at the right time, and then wake up when nature wakes us up, and so they are that very natural cycles, they are called the circadian rhythms, which dictate and control the biological rhythms in our body, which in turn is controlled by hormones and the hormones are regulated by the circadian rhythm such as melatonin and serotonin which integrate with one another.
So when at 9:30 – 10:00 o’ clock, melatonin secretion begins, that is the sleep hormone that allows us to feel sleepy and drowsy, that’s when we should follow that natural instinctive inclination to go to rest and sleep and when the sun comes up, when the light, daylight, shows up, that’s when serotonin begins being secreted both in the brain and in the digestive system which then allows us to wake up, derive energy from the food that we have digested during the previous meals and to then follow our day to day activities.
Simple advice, cheap, inexpensive… everyone can do that or almost everyone can do that, and it’s certainly very precious and it can prevent many, many illnesses such as type II diabetes and obesity-related illnesses such as cancer.
Thank you.
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Evidence is mounting that sugar is the primary factor causing not just obesity, but also many chronic and lethal diseases.
Dr. Robert Lustig, one of the leading experts on childhood obesity, and arguably the number one enemy of the sugar lobby, has published a well written article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature arguing that sugar is a poison.
He believes that the negative health effects of sugar consumption can no longer be ignored, any more than the health effects of tobacco and alcohol could.
According to Dr. Lustig, via the website Diet Doctor:
“The problem with sugar isn’t just weight gain … A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases.
A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”
For the first time in history, “lifestyle” diseases — diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers — are killing more people than communicable diseases. And treating these entirely preventable illnesses costs more than one-seventh of the U.S. GDP. It stands to reason then that simply preventing these diseases could save the US health care system around one trillion dollars a year.
One of the primary, and likely most effective ways of preventing these diseases would be to curb the outrageous over-consumption of sugar.
Dr. Lustig rightfully argues that sugar used to be available to our ancestors only as fruit or honey—and then only for a few months of the year—compared to today, when sugar (primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is added to virtually all processed foods and drinks; even items you normally would not think of as being high in sugar. Tragically, many infant formulas even contain more than 50 percent sugar! “Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy,” Dr. Lustig says.
Fructose is NOT the Same as Glucose
Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth — uses glucose for energy.
Fructose is not the same molecule. Glucose is a 6-member ring, but fructose is a 5-member ring. Sucrose (table sugar) is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose, and HFCS is 42-55 percent fructose.
If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day. Today the average is 73 grams per day which is nearly 500 percent higher a dose and our bodies simply can’t tolerate that type of biochemical abuse. Furthermore, in vegetables and fruits, the fructose is mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all of which help moderate the negative metabolic effects. So it’s not that fructose itself is “poisonous”—it’s the biologically inappropriate doses you’re exposed to that make it hazardous to your health and well-being.
How High Fructose Corn Syrup has Decimated Human Health
We now know, without a doubt, that it’s the excessive sugar content in the modern diet that is taking such a devastating toll on people’s health. According to GreenMedInfo.com, scientific studies have linked fructose to about 78 different diseases and health problems. Select the hyperlinks provided to review how fructose may:
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was invented in Japan in 1966 and introduced to the American market in 1975. Food and beverage manufacturers quickly began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup when they discovered that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) could save them a lot of money. Sucrose costs about three times as much as HFCS. HFCS is also about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar, so you need less to achieve the same amount of sweetness.
In the mid 1970s, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease, giving rise to the “low-fat craze,” which resulted in an explosion of processed nonfat and low fat convenience foods—most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added. Fructose was then added to make all these fat-free products more palatable. Yet as the low-fat craze spread, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity skyrocketed…
Clearly, there was a major flaw in the plan, and it’s not difficult to see that trading fat for sugar is not a wise move.
The problem is that excessive fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most of the diseases listed above. Insulin resistance has even been found to be an underlying factor of cancer.
How Fructose Increases Insulin Secretion and Worsens Your Insulin Sensitivity
Interestingly, recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that fructose can activate taste cells found on your pancreas, a reaction that can increase your body’s secretion of insulin. And, while this is of particular concern for people prone to diabetes, if statistics are any indication, this could include virtually everyone.
At present, one in four Americans already have either pre-diabetes or some form of diabetes, and type 2 diabetes is directly linked to your diet, so anyone on a high-fructose diet can be at risk.
In this study, the researchers were able to demonstrate that fructose activates the same proteins in your pancreatic cells that your tongue uses to taste sweets. And when these cells are exposed to both glucose and fructose, they secrete more insulin than they do when exposed to glucose alone. According to Science News:
“Most sugars join the [metabolic assembly line] at a point where a supervisory enzyme can control the flow of goods. But fructose comes in farther down, where it can lead to an overproduction of fat. And because fructose … doesn’t stimulate the same insulin response that glucose does, the hormone isn’t doing the other regulatory things it usually does, like moderating appetite.”
Limiting Sugar is Also Vital for Longevity
By increasing your insulin and leptin levels (and subsequently decreasing receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones), excessive sugar/fructose consumption not only increases your risk of type 2 diabetes, it also accelerates aging in general. In fact, limiting sugar in your diet is a well-known key to longevity, because of all the molecules capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar molecules are probably the most damaging.
Two years ago, the journal Nutrients published an excellent report on the impact of fructose on aging. Fructose is a particularly potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates advanced glycation end products, commonly known as “AGEs.”
AGEs are a complex group of damaging compounds that form when sugar reacts with amino acids. Besides oxidation, glycation and the subsequent formation of AGEs is one of the major molecular mechanisms causing ongoing damage in your body, which leads to disease, (premature) aging and, eventually, death. According to the authors:
“[T]he data are supportive that endogenous AGEs are associated with declining organ functioning. It appears that dietary AGEs may also be related… As of today, restriction of dietary intake of AGEs and exercise has been shown to safely reduce circulating AGEs, with further reduction in oxidative stress and inflammatory markers.”
In short, if you want to live a long healthy life, you need to restrict your consumption of sugar, particularly fructose. As a standard recommendation to limit glycation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.
Most people would be wise to limit their fructose to 15 grams or less however, especially if you have elevated uric acid levels, which can be used as a predictor for fructose toxicity. This includes keeping track of your fructose intake from whole fruits. To evaluate the fructose content of many common fruits, please see this helpful fructose chart. I recommend this lower level of 15 grams a day simply because if you consume processed foods or sweet beverages at all, you’re virtually guaranteed to consume “hidden” sources of fructose that can have a major impact on your health.
When I have mentioned this in the past many people have strongly disagreed with me as they believe fruit is fine because it is natural. And it may be ok for some people, especially those doing long and intense exercise sessions. However, there is an easy way for you to find out your risk. If your uric acid is above 5.0 would be wise to follow the rule. The higher above 5.0 your uric acid is, the worse your risk for damage. If your uric acid is between 3.5 and 5 you should be fine. I believe I must have a genetic polymorphism for uric acid as mine is always above 5.5 even with intense exercise and less than five grams of fructose a day, so I nearly always avoid fruit.
The authors of that paper offer an in-depth review of the many health hazards of fructose, due to its pro-inflammatory actions:
“Accumulation of AGEs has been found in healthy aging persons, and this accumulation is higher during high glucose concentrations. Microvascular and macrovascular damage, seen in diabetes, is attributed to the accumulation of AGEs in tissues, but it is also associated with atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, end stage renal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, sarcopenia, cataracts, and other degenerative ophthalmic diseases, Parkinson’s disease, vascular dementia and several other chronic diseases. For instance, Bar et al. have demonstrated differential increases of AGEs products in Alzheimer’s dementia and vascular dementia compared to controls. It has also been suggested that AGEs are involved in the loss of bone density and muscular mass associated with aging.”
How to Tame Your Sugar Cravings
If you’re struggling with sugar addiction, I recommend trying an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many “soda addicts” kick their sweet habit. If you still want to use a sweetener occasionally, here’s what I recommend in lieu of sugar:
Use the sweet herb stevia.
Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
Use organic raw honey in moderation.
Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose. Agave syrup has been touted as a healthy alternative by many, but don’t fall for it. It’s a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose, and should therefore be avoided.
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All those doctors and medical experts who have expressed support for handing out statin drugs like candy or adding them to drinking water supplies may want to take a gander at new safety data published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to the agency’s website, the FDA has issued new labeling guidelines for statin drugs warning users that the medications can cause memory loss, elevated blood sugar levels, and type-2 diabetes, in addition to muscle damage and liver disease.
Patients taking Altoprev (lovastatin extended release), Crestor (rosuvastatin), Lescol (fluvastatin), Lipitor (atorvastatin), Livalo (pitavastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin), Pravachol (pravastatin), Zocor (simvastatin), Advicor (lovastatin / niacin extended-release), Simcor (simvastatin / niacin extended-release), and Vytorin (simvastatin / ezetimibe) will want to be aware of these potentially life-altering side effects, which are receiving little attention from the mainstream media.
“The reports about memory loss, forgetfulness and confusion span all statin products and all age groups,” writes the FDA on its website. And concerning diabetes, the FDA writes that “raised blood sugar levels and the development of Type 2 diabetes have been reported with the use of statins.”
Being careful not to offend its Big Pharma overlords, though, the FDA was quick to reassure the public that the new guidelines are not all that serious, and that patients should still keep taking their medications. And yet out of the other side of its bureaucratic mouth, the FDA is basically admitting that statin drugs are high-risk drugs, which most obviously precludes implementing any of the asinine recommendations made in recent months that everyone, including healthy individuals, should take statin drugs.
Back in 20’0, for instance, so-called experts out of Imperial College London openly proclaimed that statin drugs should be handed out to customers at fast food restaurants for free. This recommendation was made, of course, in spite of the fact that statin drugs harm far more people than they supposedly help, and have a long history of causing liver damage, kidney failure, and other serious conditions.
“The number of patients needed to be treated (with statin drugs) to reduce one death in three years is over ’00,” write Kenneth W. Thomas, ‘on Gilbert, and Gerd Schaller in their book Side “ffects: The Hidden Agenda of the Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel. “This means that 99 people take [statins] for several years and get absolutely no benefit.”
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The result of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that statin use in postmenopausal women significantly increases the risk of developing diabetes. In spite of this damning evidence, researchers do not recommend that the American Diabetes Association guidelines for primary and secondary prevention should be changed. Statins account for hundreds of billions in pharmaceutical sales each year, and there is scant evidence they do anything to promote cardiovascular or overall health. In addition to contributing to muscle wasting and metabolic imbalance, this research provides yet another reason to avoid this energy-sapping class of drug. Health-conscious individuals avoid pharmaceuticals at all costs, and there is now compelling research to suggest that everyone should seriously question taking statins to prevent an unnecessary risk of diabetes.
Dr. Annie L. Culver and her team from the Rochester Methodist Hospital, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota analyzed data from the national, multi-year Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) to garner results for this study. Researchers analyzed data to include 153,840 women without diabetes with an average age of 63 years. Statin use was assessed at enrollment and again in year three. At the outset, 7 percent of the women reported taking a statin medication.
Statins shown to dramatically increase diabetes incidence in postmenopausal women
The scientists found 10,242 new cases of diabetes and determined that statin use was positively associated with an increased risk of diabetes. The association remained after adjusting for other potential variables, including age, race or ethnicity and body mass index, and was observed for all types of statins. Dr. Culver noted “The results of this study imply that statin use conveys an increased risk of new-onset DM (diabetes mellitus) in postmenopausal woman.”
A deeper analysis of the data found that diabetes incidence increased in this cohort of postmenopausal women by 71 percent. Amazingly, the result of this study has received no media attention. The scant coverage that has been published fully discounts the additional risk burden and continues to tout the ‘heart-healthy’ benefits of statin use. The real truth is that statins are anti-energy by core means of operation. Any time you reduce the energy function of a cell you reduce the ability of that cell to burn calories as fuel.
Low cellular energy function creates metabolic inefficiency and insulin resistance, with increased fatigue and eventually type 2 diabetes. Statins are a recipe for metabolic disaster, yet millions of unsuspecting women and men continue to blindly swallow these ‘magic pills’ in the belief that they can continue to consume a poor diet and have full immunity against heart disease and a host of other chronic illnesses ascribed to statin use. The evidence is in and it couldn’t be clearer for those individuals with the will to listen and the desire to dramatically lower their risk of becoming diabetic.
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Spending on cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins increased by $160 million in 2010, for a total spending of nearly $19 billion in the U.S., the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics reported in their Use of Medicines in the United States: Review of 2010.
In all, more than 255 million prescriptions were dispensed for these drugs in 2010, making them the most commonly prescribed type of medication in the United States.
Unfortunately, this excessive use is an artifact of a medical system that regards prescribing pills to lower cholesterol as a valid way to protect one’s heart health — even though the low “target” cholesterol levels have not been proven to be healthy … and cholesterol is actually NOT the underlying culprit in heart disease.
Worse still, these drugs, which are clearly not necessary for the vast majority of people who take them, are proven to cause serious and significant side effects, including, as new research shows, definite nerve damage.
Are You Taking Drugs You Don’t Need … and Getting Nerve Damage as a Result?
It must be understood that any time you take a drug there is a risk of side effects.
Oftentimes, these risks are not fully understood, especially when multiple drugs enter the equation, and appear only after a drug has already been taken by millions of people.
Even once a drug has been FDA-approved, you are depending on a limited number of clinical trials to dictate a drug’s safety … but it’s impossible to predict how a drug will react when introduced into your system, in a real-world setting.
Not to mention, the accuracy of medical research is dubious at best.
In many ways, any time you take a drug YOU are the guinea pig, and unforeseen side effects are the rule, rather than the exception. In terms of statin drugs, side effects are already clearly apparent; at GreenMedInfo.com you can see 304 conditions that may be associated with the use of these drugs, and this is likely only the tip of the iceberg. Among one of the more well-known risks is harm to your muscles and peripheral nervous system with long-term use. Indeed, new research on 42 patients confirmed that:
” … long-term treatment with statins caused a clinically silent but still definite damage to peripheral nerves when the treatment lasts longer than 2 years.”
If You Take Statins for Two Years or More, Nerve Damage Appears to be the Rule
What does it mean when you sustain damage to peripheral nerves? As reported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS):
“Symptoms are related to the type of affected nerve and may be seen over a period of days, weeks, or years. Muscle weakness is the most common symptom of motor nerve damage. Other symptoms may include painful cramps and fasciculations (uncontrolled muscle twitching visible under the skin), muscle loss, bone degeneration, and changes in the skin, hair, and nails.”
At GreenMedInfo.com you can see 88 studies on statin-induced neurotoxicity (nerve damage), with 12 studies further statin drugs directly to neuropathy, including chronic peripheral neuropathy. As explained by NINDS:
“Peripheral neuropathy describes damage to the peripheral nervous system, the vast communications network that transmits information from the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system) to every other part of the body. Peripheral nerves also send sensory information back to the brain and spinal cord, such as a message that the feet are cold or a finger is burned. Damage to the peripheral nervous system interferes with these vital connections. Like static on a telephone line, peripheral neuropathy distorts and sometimes interrupts messages between the brain and the rest of the body.
Because every peripheral nerve has a highly specialized function in a specific part of the body, a wide array of symptoms can occur when nerves are damaged.
Some people may experience temporary numbness, tingling, and pricking sensations (paresthesia), sensitivity to touch, or muscle weakness. Others may suffer more extreme symptoms, including burning pain (especially at night), muscle wasting, paralysis, or organ or gland dysfunction. People may become unable to digest food easily, maintain safe levels of blood pressure, sweat normally, or experience normal sexual function. In the most extreme cases, breathing may become difficult or organ failure may occur.
Some forms of neuropathy involve damage to only one nerve and are called mononeuropathies. More often though, multiple nerves affecting all limbs are affected-called polyneuropathy.”
One of the more disturbing implications of this finding is that since statins damage the peripheral nerves, it is also highly likely that they damage the central nervous system (which includes the brain), as well. One study published in the journal Pharmacology in 2009, found statin-induced cognitive impairment to be a common occurrence, with 90% reporting improvement after drug discontinuation. There are, in fact, at least 12 studies linking memory problems with statin drug use in the biomedical literature, indicating just how widespread and serious a side effect statin-induced neurological damage really is.
Lower Your Cholesterol and Increase Your Diabetes Risk by Nearly 50%
As mentioned, neurological damage is only one potential risk of statins. They are also being increasingly associated with increased risk of developing diabetes.
Most recently, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine revealed statins increase the risk of diabetes for postmenopausal women by 48 percent! Statins appear to provoke diabetes through a few different mechanisms, the primary one being by increasing your insulin levels, which can be extremely harmful to your health. Chronically elevated insulin levels cause inflammation in your body, which is the hallmark of most chronic disease. In fact, elevated insulin levels lead to heart disease, which, ironically, prevention of is the primary reason for taking a statin drug in the first place!
As written on GreenMedInfo:
“The profound irony here is that most of the morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes is due to cardiovascular complications. High blood sugar and its oxidation (glycation) contribute to damage to the blood vessels, particularly the arteries, resulting in endothelial dysfunction and associated neuropathies due to lack of blood flow to the nerves. Statin drugs, which are purported to reduce cardiovascular disease risk through lipid suppression, insofar as they contribute to insulin resistance, elevated blood sugar, and full-blown diabetes, are not only diabetogenic but cardiotoxic, as well.”
A separate meta-analysis has also confirmed that statin drugs are indeed associated with increased risk of developing diabetes. The researchers evaluated five different clinical trials that together examined more than 32,000 people. They found that the higher the dosage of statin drugs being taken, the greater the diabetes risk. The “number needed to harm” for intensive-dose statin therapy was 498 for new-onset diabetes — that’s the number of people who need to take the drug in order for one person to develop diabetes.
In even simpler terms, one out of every 498 people who are on a high-dose statin regimen will develop diabetes. (The lower the “number needed to harm,” the greater the risk factor is. As a side note, the “number needed to treat” per year for intensive-dose statins was 155 for cardiovascular events. This means that 155 people have to take the drug in order to prevent one person from having a cardiovascular event.)
The following scientific reviews also reached the conclusion that statin use is associated with increased incidence of new-onset diabetes:
A 2010 meta-analysis of 13 statin trials, consisting of 91,140 participants, found that statin therapy was associated with a 9 percent increased risk for incident diabetes. Here, the number needed to harm was 255 over four years, meaning for every 255 people on the drug, one developed diabetes as a result of the drug in that period of time.
In a 2009 study, statin use was associated with a rise of fasting plasma glucose in patients with and without diabetes, independently of other factors such as age, and use of aspirin or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. The study included data from more than 345,400 patients over a period of two years. On average, statins increased fasting plasma glucose in non-diabetic statin users by 7 mg/dL, and in diabetics, statins increased glucose levels by 39 mg/dL.
Side Effects Often Don’t Show Up Immediately …
Often times statins do not have any immediate side effects, and they are quite effective at lowering cholesterol levels by 50 points or more. This makes it appear as though they’re benefiting your health, and health problems that develop later on are frequently misinterpreted as brand new, separate health problems.
Again, the vast majority of people do not need statin drugs, and if you are one of them, taking them is only going to expose you to serious, unnecessary risks!
If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, please be aware that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher. HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:
HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: Should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.
Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.
To understand why most people don’t need a statin drug, you first need to realize that cholesterol is NOT the cause of heart disease. Your body NEEDS cholesterol — it is important in the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function. For more information about cholesterol, and why conventional advice to reduce your cholesterol to ridiculously low levels is foolhardy, please listen to this interview with Dr. Stephanie Seneff.
Urgent Information: If You Take Statins You Need CoQ10
It’s extremely important to understand that taking a statin drug without also taking CoQ10 puts your health in serious jeopardy. Unfortunately, this describes the majority of people who take them in the United States.
CoQ10 is a cofactor (co-enzyme) that is essential for the creation of ATP molecules, primarily in your mitochondria, which you need for cellular energy production. Organs such as your heart have higher energy requirements, and therefore require more CoQ10 to function properly (cardiac muscle cells have up to 200 times more mitochondria, and hence 200 times higher CoQ10 requirements, than skeletal muscle). Statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which can have devastating results.
As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure. Interestingly, heart failure, not heart attacks, is now the leading cause of death due to cardiovascular diseases. Coenzyme Q10 is also very important in the process of neutralizing free radicals. So when your CoQ10 is depleted, you enter a vicious cycle of increased free radicals, loss of cellular energy, and damaged mitochondrial DNA.
If you decide to take a CoQ10 supplement and are over the age of 40, it’s important to choose the “reduced” version, called ubiquinol. The reduced form is electron-rich and therefore can donate electrons to quench free radicals, i.e. function as an antioxidant, and is much more absorbable, as nutrients must donate electrons in order to pass through membrane of cells. In other words, ubiquinol is a FAR more effective form — I personally take 200 mg a day since it has such far-ranging benefits, including compelling studies suggesting improvement in lifespan.
How to Optimize (Not Necessarily Lower) Your Cholesterol Without Drugs
Seventy-five percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol! By modifying your diet and lifestyle in the following ways, you can safely modify your cholesterol without risking your health by taking statin drugs:
Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet, replacing them with mostly whole, fresh vegetable carbs. Also try to consume a good portion of your food raw.
The average American consumes 50% of their diet as carbs. Most would benefit by lowering their carb intake to 25% and replacing those carbs with high quality fats.
Make sure you are getting enough high quality, animal-based omega 3 fats, such as krill oil.
Other heart-healthy foods include olive oil, palm and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats, as described in my nutrition plan.
Exercise daily.
Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.
The goal of the tips above is not to necessarily lower your cholesterol as low as it can go; the goal is to optimize your levels so they’re working in the proper balance with your body.
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A new study confirms a dangerous statin drug side effect: diabetes. Researchers at Harvard Medical School report women over the age of 45 are much more likely to develop diabetes if they’re taking a statin drug.
The study followed more than 153,000 postmenopausal women who enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative study in the 1990s. At the time they enrolled, none of these women had diabetes. Researchers followed up with the women in 2005, and found that nearly 10 percent of women taking statins developed diabetes, compared to only 6.4 percent in women who did not take statin drugs.
Some experts are calling this a “slight” or “modest” increase. However, crunching the numbers reveals a different result: this is a whopping 50 percent increase in the risk for developing diabetes! Because statin drugs are the darling of the medical community, this risk is being played down. But with millions of Americans taking statin drugs, a 50 percent increase really adds up.
This is hardly the first study to turn up the link between statins and diabetes. In fact, there have been several studies demonstrating the same results. For instance, statins were also shown to increase diabetes risk in a randomized controlled study in 2008. More reports about the connection between diabetes and statin drugs were published in The Lancet in 2010 and yet again in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2011.
Although statins are supposed to be helping our hearts, they may be doing just the opposite. The link between diabetes and heart disease is frighteningly strong. The official website for the American Heart Association says, “Adults with diabetes are two to four times more likely to have heart disease or a stroke than adults without diabetes.”
Statins: The scourge of modern medicine?
Unfortunately, diabetes isn’t the only serious health problem connected with statins. These drugs have previously been linked to liver damage, kidney failure and cataracts. Statins are also associated with memory loss and depression. It’s time to start taking these risks seriously and stop glorifying the use of statin drugs.
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Fatty liver disease used to be associated with alcoholism, but it is no longer restricted to heavy drinkers. Our calorie-rich but nutrient-poor diet has led to an epidemic of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that tracks our rising obesity and diabetes rates. Autopsies and ultrasound studies have shown that up to 75% of the obese and 70-85% of type 2 diabetics have fatty livers. And the low-profile but essential nutrient choline appears to provide the solution to the problem.
What is NAFLD?
NAFLD develops in two stages. In the first stage fat accumulates in the liver. This fat can come from several sources: free fatty acids released into the blood by fat tissue, lipogenesis in the liver from carbohydrates (especially fructose from HFCS or table sugar), and dietary fats carried to the liver by chylomicron remnants. Fatty liver disease is a silent epidemic because its first stage, fat accumulation, generally doesn’t produce overt symptoms.
Unfortunately, the accumulated fat can be damaged by reactive oxygen species, especially if there is a lack of fat-soluble antioxidants and an excess of polyunsaturated fatty acids vulnerable to lipid peroxidation. Oxidative stress leads to the second stage, an inflammatory response that is made worse by our dietary omega-6 / omega-3 imbalance. The end result of the second stage is scarring and potential liver failure or cancer.
The role of choline in NAFLD
A healthy liver prevents the accumulation of fat and its associated complications by packaging excess triglycerides in very low density lipoproteins (VLDLs) and releasing them into the blood stream. Making VLDL particles requires phosphatidylcholine (lecithin), a choline-containing phospholipid. A shortage of choline prevents the liver from making VLDLs and delivering its fat stores to the appropriate tissues.
Phosphatidylcholine can be made from the precursor phosphatidylethanolamine; choline is simply ethanolamine with three methyl groups at the nitrogen atom. But ethanolamine has to come from the diet as well, and its conversion to choline additionally requires the amino acid methionine, a methyl group donor. For this reason increasing methionine consumption also improves fatty liver disease.
Organic liver, eggs and wheat germ would be the best dietary sources of choline. But liver does not play a significant role in the North American diet, and egg consumption has decreased because of our cholesterol phobia. Not surprisingly then, nutrition surveys show that most Americans consume far less choline than the recommended Adequate Intakes, 425 mg/day for women and 550 mg/day for men.
Choline doesn’t just help prevent NAFLD; it is also needed for neurotransmitter synthesis, cell membrane signaling and methyl group metabolism. Choline deficiency is therefore a major health hazard. We need to increase consumption of this important nutrient, but judging by the obesity and diabetes trends, society isn’t getting any closer to a healthy diet. Supplementation with lecithin is an effective and affordable way to get enough choline.
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One of the worst things you can do to disrupt your body clock is engage in regular night shift work.
However, one-fifth of the work force endures a night shift at least occasionally, and research is now suggesting that this could be one of the culprits behind rising rates of type 2 diabetes.
I realize many people may not be able to avoid night shifts once they’ve chosen certain professions, but it is vital to understand that when you regularly shift your sleep patterns, you are in fact seriously compromising your health and longevity—in more ways than one.
Working the Night Shift May Increase Your Diabetes Risk Nearly 60 Percent
In a study of nurses, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health revealed that a woman’s risk of type 2 diabetes rises according to how many years of night-shift work she has completed.
Even working a night shift periodically for three years increased diabetes risk by 20 percent, and this increased with time.
Researchers wrote in PLoS Medicine:
“The increase in type 2 diabetes risk associated with night shift work ranged from 5% in nurses who’d worked that schedule for one or two years to 58% in those who’d done so for at least 20 years.”
As you probably know, the physiological functions of virtually all organisms are governed by 24-hour circadian rhythms. When your circadian rhythm—which acts like a built-in time-tracking system—is disrupted by late-night artificial light exposure it can have a profound influence on your physical and mental health and well-being.
For starters, your circadian rhythm impacts your body’s release of metabolic hormones that regulate satiety and hunger. For example, when you are sleep deprived, your body decreases production of leptin, the hormone that tells your brain there is no need for more food. At the same time it increases levels of ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger. This can actually make you gain weight, which raises your diabetes risk.
Further, irregular sleep-wake cycles can also interfere with your body’s blood-sugar metabolism, leading to insulin resistance and increased blood-sugar levels, both of which are linked to diabetes.
As researchers explained:
“The increased risk of type 2 diabetes associated with rotating night shift work is also consistent with previously reported positive associations of rotating shift work with obesity and/or weight gain, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease.
There are several potential mechanisms underlying this association. First, a wide range of biological processes are regulated by the circadian rhythms, including sleep-wake cycles, body temperature, energy metabolism, cell cycle, and hormone secretion. Rotating night shift work is generally associated with chronic misalignment between the endogenous circadian timing system and the behavior cycles.
This circadian misalignment has been found to result in adverse metabolic and cardiovascular consequences, including a decrease in leptin, an increase in glucose and insulin, an increase in mean arterial blood pressure, and reduced sleep efficiency.”
Past research has also suggested that disruption of your circadian rhythm could also contribute to diabetes by impairing your pancreas’ ability to deliver insulin.
Your Body is Hard-Wired to Sleep at Night
Human beings have naturally been sleeping during the nighttime for eons, and as a result your inner timekeeper is extremely sensitive to, and actually is controlled by, exposure to light and darkness.
One main role of your brain’s pineal gland is to produce melatonin, the natural sleep hormone that plays a vital role in your normal sleep function. Normally, your brain produces melatonin in a daily rhythm that peaks at night, around 9 or 10 p.m. This makes you sleepy, and it is these regularly occurring secretions that help regulate your sleep cycle.
However, if there is even the tiniest bit of light in your room it can disrupt your circadian rhythm and your pineal gland’s production of melatonin. If you’re awake at night when your body expects you to be sleeping, your body may produce less melatonin.
Melatonin is an antioxidant that helps to suppress harmful free radicals in your body and slows the production of estrogen, which can activate cancer. When your circadian rhythm is disrupted, you therefore may have insufficient melatonin production, which can set you up for:
If you are interested in finding more information on this subject, I highly suggest reading Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival by T. S. Wiley and Bent Formby. The authors believe it is the disruption of normal cycles of light exposure, not what we eat or whether we exercise, that is the primary cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. I think there are many other factors contributing to these health problems as well, but impaired sleep is certainly a large contributor.
Tips for Quality Sleep if You Work the Night Shift
If you currently work nights, I would strongly suggest trying to switch your hours, or at the very least restrict your night shift duty to a couple months at a time. This will at least give your body a chance to readjust in between.
If it is not possible for you to avoid working the night shift, you can somewhat counter the health effects by keeping to a schedule. By being consistent, your body’s clock will eventually adjust to your sleep/wake cycle, and this is LESS damaging than if you constantly change shifts and expect your body clock to adjust.
Next, although day sleeping makes it much more challenging to create a dark environment, it is essential that you make your bedroom pitch-black, even if you’re sleeping at noon, as exposure to light squelches the production of melatonin. Even the dim glow from your clock radio could be interfering with your ability to sleep — and more importantly, your long-term health and risk of developing cancer or other health problems.
To get your room as dark as possible while you’re sleeping, consider taking the following actions:
Install blackout drapes
Close your bedroom door if light comes through it; if light seeps in underneath your door, put a towel along the base
Get rid of your electric clock radio (or at least block it’s light while you’re sleeping)
Avoid night lights of any kind
Keep all light sources off (even if you get up to go to the bathroom) — and this includes your computer and TV
A Healthy Sleep Routine is Essential for All
Whether you sleep in the daytime or at night, a bedtime routine can help you wind down and prepare for sleep. You should avoid watching TV or using electronics for about an hour prior to going to bed, as it is too stimulating to your brain, making it more difficult to “shut down” and fall asleep.
Instead, try spending this wind-down time doing something that soothes and relaxes your mind. You may want to spend time journaling, meditating, sipping herbal tea, washing your face, or reading a calming or spiritual book.
You can find my comprehensive recommendations and guidelines to help improve your sleep in my article 33 Secrets to a Good Night’s Sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping, this is the place to look to get your sleep back on track. Here are five tips from the article to get you started:
Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes and particularly their upstairs bedrooms too warm. Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is quite cool, between 60 to 68 degrees. Keeping your room cooler or hotter can lead to restless sleep. When you sleep, your body’s internal temperature drops to its lowest level, generally about four hours after you fall asleep. Scientists believe a cooler bedroom may therefore be most conducive to sleep, since it mimics your body’s natural temperature drop.
Check your bedroom for electro-magnetic fields (EMFs). These can disrupt the pineal gland and the production of melatonin and serotonin, and may have other negative effects as well. To do this, you need a gauss meter. You can find various models online, starting around $50 to $200. Some experts even recommend pulling your circuit breaker before bed to kill all power in your house, or at least shutting off the fuses in your bedroom.
Move alarm clocks and other electrical devices away from your bed. If these devices must be used, keep them as far away from your bed as possible, preferably at least 3 feet. Remove the clock from view. It will only add to your worry when you stare at it all night… 2 a.m. …3 a.m. … 4:30 a.m.
Avoid using loud alarm clocks. It is very stressful on your body to be suddenly jolted awake. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, an alarm may even be unnecessary. I gave up my alarm clock years ago and now use a sun alarm clock, which has a special built-in light that gradually increases in intensity, simulating a natural sunrise. It also includes a sunset feature where the light fades to darkness over time, which is ideal for anyone who has trouble falling asleep or if you work the night shift and want to simulate a sunset during the day.
Reserve your bed for sleeping, and consider separate bedrooms. If you are used to watching TV or doing work in bed, you may find it harder to relax and drift off to sleep, so avoid doing these activities in bed. Recent studies also suggest that, for many people, sharing a bed with a partner (or kids, pets) can significantly impair sleep, especially if the partner is a restless sleeper or snores. If bedfellows are consistently interfering with your sleep, you may want to consider a separate bedroom.
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What makes cola the developed world’s most popular drink? Wily marketing (some would say big fat lies), for sure. It’s ironic that intoxicating and addictive marketing could contribute to two of America’s most worrying epidemics – obesity and diabetes.
If health experts and doctors could label the contents in a bottle of cola, this is how it would read: Pesticides; carcinogenic preservatives (sodium benzoate); toxic flavor enhancers (MSG); toxic artificial sweeteners in ‘diet beverages’ (aspartame); ladles of sugar in regular beverages (sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup); a neurotoxin (caffeine); unnatural synthetic vitamins in ‘healthful’ products; and scores of class-action lawsuits.
But why do colas make us put on weight? The answer lies in four innocuous-sounding words: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Present in most soft drinks and processed foods, HFCS is a refined sugar that has one sole purpose: sweetening a product.
While doing so, it adds plenty of empty calories to our bodies (calories that have zero nutrition, unlike natural sugar) and makes you put on weight.
HFCS, the most popular synthetic sweetener and sugar substitute in the US, is made from corn. It is made by using genetically modified enzymes to convert corn starch into glucose, which is then converted into fructose.
It is no secret that HFCS is directly linked to weight gain. Experts also say it is the single-most significant factor contributing to America’s obesity ‘epidemic’. But how exactly does HFCS make you fat? This sweetener piles on the calories, which are directly converted into fat. It also raises the triglyceride levels in the bloodstream.
But there is something more diabolical at work. HFCS fails to trigger the satiety response that kicks in when you eat other foods. Instead, it tricks your brain into believing that the body needs to eat more. In contrast, when you eat carbohydrates that are converted into glucose, the pancreas releases insulin to metabolize the glucose. You also feel full and stop eating.
But when you drink a can of cola, the HFCS does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. It also fails to raise the levels leptin, a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells. When leptin is released into the bloodstream, it acts on the hypothalamus (which regulates energy metabolism) to generate the satiety response. This signals the brain that you have ingested sufficient calories and need to stop eating. HFCS also does not lower levels of ghrelin, a growth hormone that also increases hunger and appetite.
Drinking colas therefore throws your metabolism out of gear and fails to trigger the signals that turn off appetite and control body weight. You therefore tend to crave colas and drink more and more of the deliciously deceptive sweet stuff.
Interestingly, processed food and beverage companies began to replace liquid cane sugar with HCFS in their products in the 1970s, at the same time when America’s obesity problem began to balloon. Researchers say this is no coincidence.
Corn is one of America’s three main crops (corn, cotton and soya) and promoting HFCS kept the farm lobby happy. Statistics indicate that between 1970 and 2000 (average annual consumption of HFCS was 73.5 pounds per person), obesity figures in the US went from 15 percent to engulfing one-third of the population.
Remember, cola, which contains 8-10 teaspoons of sugar or 130-150 calories, is just one of the many sources of refined sugar we ingest. Total the sugar intake of the average American, including refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, and the shocking intake is 142 pounds a year, or roughly 2.5 pounds per week, according to a report by CBS Broadcasting in June 2007. This figure has risen 23 percent in the last 25 years and is a major cause of soaring rates of obesity and diabetes.
The good news is that HFCS is not harmful in itself. This means it does not produce permanent changes in body chemistry, should you halt its intake in time. Hence, should you kick the cola habit, the food cravings it tends to fuel will diminish.
The bad news is that even if you kick the cola habit, HFCS is hard to avoid because it is used in most processed foods. It is cheap, it blends easily with other ingredients, it extends shelf life, it prevents freezer burn, and it keeps bread soft. It is used in ketchup and even low-fat yoghurt!
Over 40,000 different food items now occupy the shelves of modern grocery stores and 98 percent of them have nothing to do with what nature intended us to eat. Our digestive system has no way to make use of foods robbed of their natural, intrinsic life energy or manipulated and processed to the point of uselessness, regardless of the wonderful ingredients listed on their product labels.
If foods are made in a laboratory, as most of them are, you can no longer consider them food. Instead, they have turned into poison. And poisoning our systems starts early in life, when we are children.
Children make up a large proportion of the sugar-consuming population. And childhood obesity figures are equally alarming. Obesity among children aged 12 to 19 went up from 4.2 percent in 1970 to 15.3 percent in 2000 (when consumption of HFCS increased).
Add to this the increasingly sedentary lifestyles among children and it paints an even unhealthier picture. Children spend an average five to six hours a day on sedentary activities, including watching television, using the computer, and playing video games. Today’s children are bombarded and brainwashed with well-crafted TV ads from fast-food chains and other purveyors of high-fat, high-sugar meals and snacks. And being untruthful to lure young addicts is a tactic major cola companies have been accused of time and again.
The bitter truth is that colas, by their very definition, contain significant amounts of preservatives, caffeine, and refined sugar, among other ingredients.
A California study, whose results were released in September 2009, concluded that drinking one or more colas a day increases your chances of obesity by 27 percent. The study also found a stunning 62 percent of adults who drink at least one cola each day are either overweight or obese.
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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
In the 1930s, physicians considered many of our degenerative diseases to be due to a failure of our endocrine system known as insulin resistant diabetes. The severe derangement of the body’s blood sugar control system was understood to be the basic underlying disorder that could manifest itself as nearly any kind of illness. Although there are other reasons for bringing about such a basic imbalance, badly engineered fats and oils are among the most influential ones. Although these fats and oils may be delicious to the taste buds, they act like poison in the body. Their destructive effects lead to severe nutritional deficiencies that prevent the body from coping with the metabolic consequences created by these poisons.
In recent years, there has been a lot of publicity about good fats and bad fats. Although some food manufacturers now claim to be able to keep bad fats out of their products, there are still thousands of common foods that contain them. The fats and oils industry still wants us to believe that the saturated fats are the bad ones, and the unsaturated fats are the good ones. This is blatantly false information. There are many highly beneficial saturated fats and just as many unhealthy unsaturated fats on the market. The only distinction that should be made when judging the value of fats is whether they are left in their natural form or are engineered. You cannot trust advertisements by the fats and oils industry that praise the amazing benefits of their unique flavorful spreads or low-cholesterol cooking fats. Their smart ad campaigns reflect zero interest in promoting your health; they are solely intended to create a market for cheap junk oils such as soy, cottonseed and rapeseed oil.
Until the early 1930s, manufactured food products were very unpopular and mostly rejected by the population because of their suspicion of them being of poor quality and not being fresh enough to be safe for consumption. The use of automated factory machinery to mass produce foods for immense potential profits was at first bitterly opposed by local farmers. Nevertheless, eventually, this resistance broke and gave way to an increasing interest in the ‘new’ foods that no one had ever seen before. When margarine and other refined, hydrogenated products were introduced into the US food markets, the dairy industry was vehemently opposed to it, but the women found it to be more practical than the lard they had been using. Due to the shortage of dairy products during WW II, margarine became a common food among the civilian population, and the commonly used coconut oils, flax oils and fish oils disappeared from the shelves of America’s grocery stores.
The campaign by the emerging food industry against natural oils and genuinely beneficial fats such as the very popular coconut oil became fueled by massive media disinformation campaigns that blamed saturated fats for the wave of heart attacks that suddenly started to grip a large portion of the American population. For 30 or more years, coconut oil was nowhere to be found in grocery stores and has only recently re-emerged in health food stores. Coconut oil and other healthful oils were practically replaced by cheap junk oils, including soy oil, cottonseed oil and rapeseed oil. While coconut fat was still the popular choice, its powerful weight-controlling effects helped prevent an obesity epidemic among the general population. Since eliminating it from the American diet, obesity has become the leading cause of illness in this country and the rest of the world.
If you are suffering from either type diabetes and wish to permanently restore your body’s natural sugar-regulating mechanisms, for a certain period of time you will need to strictly avoid all artificially produced fats and oils, including those that are found in processed foods, restaurant foods, fast foods and are sold as ‘healthy’ foods in grocery stores.
One of the most harmful oils is the genetically engineered Canola oil made from rapeseeds. Rapeseeds are not suitable for human consumption. Produced in Canada (hence the name ‘can-ola’) this renamed, refined rapeseed oil found a huge and instant market in the U.S. during the height of the cholesterol mania (still going on). It is cheap and, therefore, widely used by restaurants and people on a low food budget. The reason for its huge popularity is that it contains very little cholesterol (which can work against the body, for eating low cholesterol foods can dramatically increase cholesterol production in the liver). One of the main problems with this oil is that it should not be heated; yet heating it is a standard practice in the production process, or in restaurants and households. According to a January 26, 1998 Omega Nutrition press release, “heating distorts the omega-3 essential fatty acid found in Canola, turning it into an unnatural trans form that raises total cholesterol levels and lowers HDL [good] cholesterol.”
Japanese researchers found that the life spans of rats fed diets rich in Canola oil were 40% shorter. Experimental rats that were fed Canola oil “developed fatty degeneration of the heart, kidney, adrenals, and thyroid gland.” Canadian federal scientists have spent several years and a lot of money to alleviate fears linking Canola consumption to hypertension and stroke. The Health Ministry in Canada insists that although their tests match the Japanese data, Canola poses no risks to humans. Yet Canola oil consumption has been correlated with development of fibrotic lesions of the heart, lung cancer, prostate cancer, anemia, and constipation. The long-chain fatty acids found in Canola have been found to destroy the sphingomyelin surrounding nerve cells in the brain. Other illnesses and conditions that have been associated with Canola oil consumption include loss of vision and a wide range of neurological disorders.
How can this government be so reassuring when Canola oil has been around for a short number of years and long-term effects may not develop before 3-5 years? Is it not also strange that the FDA allowed the Canola industry to avoid the lengthy and expensive approval process, including medical research on humans? Given the alarming reactions that rats have to Canola oil, could it at least be possible that a certain percentage of heart attack and stroke victims are actually due to regular consumption of Canola oil? Since Canola oil is contained in the majority of manufactured foods, baked goods, frozen foods and restaurant foods, is it any wonder why people are falling ill everywhere, at a rate that is absolutely stunning and unprecedented?
So what do refined and manufactured oils and fats actually do to the body? For one thing, they can cause severe gastrointestinal disturbances. The number of people in the U.S. suffering from acid reflux disease, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, constipation, colon cancer, etc., exceeds the number of all other diseases taken together. Deep fried foods and other fast foods have become the popular choice of young people, aged 3-30. An ever-increasing number of them develop diabetes.
The high temperatures used in Canola refining and margarine production will damage many of the essential fatty acids, which are much more susceptible to damage by heat than saturated fats. Heat is known to convert many of the unsaturated double bonds to the ‘trans fatty acid’ configuration. Although high-quality essential fatty acids as contained in some of these engineered foods are required for human health, in their damaged or rancid forms they become harmful. In fact, they may trigger powerful immune responses that may lead to autoimmune diseases, such as type I diabetes. The ‘auto-immune’ part of the disease is however just a normal reaction of the immune system to the presence of these poisons that have attached themselves to cell membranes.
In order for cells to be healthy and functional, their plasma cell membrane, now known to be an active player in the glucose scenario, needs to contain a complement of cis type w=3 unsaturated fatty acids. This makes the cell membranes slippery and fluid, thereby permitting glucose molecules to be able to pass through them and enter the cell interior for energy generation. This maintains balanced blood sugar levels. By regularly eating fats and oils that are heat-treated (versus natural cold pressed oils and untreated fats) the cell membranes begin to lose their healthy fatty acids and replace them with harmful trans-fatty acids and short and medium chain saturated fatty acids. As a result, the cell membranes become thicker, stiffer, sticky and inhibit the glucose transport mechanism, resulting in blood sugar rising.
The rest of the body suffers serious consequences of the clogging up of the cell membranes. The pancreas starts pumping out excessive amounts of insulin. The liver starts to convert some of the excess sugar into fat, stored by adipose cells. To get rid of the rest of the sugar, the urinary system goes into overdrive. The body goes into exhaustion due to the lack of cellular energy. The adrenals respond by pumping extra amounts of stress hormones into the blood, creating mood swings, anxiety and depression. The endocrine glands malfunction. Overtaxed by the constant demand for extra insulin, the pancreas fails to produce enough. Body weight may increase a little more each day. The heart and lungs become congested and fail to deliver vital oxygen to all the cells in the body, including the brain.
Each organ and system in the body is affected by this simple dietary mistake. All this and more is what we know as diabetes, an acquired illness that can easily be avoided and even reversed by eating a natural diet consisting of natural, fresh foods that nature so generously provides for us. The idea that we can create better foods than nature does is a fallacy that has turned into a weapon of mass destruction.
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This is an excerpt from my book DIABETES – NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
When sugar becomes trapped and begins to increase in the blood stream, eating sugar at this point can be life-threatening. Not having enough glucose reaching the cells and organs of the body can also be fatal. If the heart cells run out of glucose, heart failure occurs. If the kidney cells run out of glucose, kidney failure occurs. If the eyes don’t get their glucose, eyesight will fail. The same applies to a sugar-starved liver, pancreas, stomach, brain, muscle, and even bone cells. By not receiving enough glucose, the body begins craving food, especially sugars, sweets, starchy foods, sweet beverages, etc., which leads to overeating and further congestion, and possibly heart congestion or cancer.
Because type II diabetes affects the health of every single one of the 60 trillion cells in the body, diabetics are predisposed to developing virtually every type of disorder there is. This has been denied by medical science for many years, but has recently been verified through major medical research. The majority of the chronic disorders plaguing our modern world today, including heart disease, cancer, arthritis, MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc., may in actual fact not be separate diseases at all. While sharing the same cause or causes, they manifest themselves in different parts of the body as unique symptoms of disease. There will come a time when the practicing physician will recognize that diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and dementia, for example, share the same underlying causes, and therefore require the same treatment.
At the beginning stages of type II diabetes, the pancreas tries to respond to the increasing congestion of the blood vessel walls (with excessive proteins) and, possibly, to an excessive sugar or starch consumption, by secreting extra large amounts of insulin. By constantly producing disproportionate amounts of insulin, the cells become even further resistant to insulin. By blocking out insulin (along with vital nutrients) the cells try protecting themselves against the cell-damaging effects of too much insulin, or otherwise they would have to face cell mutation. Eventually, though, through intricate hormonal feedback mechanisms and enzyme signals, the pancreas recognizes both the increase in blood sugar levels and the shortage of cellular sugar, proteins and fatty acids. So the pancreas begins to deactivate, destroy or ‘put to sleep’ a large number of its insulin-producing cells. This practically sets the stage for non-insulin dependent diabetes to become insulin-dependent diabetes.
There are a number of other reasons that may lead to reduced insulin output by the pancreas. When the basal membranes of blood capillaries supplying the pancreas with nutrients become congested with protein fiber, insulin production and other important functions, such as production of digestive enzymes, become suppressed. The same occurs when stones in the bile ducts of the liver and gallbladder drastically reduce bile secretion. In an increasing number of individuals, bile sludge consisting of small cholesterol stones enters the common bile duct and gets caught up in the Ampulla of Vater (where the common bile duct and pancreatic duct meet). Bile activates pancreatic enzymes before they enter the small intestine to aid in the digestion of foods. If bile flow is restricted, not all of the enzymes dispatched by the pancreas are activated. Any of these unused enzymes remaining in the pancreas can damage or destroy pancreatic cells, which leads to pancreatitis – a common cause of diabetes and pancreatic cancer. In any case, the inability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin can be a lifesaver, at least temporarily.
It is obvious, though, that this act of cancer-preventive self-preservation also means that there is not enough insulin around to transport the sugar out of the blood stream. If type II diabetics become insulin-deficient, doctors often prescribe insulin in addition to blood sugar medication, while letting them continue eating protein foods. Thus, a previously non-insulin-dependent diabetic now needs insulin shots, which greatly increases his health risks. This is completely unnecessary. I have witnessed such insulin-dependent patients turn vegan, and within just six weeks become free of the main signs and symptoms of diabetes, for the first time in 20-30 years.
Chronic disease is only chronic for as long as its causes are still intact. Insulin injection is the very thing that keeps the patient from recovering. It continues to increase the cells’ resistance to insulin, and forces the pancreas to destroy an ever-increasing number of insulin-producing cells. There are plenty of natural things that can replace injection with insulin. Just one teaspoon of ground cinnamon per day can balance blood sugar. Turmeric is an amazing herb/spice with a similar effect. Broccoli and other vegetables, as well as regular full body exposure to sunlight (vitamin D-generating), have superior blood sugar-regulating effects than potentially dangerous insulin injections.
Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Medicine (UCLA) found that compared to subjects with the highest vitamin D levels, those with the lowest levels had symptoms of type II diabetes, including weaker pancreatic function and greater insulin resistance. When the skin is exposed to ultraviolet light, the body responds by manufacturing vitamin D.
Abstaining from proteins foods, cleansing the liver of stones (gallstones are a leading cause of diabetes), eating a balanced diet and living a balanced lifestyle are much more effective means of restoring normal body functions than just trying to fix one symptom of disease. By taking responsibility for their own health, and therefore their life, the diabetic has the opportunity to put the sweetness back into his cells and, thus, into their life.
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This is an excerpt from my book DIABETES – NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
Our physical health and well-being are more intimately connected to our gut and bowels than we may think. After all, that’s where it all begins and ends – with digestion and elimination and, of course, everything in between. To put it simply, what we take in, how we process it and what we keep inside rather than eliminate have everything to do with the diseases we suffer from. Obesity is one of the more direct and obvious consequences of being driven towards what I call a ‘toxicity crisis.’
The mind-body connection
Add to this the mind-body connection and it lends a whole new dimension. The very same processes apply to the human mind – the thoughts and feelings that preoccupy us, how we deal with them and the things we find hard to let go of and that build up as emotional toxins.
In a perfect world, the mind and body would act in tandem to produce health and happiness. But what happens when the intestines and lymphatic system get polluted and congested?
Obesity is usually the result of internal pollution and congestion starting with the liver, small intestine, bowel and finally the lymphatic system. Of course, it is a little more complex than that but there is no escaping the fact that individuals who are overweight are actually poisoning themselves.
What the ‘experts’ say
Conventional weight-loss experts would have you believe that it is the food you eat and amount of exercise you get that determine whether you are overweight or not, and how you can shed the extra pounds. It is called the ‘calories-in, calories-out’ approachto weight loss. These ‘professionals’ suggest that you adopt complex and sophisticated diets and they even have impressive mathematical formulae to count the calories you gain and lose at every stage. Throw in some common-sense advice about regular eating habits and sleeping well and often you end up with the perfect weight-loss plan. Or so they would have you believe.
While it is a fact that the food you eat is critical in determining whether you stay healthy or not, burning fat or calories through vigorous exercise is absolutely unnecessary. Neither is pushing the limits of physical endurance, which is brutal and suggests that you care very little for your body.
Most of all, conventional weight-reduction programs address only what you see, that is, the symptoms of disease – a fatty roll under the diaphragm, belly fat, ‘love handles’ and cellulite on the upper arms and thighs. Of course, there is a different set of exercises for every body part that has piled on excess adipose.
What these weight-loss programs fail to address is the cause of obesity. Why does the body feel the need to put on pounds? What is it defending itself against? And what kind of toxicity crisis is it reeling under?
The dynamic energy that helps digest our food
Powering our very existence is the life force or chi or Prana, digesting your food is Agni or the digestive fire, and determining the movement of fluids and energy in your tissues, organs, muscles and bloodstream are the three doshas - Vata, Pitta and Kapha.
Each dosha is distinguished from the other by its type of energy, the biological processes it governs and natural rhythms and cycles.
Disturbances in the natural energy that flows through your body and keeps you alive cause imbalances in digestive functions, waste disposal and immunological processes. This eventually leads to a state of internal pollution and congestion.
The beginning of obesity, its true causes
When the liver, stomach, intestines, bowels and lymphatic systems accumulate toxins, they get poisoned, they harden, they get distorted, and they lose their natural shape and functions in a futile attempt to adjust to this new but unhealthy internal environment. This is the beginning of obesity,gastrointestinal problems and a number of other diseases like cancer. Before we explore these processes and the consequences of their malfunctioning on obesity, let me tell you something that might surprise you.
Did you know that gallstones can lead to severe back pain? Not only does a severely congested gallbladder lead to a fatty liver and the accumulation of weight around the midriff, it also causes spasmodic pain attacks in the back region.
Is it purely coincidental that over 60 percent of Americans are estimated to have back problems and about the same percentage of Americans are overweight? Both conditions are characterized by a digestive system that is malfunctioning, choking, backing up and in distress.
As you see, the root causes of many symptoms and diseases, even obesity, are often not obvious. There is a supreme logic and rhythm to every biological process and the interactions between all of them. But addressing them in a symptomatic way as allopathic medicine does, separates you even further from the cause.
The human body is constantly searching for equilibrium. When things are out of gear, the body then tries to compensate by quite literally bending itself out of shape. This happens till it can no longer take the overload – the toxicity crisis boils over – and manifests itself as disease. Once you understand how illness, and even obesity, is ‘created’, you will also understand how to reverse it.
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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
To help your body heal itself and remove the causes leading to the symptoms of diabetes (especially type II and possibly even type I), avoid eating animal proteins, such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese and cow’s milk. During the recovery phase, strictly refuse consuming cheap, refined oils or fats as found in many restaurant foods and processed foods. You may use healthful fats and oils such as expeller pressed (cold pressed) coconut oil, olive oil, sesame oil and ghee butter (check your body type food list). Don’t eat food that has been cooked in the microwave oven. Avoid frozen foods, canned products, and leftover foods. Take gymnema sylvestre to heal damaged pancreas cells, and evening primrose oil to improve nerve function.
Read labels. If a food contains more than 2-3 separate items on it, it is likely to be of no use for your body. Ideally, eat only foods produced by nature, such as fruits, fresh salads, cooked vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, etc. With the exception of stevia, xylitol and D-mannose, etc., strictly avoid sugar and starchy foods such as pasta and potatoes. Much worse than sugar are artificial sweeteners and products that contain them; they should be avoided at any cost. Artificial sweeteners will reverse the recovery even if everything else is followed. Most vitamin supplements don’t work for diabetics and may end up in the toilet. Make certain to avoid all manufactured beverages and fruit juices. Eat fruits whole, but separate from meals.
While recovering, try to monitor blood sugar manually. For some time, you may want to use glycemic tables to help you in this regard. Make sure to work with a doctor who is aware of and supportive of the healing measures you are taking for yourself. Also, avoid alcohol until blood sugar stabilizes in the normal range. The same applies to caffeine as well as other stimulants. Stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine trigger sugar release by the liver.
Those who are on the verge of developing insulin resistance or are considered pre-diabetic should follow the same guidelines. If you don’t ever want to risk developing diabetes, the same guidelines apply for you also. For example, soft drinks are known to cause diabetes. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health examined 9 years of dietary and medical data on more than 51,000 women who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study II. From this group, well over 700 cases of type II diabetes were diagnosed during the study period. The study found that women who drink one or more soft drinks per day may have an 80 percent increased risk of type II diabetes compared to women who pass on this type of beverage.
Changing key lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity may not be easy for everyone. But in the case of controlling blood sugar, you usually have a choice. Making the choice of drinking fresh water instead of soft drinks can make the difference between life and death. If you feel you cannot make that choice, please consider that becoming diabetic can make your lifestyle much more limited and complicated than following some simple suggestions.
Diabetes is not a disease; it is a complex mechanism of protection or survival that the body has no choice but to implement in order to avoid the consequences of an unhealthful diet and lifestyle. Millions of people suffer or die unnecessarily from this non-disease. The diabetes epidemic is man-made, or shall I say, factory-made. It could be brought to a halt by more and more people refusing to eat foods that are not safe for human consumption.
A study, headed by Dr. Neal Barnard, compared one group of people following a low-fat vegan diet (no meat, fish, eggs, dairy, etc.) with another group on the standard American Diabetes Association (ADA) diet over 22 weeks. The results speak for themselves:
Two Major Remedies:
Those on the diet with no meat or dairy (compared to the ADA dieters) reduced their medication twice as often (43% vs. 26%); lost twice as much weight (14.3 vs. 7.7 lb.); lowered LDL-’bad’ cholesterol twice as much (21.2% vs. 10.7%); improved their Hgb A1c levels by three times as much and cut kidney protein losses by one and a half times more.
Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS) is Nature’s Most Powerful Healer of Malaria, Cancer, Diabetes, AIDS, Hepatitis and More.
Diabetes, heart disease and cancer share the same causes. They have these three things in common:
1. the immune system is weak and depleted
2. the body is overwhelmed with toxins and waste matter
3. there is a massive presence of pathogens (infecting agents) in the body, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, yeast, fungi, etc.
One mineral substance-sodium chlorite-may have the most balanced and immediate effects on all these disease-causing factors.
Apart from the topics already discussed above, the main requirements for healing diabetes, cancer and heart disease and most other serious and minor illnesses are as follows:
Neutralize the toxins and poisons that weaken the immune system and feed pathogens
Strengthen the immune system to remove all pathogens and keep them at bay
Kill off all harmful parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi, molds, yeast and eliminate them from the body
To be successful, all this has to occur at the same time.
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This is an excerpt from my book DIABETES – NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
Populations that eat meat regularly have the shortest life spans and the highest incidence of degenerative diseases. According to published reports of national health statistics from around the world, one out of two people in the industrialized world will die from heart disease or a related blood vessel disease. In other words, heart disease is the leading killer disease in the world, with cancer following closely behind. As long ago as June 1961, the American Medical Association reported that a vegetarian diet could prevent 90 percent of our thromboembolic diseases (a condition in which a blood vessel is obstructed by an embolus carried in the bloodstream from the site of formation) and 97 percent of our coronary occlusions. This means that by adopting a vegetarian diet, we would be able to eradicate heart disease almost completely. Compared with meat-eating, smoking seems only a minor risk factor for heart disease! It is disconcerting that this important research has long been forgotten and is basically ignored today.
Heart disease is virtually unheard of in societies where meat consumption is low, and the majority of the population eats mostly traditional foods. A group of Harvard doctors and research scientists examined 400 people in a remote mountain village in Ecuador and were surprised to find that except for two men, none of the people above 75, including all the centenarians and a 121-year-old man, showed any signs of heart disease. All the villagers turned out to be complete vegetarians. Examinations of similar age groups in the United States would typically reveal a 95 percent incidence of heart disease.
Cancer, the second most common killer disease, now closely rivaling heart disease, may largely be caused by meat-eating, too. Modern cancer research claims to have found specific protein compounds responsible for certain types of cancers. This, in itself, may be a very important finding, but it is even more important to discover where these proteins come from. Putrefying meat is one answer, and the decaying protein of dead human cells is another. Meat consumption slows or hinders the complete removal of dead cells in the body by congesting the lymphatic system (which removes dead cells) and by using up the body’s resources of energy, enzymes, minerals and vitamins (needed to break down dead cells and dispose of them safely). Both undigested meat proteins and decaying cell protein can, therefore, damage human cells and impair their genetic programs.
Another reason why meat-eaters have more cancers than vegetarians may be the fact that they ingest large quantities of sodium nitrates, which are carcinogenic preservatives that are used to make meat look ‘fresh’. But meat is no longer fresh after the animal has died. If left untreated, animal flesh begins to turn a sickly grayish-green color within several days. Since nobody would buy meat in that condition, the meat industry uses these toxic nitrates to make it look red and palatable. In reality, though, it is already decomposed and highly toxic.
The most appalling news from cancer research, however, is that secondary amines, prevalent in beer, wine, tea and tobacco, react with chemical preservatives in meat to form nitrosamines. The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has labeled nitrosamines as “one of the most formidable and versatile groups of carcinogens yet discovered.” In other words, if you are a smoker or if you drink beer, wine, or tea and eat meat, you produce one of the most deadly toxins that can be found anywhere. As it turns out, most meat-eaters also drink wine or beer, and many of them smoke, too. When fed to test animals, nitrosamines produced malignant tumors in one hundred percent of the animals; the cancers appeared everywhere, including the lungs, pancreas, stomach, adrenals, intestines and the brain.
A meat-eater’s immune system also has to combat many other cancer-producing agents. Farm animals are regularly injected with hormones to stimulate growth, are fed appetite stimulants to ‘force’ them to eat non-stop, and are given antibiotics, sedatives and chemical feed mixtures. Over 2,500 drugs are routinely given to animals to fatten them and to keep them alive. Most of these harmful chemicals are still in the animals at the time of their death. Many other drugs are added after the animal has been slaughtered. These drugs will still be present in the meat when it is eaten, but the law does not require a listing of the cocktail of drugs that have been added. Hence, you have no way of knowing what kind of drug interactions and allergic reactions you could become a victim of by eating a juicy steak at your favorite restaurant. It is difficult to imagine how many people today become sick for no apparent reason, due to being drugged with poisonous medicines contained in the meat they eat. Sadly, when they go to see their doctor, they are most likely given even more drugs to combat those they have already unwittingly ingested.
One of the chemicals added to animal feed in the United States is the growth hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES). The FDA estimates that the use of this chemical earns meat producers in the United States $500 million annually. DES is highly carcinogenic and has been banned as a serious health hazard in thirty-two countries. According to another report by the FDA, the antibiotics penicillin and tetracycline alone save the meat industry $1.9 billion a year. Yet these drugs may be breeding deadly antibiotic-resistant organisms in the consumer’s body.
Animal protein foods are nearly always propagated as being the safest choices for people with Type 2 diabetes and also for those who want to avoid developing this condition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most people believe that high blood sugar comes from eating too much sugar or refined carbohydrates. They are correct. It has recently been proven that women who drink one regular soda per day have an 83 percent chance of developing diabetes. (One can of soda contains about 12 teaspoons of sugar or the equivalent amount of high fructose corn syrup, amounting to 200 calories.) However, sugar pales as a cause for diabetes when compared with meat.
If you eat concentrated protein foods such as meat or chicken, your body requires much insulin to synthesize proteins from the amino acids derived from these foods. According to research, the stimulation of protein synthesis is a classic action of insulin. Loss of the stimulatory effect of insulin on protein synthesis would reduce growth and result in weight loss. To make certain that the amino acids derived from the protein meal are synthesized into proteins, the pancreas has to secrete insulin. In other words, the more protein you eat, the more insulin your body needs to make, thus increasing the chances of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes.
Accordingly, eating a normal-sized steak forces your pancreas to secrete more insulin than it would need to produce in response to eating 12 times the amount of sugar contained in one can of soda. In addition to that, if you also eat potatoes, a sweet desert, and drink a soda along with your meal, like most Americans do, you can expect to further increase insulin resistance. Currently, diabetes is the fastest growing epidemic in America, and it is easy to see why.
The effect of insulin on protein metabolism is complex, and it involves changes in both the synthesis and degradation of protein. If protein intake is excessive, insulin secretions increase to help with its degradation. Protein synthesis and the control of carbohydrate and fat metabolism have now been linked in unexpected ways, and many of the same signaling systems utilized by insulin to control glucose metabolism, for example, have been found to be involved in the control of protein synthesis as well. The bottom line is that excessive intake of protein is a direct cause of insulin resistance and may lead to the onset of Type 2 diabetes.
Other very harmful effects that may occur as a result of eating meat are generated indirectly by the tragic conditions to which farm animals are exposed during their short lives. Most animals never see the light of day. They spend their entire lives in cramped and cruel surroundings, merely to die a brutal death. High rise chicken farms breed animals that have never been exposed to fresh air or allowed to take as much as one step. This not only greatly upsets their body chemistry but also causes malformations and the growth of malignant tumors. These sick animals are slaughtered and sold to unsuspecting customers. In the United States, chicken with airsacculitis (a pneumonia-like disease), which causes pus-laden mucus to collect in the lungs, are permitted to be sold. Other examples of common diseases include eye cancer and abscessed livers among cows. Carcasses contaminated with rodent feces, cockroaches, and rust are routinely found in meat-packing companies, but meat inspectors are very lax about enforcing regulations because this would effectively close down the whole industry.
Modern research on diseases such as cancer and diabetes is mostly focused on how to combat the effects of an unbalanced lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits. Billions of dollars are spent on discovering everything about the symptoms of these diseases, with little or no attention being paid to their underlying causes. By contrast, some people have adopted vegetarianism as a way of life and subsequently have significantly lower disease rates, especially of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Vegetarians do not claim to understand the mechanisms of or treatments for these diseases, yet through the elimination of meat from their diets, they have attained a significant degree of success in preventing and conquering these illnesses.
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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
Type I diabetes affects nearly 700,000 people in the United States. It is the most common chronic metabolic disorder to affect children. Caucasian populations, especially Scandinavians, have the greatest risk, and people of Asian or African descent have the lowest risk of developing this form of diabetes.
Type I diabetes is usually diagnosed in children or adults under 30. The difference of risk is less due to genetic factors than to dietary ones, as we shall see shortly. Type I diabetes can develop unnoticed for years. But then, symptoms usually develop quickly, over a few days to weeks, and are caused by blood sugar levels rising above the normal range (hyperglycemia). Early symptoms include frequent urination, especially noticeable at night; possible bed-wetting among young children; extreme thirst and a dry mouth, weight loss and sometimes, excessive hunger.
Type I diabetes is defined by the absence of insulin due to the destruction of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas – called beta cells. Type I diabetics are dependent on insulin injections to control their blood sugar levels. The most common time for developing diabetes is during puberty, although it can occur at any age.
In Type 2 diabetes, due to insulin resistance, the cells in the body are unable to obtain glucose that they need for energy. In type I diabetes, the cells are also deprived of glucose, but in this case it is because insulin is not available. When cells are glucose deprived, the body breaks down fat for energy. This results in ketones or fatty acids entering the blood stream, causing the chemical imbalance (metabolic acidosis) called diabetic ketoacidosis. If left untreated, very high blood sugar would lead to flushed, hot, dry skin; labored breathing; restlessness; confusion; difficulty waking up; coma; and even death.
There is an increasing body of scientific evidence to suggest that cow’s milk during childhood increases the risk of developing Type I diabetes. In a recent study published in Diabetes (2000), researchers found that children who had a sibling with diabetes were more than 5 times as likely to develop the disorder if they drank more than half a liter (about two 8-ounce glasses) of cow’s milk a day, compared with children who drank less milk.
While it is not clear which component of cow’s milk may increase the risk of diabetes, researchers suspect that one of several proteins may be to blame by causing the immune system to attack insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Dairy products so closely mimic human hormones that many times an autoimmune response is mounted. This may result in arthritis, irritable bowel, Crohn’s disease, lymph edema and lymphatic congestion, phlegm in the throat, fatigue, cancer, and many other disorders.
Although many type I diabetics are known to be genetically susceptible to the disease (genetic variation), others with the same genetic variation will never develop diabetes. This suggests that dietary factors play a decisive role in who will actually become afflicted with the disorder. In fact, research showed that babies who breastfeed at least 3 months have a lower incidence of type I diabetes, and may be less likely to become obese as adults. This further supports and validates other research that has linked early exposure to cow’s milk and cow’s milk-based formula to the development of type I diabetes. Clinical studies have also shown that women who breastfeed reduce the risk of their children developing the type 2 diabetes.
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This is an excerpt from my book DIABETES – NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
Approximately 16 million people in the United States are diagnosed with diabetes based on national statistics. In reality, through, this figure is much higher. It is estimated that another 5.4 million people have the disease and are not aware of it. Type II diabetes, also called adult onset diabetes, now appears routinely in six year old children. Minorities are at particular risk, as their diet consists mainly of cheap fast foods, such as hamburgers, fried chicken, pasta, potatoes, refined sweets and other highly processed foods and beverages.
These foods typically cause a rapid increase in blood sugar, which stimulates the production of large quantities of insulin. When there is too much insulin in the blood, the body reacts by producing the chemical somatostatin, which suppresses insulin release. In due time this natural response translates into diabetes. Compared with Caucasians, African Americans have a 60% higher risk of developing diabetes and Hispanics have a 90% increased risk. Considering the large number of undiagnosed diabetics, physicians are now losing more patients to diabetes than they are diagnosing.
An increasing number of American adults diagnosed with diabetes are obese, U.S. officials said in November 2004. A study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention found that between 1999 and 2002, 54.8 percent of diabetics over the age of 19 were obese. That compared with 45.7 percent in the same age group between 1988 and 1994. When the category was expanded to include diabetics who were obese or overweight, the percentage surged to 85.2 percent in 1999-2002 compared with 78.5 percent in the earlier period. About 69 million people are obese or severely obese, according to the American Obesity Association.
In the CDC study, a person was considered overweight if their body mass index (BMI) – the most commonly used method for calculating if a person weighs too much – was 25 to 29. Anyone with a body mass index of 30 or greater was categorized as obese. Using the body mass index to determine risk for diabetes is not completely reliable and can keep these numbers lower than they actually are. Taking averages in human statistic analysis always ends up distorting the true figures.
A balanced Vata type, for example has a naturally lower weight than average. According to the body mass index, Vatas are underweight. Their bones are much lighter and they have very little body fat on them. If a Vata type adds 25 pounds of body weight, it can cause him serious health problems, but according to the body mass index, this extra weight would bring him up to the normal range. Kapha types, on the other hand, have a very heavy body structure already. They cannot afford to add even 25 pounds without causing them to develop a typical Kapha disorder, such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer.
By removing the discrepancies that exist with currently used body mass calculations, it is likely that almost every diabetic is overweight or obese. Likewise, a person who is overweight or obese can actually be considered diabetic, or at least insulin resistant. Due to the accumulation of abnormal amounts of new cells in the overweight person, there is simply not enough insulin available to meet all the nutrient demands of these extra cells. And although the pancreas may still make a normal or a little extra amount of insulin, the added weight leads to a relative insulin shortage. Eventually, the pancreas suffers from being continuously over-extended. The side-effects of a relative insulin-deficiency can be just the same as an absolute insulin-deficiency where pancreatic cells stop producing insulin altogether.
According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes accounts for 178,000 deaths (which may not be accurate), 54,000 amputees, and 12,000-24,000 cases of blindness annually. Blindness is 25 times more common among diabetic patients compared to non-diabetics. It is estimated that by the year 2010, diabetes will actually exceed both heart disease and cancer as the leading cause of death through its many complications. It is my hope that more and more scientists and doctors begin to see the strong link that exists between all these ‘diseases’. They are metabolic disorders that share a common cause, but show up as different symptoms.
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This is an excerpt from my book DIABETES – NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
Tens of millions of Americans are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs – mostly statins – and some “experts” claim that many millions more should be taking them,including children as young as eight.
I couldn’t disagree more.
Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase).
The enzyme that these drugs block is actually responsible for far more than making cholesterol.
It also makes CoQ10 which is vital for your mitochondrial health.
The fact that statin drugs cause side effects is well established – there are now 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to diabetes, to birth defects and increased cancer risk.
Now you can add exercise-related muscle damage to the ever growing list of harmful side effects.
Statins Can Make Exercise Harmful to Your Health
A recent study examined the effects of statin drugs on the likelihood of exercise-related injury. The researchers measured myoglobin and creatine kinase levels in subjects who were running the Boston marathon. Elevated creatine kinase is a sign of damage to muscles.
Subjects being treated with statins, along with a similar number of nonstatin-treated controls, were examined the day before the race, immediately afterwards, and the day following. The researchers found that the exercise-related increase in creatine kinase 24 hours after exercise was greater in the statin users.
According to the study, published in The American Journal of Cardiology:
“In conclusion, our results show that statins increase exercise-related muscle injury.”
The authors also state that their findings suggest susceptibility to exercise-induced muscle injury from statin use increases with age. This is tragic, to say the least, as exercise is imperative for optimal health, especially as you get older. I’m not surprised by this finding however, as we’ve long known about the harm these drugs do to muscles. They can even cause life-threatening muscle degeneration, a condition known as rhabdomyolysis.
Related to this latest finding are the revelations that statin drugs decrease heart muscle function, andincrease your risk of stroke. I wrote about that this past summer. It should be quite clear that if you’re running marathons, decreased heart function and increased risk of muscle injury is far from a desired combination. But as I mentioned earlier, the detrimental effects of this drug do not stop there. Other side effects may be even more troubling.
Statin-Induced Diabetes: A Hidden Epidemic?
Earlier this year, I published an article by Suzy Cohen, R.Ph., (widely recognized as “America’s most trusted pharmacist”) in which she discussed the hidden link between statins and diabetes.
A pattern has appeared where many who start taking a statin drug end up being diagnosed with diabetes several months later. Cohen’s research into this hidden connection prompted her to write a book on the subject called “Diabetes Without Drugs.” However, this diagnosis is incorrect. What many of these patients have is actually hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), caused by the medication. In essence, it is not genuine diabetes, and can be reversed simply by discontinuing the drug.
A recent meta-analysis confirmed that statin drugs are indeed associated with increased risk of developing diabetes.
The researchers evaluated five different clinical trials that together examined more than 32,000 people. They found that the higher the dosage of statin drugs being taken, the greater the diabetes risk. The “number needed to harm” for intensive-dose statin therapy was 498 for new-onset diabetes – that’s the number of people who need to take the drug in order for one person to develop diabetes.
In even simpler terms, one out of every 498 people who are on a high-dose statin regimen will develop diabetes. (The lower the “number needed to harm,” the greater the risk factor is.)
(As a side note, the “number needed to treat” per year for intensive-dose statins was 155 for cardiovascular events. This means that 155 people have to take the drug in order to prevent one person from having a cardiovascular event.) The following scientific reviews also reached the conclusion that statin use is associated with increased incidence of new-onset diabetes:
A 2010 meta-analysis of 13 statin trials, consisting of 91,140 participants, found that statin therapy was associated with a 9 percent increased risk for incident diabetes. Here, the number needed to harm was 255 over four years, meaning for every 255 people on the drug, one developed diabetes as a result of the drug in that period of time.
In this 2009 study, statin use was associated with a rise of fasting plasma glucose in patients with and without diabetes, independently of other factors such as age, and use of aspirin, β-blockers, or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. The study included data from more than 345,400 patients over a period of two years.On average, statins increased fasting plasma glucose in non-diabetic statin users by 7 mg/dL, and in diabetics, statins increased glucose levels by 39 mg/dL.
How Do Statins Cause Diabetes?
Statins appear to provoke diabetes through a few different mechanisms. The primary mechanism is by increasing your insulin levels, which can be extremely harmful to your health. Chronically elevated insulin levels cause inflammation in your body, which is the hallmark of most chronic disease. In fact, elevated insulin levels lead to heart disease, which, ironically, is the primary reason for taking a statin drug in the first place!
It can also promote belly fat, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, thyroid disruption, and diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.
Secondly, statins increase your diabetes risk by raising your blood sugar. When you eat a meal that contains starches and sugar, some of the excess sugar goes to your liver, which then stores it away as cholesterol and triglycerides. Statins work by preventing your liver from making cholesterol. As a result, your liver returns the sugar to your bloodstream, which raises your blood sugar levels.
These drugs also rob your body of certain valuable nutrients, which can also impact your blood sugar levels. Two nutrients in particular, vitamin D and CoQ10, are both needed to maintain ideal blood glucose levels.
If You Take Statins, You MUST Take CoQ10
It’s extremely important to understand that taking a statin drug without also taking CoQ10 puts your health in serious jeopardy. Unfortunately, this describes the majority of people who take them in the United States.
CoQ10 is a cofactor (co-enzyme) that is essential for the creation of ATP molecules, primarily in your mitochondria, which you need for cellular energy production. Organs such as your heart have higher energy requirements, and therefore require more CoQ10 to function properly. Statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which can have devastating results.
As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure. Interestingly, heart failure, not heart attacks, are now the leading cause of death due to cardiovascular diseases. Coenzyme Q10 is also very important in the process of neutralizing free radicals. So when your CoQ10 is depleted, you enter a vicious cycle of increased free radicals, loss of cellular energy, and damaged mitochondrial DNA.
If you decide to take a CoQ10 supplement and are over the age of 40, it’s important to choose the reduced version, called ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is a FAR more effective form – I personally take 1-3 a day since it has such far ranging benefits, including compelling studies suggesting improvement in lifespan.
Did You Know? Statins are FORBIDDEN in Pregnancy?
Like thalidomide and Accutane, statin drugs are a class X drug with regard to pregnancy, meaning they are contraindicated and should NOT be taken by pregnant women. They can cause significant damage to the nervous system of a developing embryo, and are associated with miscarriages and birth defects. A class X rating also indicates that the potential risks always outweigh the benefits, so pregnant women should never be on a statin drug.
This issue is particularly important as currently one in four Americans over 45 take statins, but there is a MAJOR push to start prescribing them to younger individuals under the pretext of “prevention. This is the very age group that is most likely to get pregnant.
Part of the problem is likely related to the fact that the drug reduces cholesterol, which is essential for proper fetal development. This isdiscussed in my interview with Dr. Stephanie Seneff (embedded below).
Babies also need cholesterol sulfate in utero, which is significantly reduced when you take a statin.
According to Dr. Seneff, a woman has about 1.5 units of cholesterol sulfate normally in her blood. When she gets pregnant, her blood levels of cholesterol sulfate steadily rise, and it also begins to accumulate in the villi in the placenta – which is where nutrients are transferred from the placenta to the baby. At the end of pregnancy the cholesterol sulfate in the villi rises to levels of about 24 units. Both cholesterol and cholesterol sulfate are needed for proper brain- and heart development and function.
Other Health Hazards Associated with Statin Drugs
GreenMedInfo.com has a list of 71 diseases that may be associated with statin drugs, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are actually over 900 studies showing the risks of statin drugs, which include:
Oftentimes statins do not have any immediate side effects, and they are quite effective, capable of lowering cholesterol levels by 50 points or more. This makes it appear as though they’re benefiting your health, and health problems that develop later on are frequently misinterpreted as brand new, separate health problems.
It’s also worth noting that, according to a review published in the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs, adverse effects are dose dependent (the higher your dose, the greater your risk of harmful side effects), and your health risks are also amplified by a number of factors, such as:
Vast Majority do Not Need Statin Drugs
That these drugs have proliferated the market the way they have is a testimony to the power of marketing, corruption and corporate greed, because the odds are very high – greater than 100 to 1 – that if you’re taking a statin, you don’t really need it.
To understand why you don’t need a statin drug, you first need to realize that cholesterol is NOT the cause of heart disease.
If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, then you should know that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher. HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:
HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: Should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.
Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.
Your body NEEDS cholesterol – it is important in the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function. For more information about cholesterol, and why conventional advice to reduce your cholesterol to ridiculously low levels is foolhardy, please listen to this interview with Dr. Stephanie Seneff.
How to Optimize Your Cholesterol Levels, Naturally
There’s no doubt that statin drugs can wreak havoc with your health, and there’s compelling evidence that most people who currently take them simply do not need them. The fact is that 75 percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol!
By modifying your diet and lifestyle in the following ways, you can safely modify your cholesterol:
Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet, replacing them with mostly whole, fresh vegetable carbs. Also try to consume a good portion of your food raw.
Make sure you are getting enough high quality, animal-based omega 3 fats, such as krill oil.
Other heart-healthy foods include olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats as appropriate for your nutritional type.
Exercise daily.
Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.
Unlike statin drugs, which lower your cholesterol at the expense of your health, these lifestyle strategies represent a holistic approach that will benefit your overall health – which includes a healthy cardiovascular system.
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A review of genetic and biochemical abnormalities has revealed a possible link between autism and type 2 diabetes.
It’s still only a hypothesis, but according to Rice University biochemist Michael Stern, author of the opinion paper, these two conditions may have a common underlying mechanism: impaired glucose tolerance and hyperinsulinemia.
Hyperinsulinemia, a common precursor to insulin resistance, is characterized by excess levels of insulin in your bloodstream.
Insulin resistance, in turn, is associated with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and many other chronic diseases.
Could it also be associated with autism?
According to Stern:
“It will be very easy for clinicians to test my hypothesis.
They could do this by putting autistic children on low-carbohydrate diets that minimize insulin secretion and see if their symptoms improve.”
Sterns hypothesis also suggests that glucose tolerance in pregnant women may need to be addressed more seriously than it is now, in order to decrease the child’s risk of autism.
As reported by Science Daily:
“… [A]t least four genes associated with increased frequency in autism are known to produce proteins that play key roles in a biochemical pathway known as PI3K/Tor … PI3K/Tor [is] the major pathway for insulin signals within cells, and insulin [can] affect synapses in a remarkably similar way to the mGluR defects associated with autism.
… “I discovered that gestational diabetes was the most important identified maternal risk factor for autism, but that ‘no known mechanism could account for this,’” Stern recalled. “When I read this, I was speechless. That’s when I realized that this was not obvious to others in the field, so I decided to write this up with the hope that clinicians might become aware of this and treat their patients accordingly.”
In writing the article, Stern said he learned that the role of insulin in cognitive function is becoming more widely accepted… Stern said he also found preliminary studies that indicated that low-carb diets were therapeutic for some individuals with autism and ASD.
“Based on what’s already in the literature, insulin needs to be taken seriously as a causative element in autism,” Stern said.”
Diabetes, Autism and… Gut Flora: A Hidden Connection?
Sterns hypothesis linking autism and type 2 diabetes is an interesting one, and although it may initially sound far-fetched, other research suggests he may very well be onto something, especially if we consider the emerging research linking gut flora to both diabetes and autism. Could it be that it’s actually the gut microflora that is an underlying link between diabetes and autism?
There’s no definitive evidence of this at the moment, but there appear to be some rather compelling “circumstantial evidence” leaning in that direction.
For example, researchers have found that bacterial populations in the gut of diabetics differ from non-diabetics, and imbalanced gut flora has also been linked to obesity and various brain – and mental disorders – from depression to autism.
Interestingly, obesity and diabetes appear to be associated with different bacterial populations according to one 2010 study. While the researchers found a positive correlation between ratios of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes and BMI, the reverse tendency was observed in those with diabetes, indicating that obesity and diabetes are associated with different groups of intestinal microbiota. They also found a positive correlation for the ratios of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes and reduced glucose tolerance.
The Gut-Brain Connection—A Hidden Key to Solving Autism Mystery?
In terms of treatment, Sterns hypothesis ends up coinciding quite nicely with the GAPS theory put forth by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. The low-carbohydrate diet he recommends will automatically help rebalance your child’s gut flora, and Dr. Campbell-McBride’s nutritional program has the identical focus.
Dr. Campbell-McBride has a full-time medical practice in the United Kingdom where she treats children and adults with autism and other neurological disorders, immune disorders, and digestive problems. Her groundbreaking research led her to create the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Nutritional Program, which can help those with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression and schizophrenia.
What is GAPS?
GAPS is the result of poorly developed or imbalanced gut flora, which can have a disastrous effect on mental health and brain development and function.
Interestingly, children who do not develop normal gut flora from birth also appear to be particularly prone to vaccine damage, and this may be a MAJOR key for reducing vaccine injuries. Dr. Campbell is actually convinced that autistic children are born with perfectly normal brains and sensory organs, but once their digestive system becomes a major source of toxicity instead of being a source of nourishment, they start to develop autistic symptoms. A vaccine may simply “push them over the edge.”
Another group of children that may also over-react to vaccinations are siblings of children with autism, severe hyperactivity, obsessive compulsive disorder, mental conditions, and—again—type 1diabetes.
How Gut and Brain Toxicity Can Lead to Symptoms of Autism
Children use all of their sensory organs to collect information from their environment, which is then passed to the brain for processing. This is a fundamental part of learning. However, in children with Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), the toxicity flowing from their gut throughout their bodies and into their brains, clogs the brain with toxicity, preventing it from performing its normal function and process sensory information.
Dr. Campbell-McBride explains:
“Sensory information turns into this mush; into a noise in the child’s brain, and from this noise the child cannot learn. They cannot decipher anything useful. That’s why they don’t learn how to communicate. They don’t learn how to understand language, how to use language, how to develop all the natural instinctive behaviors and coping behaviors that normal children develop.
The second year of life is crucial in the maturation of the brain of the baby… If the child’s brain is clogged with toxicity, the child misses that window of opportunity of learning and starts developing autism depending on the mixture of toxins, depending on how severe the whole condition is, and how severely abnormal the gut flora is in the child.”
GAPS may manifest as a conglomerate of symptoms that can fit the diagnosis of either autism, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), attention deficit disorder (ADD) without hyperactivity, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, just to name a few possibilities.
How to Identify GAPS
Fortunately, it is possible to identify GAPS within the first weeks of your baby’s life, which can help you make better informed decisions about vaccinations, and about how to proceed to set your child on the path to a healthy life. This is done by analyzing your child’s stool to determine the state of her gut flora, followed by a urine test to check for metabolites, which can give you a picture of the state of your child’s immune system.
If your child turns out to have abnormal gut flora, Dr. Campbell-McBride strongly advises against vaccinating with the standard vaccination protocol until or unless the metabolic characteristics of GAPS have been reversed, in order to prevent vaccine damage.
The non-invasive tests described in her book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome, are now available in most laboratories around the world, and typically run around $80-100 each in the US. This is peanuts compared to the incredible expense of treating an autistic child once the damage is done.
Strategies to Restore Health to Children with GAPS and Autism
All in all, there is a growing wealth of evidence demonstrating that the nutritional cause of many diseases is related to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut, a problem easily rectified by eating a diet consisting of high quality, minimally processed, and preferably organic, foods.
In addition, there’s plenty of evidence showing the harm being done by the over-prescribing of antibiotics as they are indiscriminate killers, eradicating all the beneficial bacteria in your gut along with the bad ones.
Pregnant mothers need not only be more vigilant about their glucose tolerance, as Stern suggests, they also need to pay close attention to their gut health, and avoid antibiotics as much as possible. The reason why this is so important is because the baby actually acquires its gut flora when he goes through the birth canal. Whatever lives in the mother’s birth canal becomes the baby’s gut flora. If your gut flora is imbalanced due to improper diet or use of antibiotics (which effectively destroys both good and bad bacteria), this imbalance is automatically transferred to your child at birth.
And as described above, your child’s gut flora may be crucially important for his health and development.
Dr. Campbell has developed a very effective treatment for GAPS children, called the GAPS Nutritional Protocol. It is described in great detail in her book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome, which is designed to be a self-help book. In summary, the protocol consists of three elements:
Diet—the GAPS diet consists of easily-digestible foods that are dense in nutrition, including fermented foods.In general, avoiding processed foods and foods high in sugar/fructose is an essential component of a gut-healthy diet, as sugar feeds harmful bacteria and throws your microflora off kilter. It also promotes insulin resistance, and ultimately type 2 diabetes, so it’s easy to see how the dietary component can contribute to all of the problems discussed here: type 2 diabetes, imbalanced gut flora, and brain/learning/developmental disorders.
Food supplements, including: probiotics and vitamins D and A in the form of cod liver oil, although sun exposure is also an important part for GAPS patients, for proper vitamin D production.
Detoxification—The GAPS nutritional protocol will naturally clear out most toxins. Dr. Campbell does not use any kind of drugs or chemicals to remove toxins as it can be too drastic for some, and can produce damaging side effects. Instead she recommendsjuicing as a gentle but effective way of removing toxic build-up, as well as baths with Epsom salt, sea salt, seaweed powder, apple cider vinegar, and baking soda.
In the video embedded above, Dr. Campbell discusses many additional and priceless details relating to this protocol, so please, set aside some time to listen to the interview in its entirety, or read through the transcript. There’s no doubt that the avalanche of autism must be curbed—and quickly! And for now the burden rests on you, the parent, to take control of your and your child’s health, and to arm yourself with information that can have life-altering ramifications.
If you’re pregnant, planning a pregnancy, or know someone who is, I can’t recommend Dr. Campbell’s book enough. Buy it for yourself, or as a gift. You can also find more information on Dr. Campbell’s website: www.GAPS.me, and on her blog at www.doctor-natasha.com.
The Importance of Vitamin D and Cholesterol During Pregnancy
Last but not least, I also want to mention the importance of vitamin D and cholesterol during pregnancy, to help protect your child from autism. The most crucial role for both vitamin D and cholesterol in the embryo is in the development of the brain and central nervous system. Not only is cholesterol a core building block of the brain, but vitamin D also plays a critical although not well-understood role in brain development. Deficiency in either cholesterol and/or vitamin D may affect your child’s autism risk.
For example, one previous study measuring cholesterol levels in children with autism found a striking correlation between low cholesterol and symptoms of either autism or Aspberger’s syndrome. And according to Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council, several research findings suggest that low vitamin D levels during pregnancy, and during infancy, may raise the risk of autistic symptoms.
Vitamin D is manufactured in your body from cholesterol, again showing the interconnected importance of maintaining optimal levels of both—especially during pregnancy. This happens in your skin as a result of sun exposure. Keep in mind that if you’re wearing a sunscreen, then you’re pretty much guaranteeing that you won’t generate any vitamin D.
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Does craving for sweets and starchy foods indicate diabetes?
The answer is not really. However, it can indicate the stage of pre-diabetes. Having cravings for sweets and starchy food shows that there is something not quite balanced with regard to processing complex carbohydrates or storing complex sugars in the muscles and in the liver and it usually indicates that the liver functions are subdued due to bile duct congestion with intra-hepatic gallstones where the bile is not properly released in order to digest foods such as fats that are required to digest carbohydrates so for example, if you eat some rice and you put some butter on it or olive oil and there is not enough bile coming out then the fat is not digested and, without the fat the carbohydrates cannot be digested, and these carbohydrates or complex sugars cannot be broken down in to the glucose that you need in order to fire or nourish or activate the activities or perform the activities in the cells. So as a result, there is a shortage of glucose on a cellular level and the cells will signal to your brain that “Hey, you need to give me more glucose”, so the brain interprets that, or you rather interprets that as “Oh, I need some sweet carbohydrates’, something that can replenish that lack of sugar on a cellular level. So having cravings like that just indicates there is a metabolic issue that your liver is not performing as well because of not producing enough bile to make the digestion of fats more efficient. This, however, can lead to a buildup also of sugars in the blood stream that are not removed, so the more sugar that you eat, the less actually you can make available to the cells, so overeating can also lead to this self-fulfilling prophecy of becoming over-sugared or too sweet which is another way of saying ‘diabetes’.
So, diabetes is… it is not really a disease, but it is a corrective mechanism that the body protects itself against an overload of sugar that could also lead to excessive production of insulin, and insulin when it gets close to the cells can cause inflammation of the cells, so, you do not want to be overexposed to insulin. So in order to reduce that, the body will… the cells in the body will start closing the doors to insulin and that shutting off of the insulin will also prevent the insulin transporting sugar into the cells, and as a result there will be cravings for sugar and for glucose or sugar and that will lead to wanting to eat more of the same. So, diabetes itself, definitely, can lead to the sugar cravings but it is often more than the other way around that, the sugar cravings indicate that there is a lack of sugar uptake, either because the body is protecting itself against insulin or simply because you have been overeating the sugar which can lead to more sugar deprivation, and sugar itself if you eat too much of it can definitely lead to bile duct congestion which in turn prevents the proper digestion of fats and without the fats being digested properly you cannot digest carbohydrates properly and that in itself can again lead to sugar deficiency on a cellular level.
So one way or another the best way to stop this vicious cycle is to clean out the liver and make changes to the diet such as introducing more healthy foods to it that are indicated in “TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH AND REJUVENATION“. Eating foods that are suitable for your particular body type, and you can find out what body type you are from reading this book and that will help you give your body more of what it really wants, and as a result, cravings will lessen because the body will be satisfied on a cellular level with what it receives and it therefore does not have to crave other things. Sometimes when people say “I have a sweet tooth, that is just me!!”, that is not really true, I have helped many, many people who had a sweet tooth for twenty years and then from one day to the next by making some subtle changes to the diet or by cleaning out the liver they have had no cravings whatsoever ever again.
So I hope this becomes helpful to you and I wish you a very sweet, happy day.
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Processing meat requires a huge insulin response, more than eating half a pound of sugar!
Hi, this is with regards to diabetes and meat consumption or animal protein consumption and I have stated in my diabetes book “DIABETES NO MORE” about how the human body, while processing meat, will require a huge insulin response which is much, much bigger than in response to eating half a pound of sugar.
And this can be, to many people, very surprising and I want to explain that in greater detail because it is something that has not been very much understood by lay people and also by medical professionals. However we know that there is a lot of scientific research now that clearly shows that when we eat meat on a regular basis, the risk of developing diabetes is shooting up dramatically. In fact there is a more recent study done by the National Institute of Cancer which has shown that regular meat eating increases the risk of dying by twenty percent among people who regularly consume meat and that is from all causes including cancer, heart disease and diabetes; so yes, meat eating can contribute to increased rates of diabetes. I have always talked about how meat eating directly leads to diabetes and in my books I have mentioned that, and I want to be very careful the way I say that, that is why I am going to read a passage taken from my book.
“If you eat concentrated protein food such as meat or chicken, your body requires much insulin to synthesize proteins from the amino acids derived from these foods. According to research, the stimulation of protein synthesis is a classic action of insulin. Loss of the stimulatory effect of insulin on protein synthesis would reduce growth and result in weight loss, which are hallmarks of diabetes. To make certain that the amino acids derived from the protein meal are synthesized into proteins, the pancreas has to secrete insulin. In other words, the more protein you eat, the more insulin your body needs to make, thus increasing the chances of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Accordingly, eating a normal sized steak forces your pancreas to secrete more insulin than it would need to produce in response to eating twelve times the amount of sugar contained in one can of soda. In addition to that if you also eat potatoes, a sweet dessert and drink a soda along with your meal like most Americans do, you can expect to further increase the insulin resistance. Currently diabetes is the fastest growing epidemic in America and it is easy to see why. The effect of insulin on protein metabolism is complex and it involves changes in both the synthesis and degradation of proteins. If protein intake is excessive, insulin secretions increase to help with its degradation. Protein synthesis and the control of carbohydrate and fat metabolism have now been linked in unexpected ways and many of the same signaling systems utilized by insulin to control glucose metabolism for example have been found to be involved in a control of protein synthesis as well. The bottom line is that excessive intake of protein is a direct cause of insulin resistance and may lead to the onset of type 2 diabetes.”
This is very important and my own experience with diabetics around the world is that by having them discontinue eating animal proteins, and that includes chicken, fish, eggs, regular meat and cheese and milk particularly, they had reversed their diabetes within a matter of six to eight weeks. So it really shows that the insulin spiking occurrence that happens after eating meat, not directly, immediately, it is not that the insulin, the blood sugar will go up after eating protein but the long-term metabolic effect of insulin requirement is going up so dramatically that eventually the body will shut, or the cells in the body will shut the doors to insulin, the cells will no longer allow insulin to transport sugar to the cells which can cause the side effects often noticed with diabetes such as blindness and loss of functions, loss of limbs, amputations that result from that.
So, I highly recommend that to take this information very seriously if you are diabetic or suffer from pre-diabetes to be very cautious about overindulging in animal protein products so that you can reduce the amount of insulin required to process these proteins that synthesize amino acids from the ingested proteins.
Thank you.
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