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Dr Whiting on Diabetes and Hypoglycemia

The above is an excellent video by Dr.Whiting that explains how obesity, hypoglycemia, and type II diabetes are connected and how excess insulin (resulting from consuming too many carbohydrates) produces numerous health problems.  The video does a great job of explaining why the conventional “diabetes diet” that is commonly recommended is not an effective nor healthy approach to managing diabetes. 

Unfortunately, the conventional dietary recommendations for type II diabetes are focused on the fact that diabetics tend to develop problems with elevated blood lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), but they fail to look at where these high lipid levels come from.  Because the focus is on blood lipids, the diet recommendations are to limit cholesterol and triglygeride (fat) intake.  But in most cases, very low fat diets tend to be very high carbohydrate diets.  As Dr. Whiting explains in the video, excess carbohydrate gets converted to fat, and for most people, a high carbohydrate intake will produce a far greater elevation of blood lipids than even a relatively high fat diet.  Thus, the often-recommended “diabetic diet” will typically cause diabetics to gain weight, develop even worse diabetic conditions, and have even more problems with elevated blood lipids and the problems they cause (cardiovascular disease and plaqueing in small blood vessels that lead to diabetic neuropathy, vision loss, etc.). 

Now, many doctors will dismiss these concepts, and many patients will continue down the path of destruction by following the conventional low-fat diet approach.  To the skeptics who believe that the conventional approach must be correct (otherwise why else would their doctor, the American Diabetes Association, etc. continue to recommend it), I offer the following challenge:  Test it yourself.  Try switching to the type of diet Dr. Whiting mentions (you can get more information from his website at http://www.healthyinformation.com/ or contact me for diet recommendations).  You don’t have to do it for very long - one or two weeks is usually sufficient to see a difference.  Try it for a couple of weeks and see what happens.  I can tell you if you follow the recommendations consistently for that length of time, you’ll likely see a drastic improvement in your blood sugar (be sure to monitor it closely, especially if you are taking insulin, because you’ll need to adjust your medication dosage accordingly).  And if not, you can always go back to the conventional diabetes diet. 

Now, a lot of people have trouble initially when they switch to a lower carbohydrate diet (this is not an extreme low-carb diet like Atkins, but it is much lower in carbohydrates than you are probably used to), not because it causes any problems (other than maybe some blood sugar swings the first day or two until the body adjusts), but because they are addicted to the carbohydrates and don’t like not eating them.  If you stick to it though, you’ll get used to it and most people actually don’t miss the pasta, the bread, the sweets, etc., once they’ve been off them for a couple of weeks.  So if your real reason for not wanting to try this other approach is that you are addicted to carbs, you need to make a decision as to what’s most important to you:  go on eating carbs and sufer the inevitable decline in your health, or tough it out for a couple of weeks until you get past your addiction and reap the long-term rewards of feeling better (usually surprisingly better), and being much healthier.  I hope that you will give this other approach to diabetes a try, and I wish you good luck!

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So far, I’ve discussed the fact that fibromyalgia is caused by any combination of several underlying conditions and although a “shotgun” approach to a fibromyalgia diet can be used pretty effectively, when it comes to choosing the appropriate supplements, it is important to narrow down the underlying causes of the individual’s fibromyalgia symptoms as much as possible. In Part 1 of this series, I explained how where you tend to gain weight gives clues as to where problems are occurring in the body that may be participating in fibromyalgia symptoms. In Part 2, I began discussing the different types of chronic fatigue and associated symptoms that give further clues of what exactly is going wrong. In Part 2 I focused on the sources of constant fatigue. In this part, I’m going to continue the discussion of fatigue by reviewing the sources of intermittent fatigue.Intermittent fatigue is any kind of fatigue or low energy that varies from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and/or in association with certain foods, exposure to pollens, etc.. There are several potential causes for intermittent fatigue, but probably the most common cause is adrenal stress. The adrenal glands are small glands that sit atop each kidney. Though small in size, these glands are extremely powerful and important to health. Among other things, the various hormones produced by the adrenal are invloved in blood pressure control, heart rate, inflammation control, regulation of the kidneys, and control of fat storage in the abdomen. The adrenals are the primary glands involved in our reactions to stress. The more stress in your life (even if it’s “good stress” such as getting married, buying a house, etc.), the harder the adrenals have to work.Basically, the adrenals are designed to get us ready for “flight or fight” - the readiness to protect ourselves in a stressful situation. In pre-industrial societies, stress is often very much in the form of real threats to life and limb that require physical exertion to deal with, but are often short in duration. In the modern world, the stress tends to be most often in the form of emotional exertion, and often goes for wekks, months, or even years without ever really being resolved. This chronic stress over the long run wreaks havoc with the adrenals. The fatigue pattern most commonly seen with adrenal issues is usually one of extreme tiredness and mental fogginess in the morning and late afternoon, with periods of more normal energy and mental functioning in-between. Other signs and symptoms include cravings for salt, cheese, chocolate, and sweets, a tendency to get lightheaded when standing up too quickly, a tendency to get sick easily, nervousness/anxiety, the formation of a fat pad across the upper back, dark circles under the eyes, reddish stretch marks, and facial hair in women.Another common source of intermittent fatigue is that which is related to low blood sugar. Blood sugar-related fatigue is usually seen in association with meals, with good energy right after eating, and then tiredness setting in within an hour or two. This is most common with poor meal choices - primarily eating high-carbohydrate foods. There are fibromyalgia supplements that can help with this pattern, but it is usually also necessary to follow the fibromyalgia diet that I have previously recommended in order to prevent excessive swings in blood sugar levels.In some women, fatigue may be associated with the hormone swings that occur during the menstrual cycle and/or due to transient anemia due to blood loss with the menstrual cycle. In some cases, intermittent fatigue may also be due to blood sugar control issues that occur because some women eat more sweets and carbs at “that time of the month”. If you are careful with your diet during your period and still get fatigue issues, then hormones or anemia are likely to blame. The simplest way to figure it out the main problem is to get an inexpensive blood test (a CBC - complete blood count) for anemia. If you get your blood checked right at the end of your main menstrual flow and you don’t have anemia, we can then assume the problem to be estrogen (hormonal balance) by the process of elimination.

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