Diabetes and Weight

One of the most significant risk factors for type-2 diabetes is obesity.

Statistics show that 90 percent of all people with type-2 diabetes are overweight. In fact, the link between diabetes and obesity is so strong that it’s led to the coining of a new term, diabesity.

Where you store those extra pounds is also an issue, in terms of your ability to control blood sugar. For example, if you carry the pounds in the abdominal area, you are at an even greater risk of insulin resistance and diabetes. That’s because abdominal fat is more metabolically active than fat stored in the hips or buttocks. It is more easily broken down into free fatty acids that enter the bloodstream, interfere with the action of insulin, and raise triglyceride and glucose levels.

The good news is, for most people, getting a handle on weight is a great way of beating diabetes. Check this blog often for tips on how to lose weight and other natural remedies for diabetes.

While there are many diabetes risk factors, I’d like to focus on three:

1. Prescription Drugs. Taking certain prescription drugs can increase your risk of developing diabetes. Common culprits include: corticosteroids (typically prescribed to treat asthma and arthritis), thiazide diuretics (often used to treat heart failure and high blood pressure), and antipsychotic drugs. British researchers also found that beta blockers (medications used to treat hypertension) increase the risk of diabetes by 50 percent. If you are taking any of these medications, talk to your doctor about safe, natural alternatives to these side effect-riddled drugs. Doing so may help you manage diabetes.

2. Level of Activity. People who are inactive are at higher risk of developing type-2 diabetes. In fact, Harvard researchers found that the more TV you watch, the more likely you are to develop diabetes and weight problems. This is because lack of regular exercise lowers insulin sensitivity and increases the possibility of metabolic syndrome.

3. Smoking. Everyone knows smoking increases your risk of cancer, but many probably don’t know that it is also a risk factor for type2 diabetes.

There are many other diabetes risk factors, which we will explore in this blog. We’ll also carefully examine the many alternative treatments for diabetes and how you can incorporate them into your daily life.

Diabetes, like most chronic illnesses, is often (and rightly) characterized as a disease of lifestyle. Specific lifestyle choices can create and exacerbate type 2 diabetes, but as Dr. Whitaker has proven time and again, the right lifestyle changes can prevent, treat and even reverse type 2 diabetes as well.

But do some people have the cards stacked against them, where developing diabetes is an inevitable component of their very genetic makeup? To read the latest study in Nature Genetics, you might reach that conclusion.

There's no disputing that there is a strong, inheritable correlation present with type 2 diabetes. If your mother, father, sister or brother has it, your risk of developing diabetes goes up considerably. Your identical twin has diabetes? Your risk is even higher.

Now researchers have identified 10 new genetic variants that lead to differences in glucose levels for non-diabetic people. Half of these genetic differences also correlate to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

"Finding these new pathways can help us better understand how glucose is regulated, distinguish between normal and pathological glucose variations and develop potential new therapies for type 2 diabetes," Dr Jose Florez, one of the lead researchers, explained.  

What researchers go on to say is that by studying healthy people without type 2 diabetes, their hope is we can better understand how to treat those people who are currently living with diabetes, or those simply trying to manage blood sugar every day.

No dispute here, it's an admirable pursuit. And most experts concede that the future of medicine will be greatly influenced by the study of the human genome. But a danger few people talk about is this science of medicine instead fueling a belief that if you have a genetic predisposition towards a disease, all you're left to do is throw up your hands and live with it.

The fact is, 55 percent of people dealing with type 2 diabetes are struggling with their weight, and regardless of your genes, diabetes and weight are unquestionably connected.
Another lifestyle correlation -- making regular exercise a part of your life -- dramatically impacts your likelihood of facing type 2 diabetes, now or in the future.

By understanding how to manage your risk -- with the proper diet that promotes insulin sensitivity, with supplements for diabetes that make maintaining blood sugar safe and manageable -- you gain control of your genes, not allow your genes to seal your fate.

The fact that you're reading this means you're already taking steps to understand your role in your own health.

Remember, as Dr. Whitaker says, you're in charge. Not your doctor. Not the system. And, as we'll have to keep in mind as more studies like this come out, not your genes.

 

We're all knee deep in New Year's resolutions...if we haven't abandoned them already.

For those of you who smoke, hopefully you've chosen 2010 as the year to quit. 

But a study just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine just might have you scratching your head, at least at first glance.

According to researchers, a review of 10,000 smokers found that the risk of type 2 diabetes actually went up when people quit smoking, most dramatically in the first three years after quitting.

During those first three years, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes was about 70 percent higher than those who had never smoked. If you kept on smoking, however, your increased risk of diabetes was just (just?) 30 percent higher than lifelong non-smokers.

The good news of course is that if you've never smoked, your risk of developing diabetes is significanly lower than if you have. But quitting smoking as a cause of type 2 diabetes...how can this be?

After all, we know that quitting smoking reduces your risk of nearly every serious disease, including heart disease and an assortment of lung ailments and cancers. But the connection between smoking and diabetes is clear if you've ever known someone who quit or you've tried it yourself -- it's the link between type 2 diabetes and weight.

Sadly, people tend to put on weight when they quit smoking, reaching for a snack when the urge for a cigarette hits. When researchers took into account weight gain after quitting, the increased risk of diabetes from quitting smoking was negligible. 

So if you smoke, you need to quit, and you need to control your weight after quitting, to avoid facing increased diabetes risk.

To make it easier to quit and reduce cravings, Dr. Whitaker recommends the following plan:

Before your start date, get two bottles each of Sulfonil and buffered vitamin C. Sulfonil is a sulfur-based compound that actually binds to the same receptor sites in the brain as nicotine. These receptors become habituated to nicotine, and once you quit smoking they cry out for more. Dr. Whitaker prefers Sulfonil to niotine gums, patches, etc. because it satisfies the cravings without providing the very thing you’re trying to escape.

Starting on your quit day, take two Sulfonil capsules when you wake up, then one every four to six hours during the day, and two more at bedtime. Drink copious amount of water to flush your system. The biochemical addiction to nicotine will dissipate in two to three weeks, so you likely won’t need Sulfonil for longer than that.

But you'll still need to break the habit of smoking, and not replace it with a habit for snacking, to prevent added weight and diabetes risk. When the desire for a cigarette strikes, Dr. Whitaker recommends 500 - 1,000 mg of buffered vitamin C, which can take the edge off intense cravings.

Then...do something, don't eat something. Take a walk, do household chores or paperwork, anything to keep your hands and mind busy.

If you're anxious or edgy (which is highly likely), you should consider supplementing with GABA or l-theanine, two nutrients well known for taking the edge off any stressful situation.

 

For most people with type 2 diabetes, getting a handle on weight is all it takes for blood sugar to normalize, complications to fade away, and overall health to rebound. But shedding those extra pounds isn’t easy—especially when many of the conventional treatments used to control blood sugar actually promote weight gain. 

One of the worst offenders is insulin. Although it’s generally associated with type 1 diabetes, insulin is used by more than one in four people as a type 2 diabetes treatment. And, in most of those cases, it only makes things worse.

A patient of mine—let’s call him Bill—had type 2 diabetes for 10 years prior to seeking treatment at the Whitaker Wellness Institute. At the time he was diagnosed, Bill’s physician started him on an oral drug that stimulates insulin production. It worked for a while, but his blood sugar—and his weight—slowly began to increase. His doctor responded by upping his dosage. Again, his levels improved for a time, but eventually both his blood sugar and his waistline inched up.

Eventually Bill was no longer able to control his blood sugar with oral drugs, so his doctor prescribed a low dose of insulin. Over the next few years, his insulin dose was periodically ratcheted upward to keep pace with his rising blood sugar levels, and with every increase, he gained more and more weight. When I first saw Bill, he was taking 100 units of insulin daily and had put on 100 pounds!

A Vicious Cycle

Let me explain why patients like Bill find themselves in this predicament. Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance. In people with this condition, the beta cells in the pancreas make plenty of insulin—the hormone that moves glucose from the blood into the cells—but the cells are unresponsive to insulin’s actions. This leads to a rise in blood sugar. The pancreas responds by churning out more insulin, and the net result is elevated levels of both glucose and insulin.

Excess weight makes the problem worse. Adipose tissue (fat)—especially in the abdominal area—releases fatty acids that impair beta cell function and insulin sensitivity. It also produces immune cells that lead to chronic, low-grade inflammation. Inflammation, in turn, increases insulin resistance.

Fat cells also secrete hormones, one of them being leptin. Although leptin is best known for its role in regulating appetite and energy metabolism, researchers have discovered that it also has direct effects on insulin secretion and beta cell growth.

As if that weren’t enough, high levels of insulin themselves promote weight gain. That’s because insulin is the body’s primary fat-storage hormone—it ushers fat into the cells as well as glucose. So the higher your insulin level, the greater your potential weight gain.

Lose Weight, Lose Diabetes

The best way to break this cycle is to shed excess weight. For best results, cut out starches, sugars, and other high-glycemic carbohydrates; eat plenty of lean protein, vegetables, and fiber; and take a brisk, 10- to 15-minute walk after every meal. Nutritional supplements that enhance weight loss, help lower blood sugar, and protect against diabetic complications—such as alpha lipoic acid, chromium, cinnamon, and Gymnema sylvestre, to name a few—are also important.

Bill had great success with this natural diabetes treatment. It took several years, but he lost those 100 extra pounds, and he was able to control his blood sugar without any medication at all.