Blended excerpts from Potential Within A Guide to Nutritional Empowerment
Authored by Franco Cavaleri ISBN 0-9731701-0-7
Original post: September 12, 2010
This article is composed of multiple excerpts to result in tone and content shifts and reference numbering that may be out of order.
Diabetes The Short and Swee
Free radicals play a role in gene regulation, as well, and that antioxidants, which counter uncontrolled free-radical activity, are important gene regulators. Imagine that—we can actually take an active part in the regulation of our genes by modifying our diets and augmenting our dietary nutrient intakes with a strategic nutritional supplement program. It’s scientific fact. The latest research has revealed how we can use specialized nutrients to activate genes that may have become dormant with age. You can have better control of your health with relative ease.
This amazing activation has been shown to prevent and even reverse diseases as serious cancer, diabetes, and chronic inflammation. It has literally put a new face on medicine, health care, prevention, and athletic performance. This new age has brought nutraceuticals and the natural health industry to a new level of credibility. In fact, the synergy of nutraceutical and pharmaceutical care, which is irrefutably demonstrated in this book, will be the new wave of effective therapy.
Most diseases, although not viewed as terminal, reduce life span. Just because the process of dying that a diabetic experiences may be slower than that of an individual with liver cancer doesn’t change the fact that diabetes causes death. But most cases of Type II diabetes are easily curable. The disease is only terminal because most of us choose the type of health care that allows secondary diseases to progress without opposition.
Essentially insulin resistance is a complication of diabetes that starts out as a minor degree of cellular desensitization to insulin and progresses to a Type II diabetic state. Insulin resistance tends to increase with age. Our high-glycemic-index diets can fuel the development of diabetes and accelerate our biological clocks.
An extreme acceleration rate exacerbates a greater degree of insulin resistance at an earlier age, thus producing an advanced state of resistance or a Type II diabetic state. A sedentary lifestyle and a processed diet contribute to this desensitization to insulin, promoting the development of Type II diabetes. The risk of dangerous secondary consequences associated with insulin resistance increases with the advanced desensitization of the body to insulin. We’ll soon see how this is all related and how we can easily reverse and prevent the process from occurring in our lives—how we can easily reset our biological clocks!
Recent scientific findings have unveiled the biochemical link between obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes. Fat mass is now known to represent much more than deadweight. It’s understood to secrete hormones and communicate chemically in the body in a complex manner. The fat mass of the body operates much like an organ—a larger fat mass produces and secretes greater quantities of hormones.
The adipocyte (fat cell), for example, has recently been shown to produce a newly discovered hormone labeled resistin. Early studies linked this hormone to insulin resistance as a causal factor. More recent studies demonstrate that resistin might not be the cause of insulin resistance but that it definitely has a significant influence on the way autocrine hormones function in the body. Autocrine hormones (prostaglandins, thromboxanes, prostacyclins, et cetera) are produced from essential fatty acids in the cells throughout the body, affecting localized areas. They’re different from endocrine hormones (insulin, thyroxine, estrogen, and testosterone), the gland-produced variety sent out via the bloodstream to influence target cells or systems far away in the body.
Type II diabetes is curable; well in excess of 90% of diabetics are Type II, and Ageless Performance is the power-punch cure. Independent studies and reports demonstrate that as much as 500 to 600 mg of alpha lipoic acid divided into four to five daily doses can be quite effective for glucose clearance in cases of pre-diabetic insulin resistance and diabetes (23, 24). Especially effective are divided doses as high as 1,000 and 1,200 mg daily (25). Alpha lipoic acid may induce a mild burning in the stomach for some people if consumed on an empty stomach. Start with small single doses of 25 to 50 mg with food and work up to 100 mg and then 200 mg with each meal. However, don’t switch from your professional’s advocated drug program to alpha lipoic acid if you’re contending with diabetes unless your professional is monitoring you.
Supplementation of alpha lipoic acid in conjunction with drugs like metformin and glyburide is frequently recommended to reduce the risk of secondary diseases that diabetes can instigate (26, 27). Alpha lipoic acid has been shown to reduce significantly the danger of lipid peroxidation (damage to fat and membranes) as well as lessen the risk for protein glycosylation (tissue damage associated with unregulated blood sugar). These risks are normally affiliated with pre-diabetic insulin resistance and diabetes, and alpha lipoic acid protects against the catastrophic tissue damage (28, 29). I become so frustrated and filled with anger when conventional medical practitioners insist on continuing with their pharmaceutical drugs as exclusive therapies for diseases such as Type II or Type I diabetes when complementary therapies could deliver so much more therapy and prevention of secondary disease. The so-called experts simply refute these facts without even investigating the data, for if they reviewed the research they would soon change their minds.
A refined, sugary diet has multiple negative influences on the body. Hyperglycemia increases the rate of hepatic-lipid (liver-produced fat) synthesis and raises serum-lipid levels (fat in the blood), multiplying the risk of cardiovascular disease. The elevated blood fat also contributes to the development of diabetes (40, 41). This generates a compounding problem: the exacerbation of insulin resistance and adipose-fat accumulation.
Drugs used to treat Type II diabetes are usually required as compensation for a poor lifestyle. Keep on the same track that caused disease and the underlying festering will continue, even if the symptoms are relieved while on a compensatory drug like metformin. In the case of diabetics, alpha lipoic acid and chromium supplementation would be the first choice of therapy, with the addition of the mineral/metal source vanadyl sulfate or sodium metavanadate as the next stage applied correctly. These vanadium compounds, as we’ll see in upcoming chapters, will prove to be one of the most powerful anti-diabetic strategies available— reversing diabetes in a matter of weeks in most cases. Another step might be to use the carbohydrate blocker, phaseolamine. The last measure would be the use of glyburide, a drug that elevates insulin levels, because hyperinsulinemia (high insulin levels in the blood) is toxic. Alternatives to pharmaceutical drug should be the first line of action. If the pharmaceuticals are still required after these less intrusive approaches are first tried, so be it.
UNDERSTANDING THE INDEX Processed foods, being refined and devoid of fiber, tend to be higher in glycemic value (9, 10,11). These foods should be avoided as much as possible and consumed only to help restore glycogen and tissue in the post-work opportunity or post-workout window. Eat these refined foods regularly and you’re bound to accelerate the development of the insulin resistant state, Type II diabetes, cholesterol problems, and serum-fat accumulation (12, 13). The low-glycemic-index diet is research-documented to reduce insulin secretions and induces a therapeutic effect on the condition of glucose intolerance/insulin resistance (14).
Exercise, even a daily brisk walk, plays a significant part in blood-sugar control. Not only does regular exercise stimulate blood-sugar clearance through the glycogen-synthase system, it actually promotes incorporation of glucose-transport sites in cell membranes. Studies show that the working body accommodates for its incremental energy requirement by recruiting more GLUT4 (one type of glucose transporter) within the cell membranes of the skeletal and heart muscles (15, 16). This actually means that glucose transport systems are upgraded to a functional state by this process. The Type II diabetic state is often characterized by a diminished quantity of GLUT4.
Exercise reverses this condition and decreases the detrimental influence of the high-glycemic-index, processed diet North Americans have adopted as the norm. Our sedentary, computer-assisted lifestyles combined with our plastic foods are central to the pathology of our common epidemics. The preventive strategies, which include glycemic control, are summarized and incorporated into the final programs at the end of this book. Choosing to eat foods with lower glycemic values, say, below 60, promotes metabolic health. You’ll get a small sample of these foods later in this chapter. A more complete list is included in Appendix A.
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