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24 ISSUE 61 // June 2015
by Sue Quin
Herbalist,
Naturopath,
Nutritionist
Health Foods & You
Shop 2, 209-211
Windsor Street,
Richmond
Phone 4578 1055
We have heard, for nearly
a decade now, of the explosion
and ‘epidemic’ of diabetes in the
western world. Even in India and
China, incidence of diabetes is
running at an all time high. Nearly
one in four Australians have a
diagnosed condition of diabetes,
or have risk factors indicating the
onset of diabetes. In conversations
everywhere, we hear of more and
more people being diagnosed with
diabetes, and the new condition –
Pre-Diabetes. So what does this really
mean?
The prestigious British Medical
Journal (BMJ) last year published
an editorial on the medicine and
politics of pre-diabetes, questioning
the unnecessary medicalisation of
this condition. The great cause for
concern is that a whole
new group of people
can be brought into
the ‘medical’ fold, be
prescribed medications,
and subsequently
place an unsustainable
financial burden on our
health systems and the
community.
So What IS PreDiabetes?
The official guidelines
around diagnosing PreDiabetes appear to be
fairly loose. A doctor can
diagnose pre-diabetes
when a person has a
slightly high fasting blood sugar
(usually taken first thing in the
morning after fasting overnight),
or a slightly higher HbA1C, which
measures the average sugar levels
in your red cells over the last few
months. However, there can be
problems with both of these.
Your fasting blood sugar can vary
significantly depending on what you
ate the day before, especially the
evening before, and with your levels
of stress. During the pre-dawn and
early dawn hours, our bodies, as they
get ready for the day, can produce
higher levels of stress hormones,
especially cortisol. These hormones
can cause a rise in blood sugar
as your body
prepares itself to
meet the stresses
of the day.
Sometimes blood
sugars will rise
as a response to
dropping during
the night. It may
also signify that
the body needs
good food – NOW!, in order to start
metabolizing for the day ahead.
HbA1c is a test frequently used
to confirm a diagnosis of diabetes
or to monitor the progress of the
disease. However, results can become
unreliable when there are blood
problems such as low iron levels,
when taking drugs such as aspirin,
recent surgery and loss of blood,
and even age. HbA1c levels will rise
when red blood cells get older or
hang around for longer than their
text-book standard of 120 days. But
in diabetes, most red cells have a
shorter life. So, this test does not
always show a true picture.
How Dietary Recommendations
Have Changed
In the early 1970s, the accepted
dietary recommendation for diabetes
patients was a low-carbohydrate
diet which included fats. It was
recognized, 35-40 years ago, that a
healthy body needed fats to maintain
good digestive and metabolic
function, and to maintain good levels
of Vitamin A and Vitamin D, both of
which are ‘fatty’ vitamins.
There was also recognition that
cereals with lots of fibre, as well as
vegetables, had a much greater
benefit on blood sugar levels than
processed foods and low-fat diets.
It seems almost common sense now
to realize that in a society before
the advent of manufactured food
products, diabetes was never really a
public health problem.
Is Low-Fat Really Healthy?
The popularization, in the late
70s and 80s, of the low-fat diet
for cardiovascular health changed
all that. Suddenly we were being
warned off all fat and eggs, and even
the ‘good’ fats like butter, vegetable
oils and nut oils. The catch-cry
became that a fatty diet caused
fat in the arteries, which led to
heart attacks and strokes. What we
were really doing was ignoring the
complex benefits of fats
in protecting eye health,
preserving good kidney
function, and supporting
the capillary circulation in
the tissues.
The Vitamin D
Connection
People with diabetes
are, almost without
exception, deficient
in Vitamin D. This is a
fatty vitamin which is
absolutely essential not
just for bone health, but
also for nervous system
and immune health.
It plays a huge role in
preventing early onset
of mental health issues
including dementia, and
is important in cancer
prevention, and overall
metabolic health. Vitamin
D helps your hormones to
communicate with cells
HAWKESBURY DISTRICT INDEPENDENT NEWS www.hdinews.com.au