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The following brief video discusses the use of magnetic insoles to relieve diabetic neuropathy symptoms in the feet.  At the end of the video there is a website listed as a source for magnetic insoles.  The insoles on that website probably work quite well.  Personally, I recommend the “Neo-Flex” insoles that are available through:


Therion professional magnetic therapy product solutions

FOOT PAIN: Ch7 ABC News Reports: Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy

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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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People with advanced diabetes often develop neuropathy (nerve damage) in their feet, due to impaired blood supply to the nerves.  The symptoms of diabetic neuropathy can include burning pain, tingling, and numbness.  Neuropathiy in the feet can also interfere with one’s sense of balance, as the nerves in the feet are one of the three major balance control systems (the other two coming from the eyes / sense of vision and from the vestibular system in the inner ears).

Diabetic neuropathy can be dfficult to treat.  Although symptom reduction can sometimes be achieved with drugs like neurontin, this is not always effective and not every patient is able to take such medications for any number of reasons (intolerable side-effects, interactions with other medications, etc.). Because of this, there has been considerable interest in natural treatments to ease the symptoms of diabetic neuropathy.  A couple of the more effective natural treatments appear to not only help symptoms, but may actually improve blood supply to the nerves and help prevent the progression of the neuropathy, and in some cases even partially reverse the damage to the nerves.

The natural treatments for neuropathy fall into two main categories.  The first category is supplements or “neutraceuticals” (nutritional products with specific therapeutic effects).  Of this group, alpha-lipoic acid (sometimes called thioctic acid) has shown the greatest effects. 

The following studies on alpha-lipoic acid attest to its effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and safety:

Journal Of Diabetes Complications, April 2008

Diabetes Care, November 2006

Diabetes Journal, September 1997

The recommended oral dosage of alpha-lipoic acid is 600 to 800 mg per day.

 The second category of natural treatments for diabetic neuropathy is energetic stimulation of the nerves.  This can be accomplished with magnet therapy, laser stimulation, and/or microcurrent (a specific type of electrical stimulation).  Of these, magnet therapy  is the simplest to use for self-treatment, since magnetic shoe inserts are easily accesible from a number of sources without the need for a prescription (as is required for a microcurrent stimulator). 

Although none of the energetic stimulation techniques has been studied in-depth at present, the following study documents the effectiveness of magnet therapy for diabetic neuropathy:

Archives Of Physical Medicine And Rehabilitation, May 2003

The best magnetic insoles I have found are the “Neo-Flex” available through:


Therion professional magnetic therapy product solutions

Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more on natural diabetes treatment.

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