Vinegar Helps Lower the Blood Glucose Level

Lower the blood glucose level is practically what all diabetics work so hard to accomplish. They try hard to follow the rules. They eat healthy meals and they exercise. Some of them on medications or on insulin follow the prescription religiously. They do all they can to lower their blood glucose level. But how come the blood glucose level still goes on a roller coaster ride?

courtesy of freefoto.com Thank goodness that now some kind of help is here. We can put this in our arsenal to fight our battle with diabetes. Do you know what that is? It's vinegar. How does vinegar help improve the blood glucose level, you asked? Many have tested this and what they have found will boggle your mind.

A lot of researches have found that the acetic acid in vinegar improves the after-eating blood glucose level. This is the most important effect of vinegar. But wait a minute for there is more. Vinegar holds back the appetite and makes one feel full. Vinegar can do that?

Yes it can. That is what a study in 2007 found. the researchers discovered that type 2 diabetics who drink 20 grams of apple cider vinegar accompanied by a buttered bagel and juice have improved their sensitivity to insulin. Arizona State University researchers found lower blood glucose levels after eating among those who consumed two teaspoons of vinegar during a meal by around 20%.

The researchers also found out that the improvement from the vinegar worked best when consumed with complex carbohydrates rather than, heaven forbid when taken with foods that are made sweet with sugars and corn syrup. Let me tell you this. This is not the only study purporting the benefits of vinegar this way.

In 2005, there was a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition that reported findings of similar nature. These researchers tested healthy volunteers as to their reaction to vinegar. They found that those who had the higher intake of vinegar in the morning after an overnight fast felt full up to two hours later and showed better glucose level up to 40 minutes later.

Dr. M. Sugiyama from Japan joined in extolling the vinegar virtue when he reported his findings that the Glycemic Index of white rice was lowered by 25 to 35% when vinegar was added. Remember that GI or Glycemic Index is the scale that measures how carbohydrates affect the blood glucose level. Foods in the lower scale are slower to digest and absorbed which is good news to the control of blood glucose.

Of course there is a need for larger studies on the matter which will confirm these findings. In addition there is a need to know how much vinegar is needed and when to consume it for maximum benefits. That said or written, who will want to drink vinegar anyway. I hate the stuff. I don't like it even when combined with olive oil sprinkled on my salad and fresh fruits. How about you? Let me know if you have some ideas on this, will you?

Here are different ways you can add vinegar to your food:

Dip pieces of roasted pork on a platter of vinegar.

Pork rinds taste better when dipped into a small bowl of vinegar.

Fried fish also taste better when dunked on vinegar.

Spray a combination of one tablespoon of olive oil and two tablespoons of vinegar over steamed vegetables.

As mentioned above, sprinkle 1 teaspoons of olive oil and two teaspoons of vinegar on your salad.

To make meat more tender, marinate it in vinegar.

Put in 2 tsp. of vinegar to hot tea with lemon.

You can use different flavors like balsamic and red wine vinegars and apple cider.

Consume the vinegar at mealtimes for maximum benefit.

The Asians have a recipe where they boil fish in salted water and vinegar, adding eggplant and bitter melon to the mix. And you already know how good bitter melon is for the diabetics. We have a friend who just uses bitter melon to manage his diabetes for decades now. But don't change your treatment plan for we are all different and respond differently. Thank heavens for that is how the world goes around.

By Roger Guzman, M.D. and Evelyn Guzman

Start learning the simple steps to beat diabetes. Go ahead and click that link; See if you are following the steps to beat diabetes.

Here are more links if you want to read all about diabetes diet. Tell me what you think about them.

Diabetes Diet

Diabetes Food List

Diabetes Menu

Diabetes Meal Plan

Vitamin K Lowers Diabetes Risk for the Elderly by 50%

What is diabetes and what causes diabetes are the top questions circulating around the web. What they should ask also is what is diabetic risk. We will give answers to all of them or lead you to where to go to get answers. For example, here is where you go to know what is diabetes.

Here you will find what causes diabetes just below the video on that page. The cause for type 1 is mainly due to an over activity of the immune system. This destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Without cells producing insulin leads to no insulin which in turn leads to uncontrolled blood sugar. What causes Type 2 diabetes is related to lifestyle.

After the second paragraph at this site, there are questions that will help you determine if you are at risk to develop diabetes. Since the diabetes early symptoms do not appear, there is no warning sometimes and yet the strategies to fight it have to be in place so you stand a better chance to beat it.

So the diabetes statistics continue to rise. More and more cases are diagnosed every year. It is crucial to get tested especially if one is at risk to develop diabetes because the earlier we catch it, the better it is for us to beat it. There are, for instance, natural compounds that will help stop the deadly effects of high blood glucose.

One such compound, Vitamin K, has been found to lower the risk for diabetes among the elderly population by over 50%. Researchers published the results of their study on this in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.. The subjects with the highest vitamin K1 level reduced their risk to develop diabetes by 51% compared to those with the lowest level.

The researchers found that Vitamin K helps remove the calcium from the blood thus preventing diabetes and heart disease when they studied the information on 1069 men and women whose average age was 67. The trouble is that the western diet is deficient in vitamin K because there are not enough green and leafy vegetables like spinach, lettuce and broccoli in the meals.

The 1069 participants of the study did not have diabetes when they started the research which was part of the trial on the Prevention with the Mediterranean Diet. After five and a half months, 131 of the subjects developed diabetes. From the results, the researchers determined that participants with the highest vitamin K1 level had the lowest risk to develop diabetes.

The recommendation from the nutrition experts for the elderly is to supplement with vitamin K from 1000 to 2200 mcg daily to prevent both diabetes and heart disease. Here are some reviews but heads up for anyone who is soy or estrogen sensitive. You should not take Vitamin K then.

The Super K softgels are easy to take and I am using them in conjunction with the 50,000 IU vitamin D3 pills. So far so good. I've lost 8 pounds in 2 months, with little stress. Read more Published by Karen M.

I have been taking this supplement for over 6 months now. I love the 3-monthly subscription option and the savings! Read more Published by Dr. Alex Shvartsman

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Diabetes Management and Care

Diabetes Management and Care are important issues that the diabetics are faced with every day so it is great to be reminded by this monthly feature of the Doctor is In: Health 101. This time the columnist is Dr. Fred Dolgin who gave us a rundown on the rising statistics on diabetes and the complications associated with it.

The doctor also shed some light on the history of diabetes which is covered in details there. The significant thing though is what the doctor said that without important changes in physical activity and nutrition, approximately one-third of the American adults could have diabetes by 2050.

Dr. Fred Dolgin also let us know of the different types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes known as juvenile onset diabetes happens when the beta islet cells are destroyed by the immune system resulting in the absence of insulin. Long time ago, this was a death sentence. Thank goodness Dr. Fredeick Bunting discovered insulin which became a life saver for millions of people.

Lives were saved then by insulin that was purified from beef and later on by pork pancreas. Now it is much easier to administer insulin with the technological advances. Synthetic can now be administered through implantable pumps. There are also insulin pens with tiny needles that can adequately make the job easier.

Type 2 diabetes used to be known as adult onset diabetes. At the start their beta cells still produce insulin but this progressively declines making the blood glucose levels rise. Oral medication can still do the job of making the the blood glucose tow the line but eventually with age, insulin resistance increases. At this point, I like what Dr. Dolgin said that the cause of type 2 diabetes is most preventable, it being obesity.

Genetic factors play a role in diabetes. It runs in families so some of us have to work harder to keep diabetes at bay. The good news is that it can be prevented. This has been said many times, in many ways before, that they are coming out of my ears. Don't get me wrong though because I don't get tired hearing them over and over again. Why? Because this is our lifeblood.

Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes In contrast to the long ago starvation threat against the survival of the human race, nowadays the threat is over consumption most especially of sweet food. Corn was exponentially produced starting in the 1970s leading to the use of cheap high fructose corn syrup. Add to this the lower physical activity or the lack thereof and you have obesity which makes one vulnerable to develop diabetes.

Knowing this makes the solution simple. To prevent type 2 diabetes therefore, we should eat healthy meal plans that include fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and fiber and move more. Drink less high calorie drinks and you may find yourself avoiding the dreaded diabetes and its concomitant complications.

Treatment of Diabetes With Insulin: Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

People have written to me asking about the treatment for diabetes, particularly the use of insulin. Since I am neither a pharmacist nor a doctor, I have asked for help from these professionals. Mind you I will just be reporting what they said for your information only because you have to consult the professionals before making any changes. The professionals will choose the right fit for you.

Anyone on three mealtime insulin injection should monitor their blood sugar before each injection. Why? It is because the blood sugar may have gone up and down depending on different factors. The meal you consume or skip, the beverage intake or skipped, whether you exercise or not and stress you feel all affect the blood sugar level. So it is important to monitor the blood sugar level so you can adjust the insulin dose accordingly.

If you find your blood sugar to be 60 mg/dl before a meal, reduce the insulin dose by one unit and add a high-fiber carbohydrate of 15 grams like a small baked potato, a slice of whole grain bread or just a piece of fruit. Plan your next day before going to bed so you do not have to skip breakfast. If pressed for time, a Fiber Plus or Fiber One breakfast bar or a bottle of Glucerna Shake will do.

The key to blood sugar control is to eat three balanced meals a day which has lean protein, vegetables and carbs containing high-fiber. Then for snacks you can have a piece of fruit and a few nuts. Taking the medications as prescribed is also important and never make changes without consulting your health care team.

If you are sick and do not have the appetite to eat, you cannot just skip a meal and also skip taking your medication. Instead consume a bottle of Glucerna shake in place of a meal or snack and take the medication as prescribed until you are able to eat regularly. Also since being sick may get your blood sugar out of control, monitor it more often.

Someone ran into the problem of getting too busy to stop for lunch and asked whether she should inject a lower dose (she's on mealtime insulin Humalog). The answer is of course, it is still best to have three balanced meals but being on mealtime insulin Humalog and will not be eating a meal or no carb intake in a meal, she could then skip the insulin dose for that meal.

However, in a case where the insulin dose has already been administered and then the meal was skipped, make sure the blood sugar will be closely monitored. Keep glucose wafers to dissolve in the mouth until the blood sugar reaches 70 mg/dl or higher. Really the best schedule for blood sugar control is to have regularly scheduled three balanced meals with two snacks in between.

Someone asked about starting to exercise but had not been feeling well with occasionally feeling dizzy and nauseous. Exercising is a great thing to do for all people especially for both the diabetics and pre-diabetics as it helps reduce belly fat, helps take care of insulin resistance and helps keep the blood sugar under control. As one exercises though, the muscle begins to take sugar from the blood to inside the muscle cells.

That is the reason behind feeling nauseous and dizzy. It means the blood sugar has dropped to lower than 70mg/ml. That means hypoglycemia is coming to town. Know therefore where your blood sugar levels are before and after exercising. Eat some nuts and fruit around two hours before the exercise and then after the physical activity, have a cup of fruit smoothie.

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There you have some of the situations where you will be faced with some challenges but have no fear for every challenge has a solution. As long as we try to do what is right, we will be fine so remember to make sure to consult with your physician before making any changes. There is no-one-fits-all strategy and each one of us is a unique human being. Here's the link for the Breakfast Bar

Does Social Networking Help With Diabetes Management?

Social networking helps with diabetes management mostly because we need each other. And I don't know about not needing doctors because I know there are things we need them for, despite the post declaring we may no longer need them. I agree that technology has advanced so much and should be used as much as possible but it still cannot replace a human being.

What happens if the computer crashes? Do we reboot it everytime it does? Besides, human interaction is still a part of the healing process. Computers cannot replace doctors. And I am not just saying this just because my husband, brother and cousins are all doctors. One time I was socializing with them with seven out of eight of us were doctors and I realized I was the only teacher in the group. I am telling you; I wanted to go home then!

This reminded me of my own experience with a doctor of mine. She did not want my input on my care. She wanted blind obedience from me when it came to the medication she prescribed. But what do I do when the side effect of the medication is worse than what it is trying to treat? The best thing it does for me is I lose weight because of nausea and inability to eat. What kind of life is that? So I switched doctors.

The new doctor however kind of surprised me. After a little bit of talk, she went to her computer and started to google something. My first thought was I could do that myself! But no, she was just trying to see where I fit in among the cases and the tool the medical community has. It saves the doctors all the calculations and measurement that they used to do manually. Besides, I still need her. How about if I get run over by a truck?

Here is another point. Everyday, the diabetics are faced with all kinds of decisions to make which affect whether they get long term complication or not. Will there be an algorithm simple enough to cover such a vast amount of data, each one different? No, we still need them. The algorithms make it easier for the doctors to do their work. No, we don't get less medical care, we get more!

Sorry to digress, we can be healthier when we are engaged in an online community. With online networking and social media, we will be able to manage the diabetes better. The peer support can motivate people with diabetes beyond their wildest dreams. Self-care will improve, thanks to the support of the peer group in helping make all accountable for their own action. This is something that cannot and will not be measured accurately even by a super tracking system.

There are quite a few studies going on aimed at finding the impact of the social media on one's health, how it has affected people and how it has improved their self-care. I am glad they now have the effect of social media on their mind but I don't really need a study though to let me know of the benefits of the peer-to-peer learning experience. Shh, don't tell the rest of the world though for someone might get the bright idea of developing a drug to sell to us to get us to interact with our peer group!

Fight Diabetes With Lifestyle Changes Among Disadvantaged Groups

It is obvious that those in the lower status, economically speaking are more affected by the complications that diabetes brings. There is therefore a vital need to to address the risk factors especially on the issue of excess weight among this group. Although studies have shown that lifestyle changes play a role, little has been done to tackle this problem.

Thank goodness to the researchers that form an international team to study the effect of the main risk factors among this disadvantaged group. They therefore measured the effects of health behaviours like alcohol intake, smoking, physical activity in non-diabetic 7237 adults who were middle-aged. They also measured the effects of the biological risk markers like the lipid levels and the blood pressure.

How did they determine the socio-economic status of the participants? Well, they based this on the education, work position and the responsibility therein. They also also based their assessment on the social status and salary. Anyway, after a follow-up of an average of 14 years, they found that they documented 818 diabetes cases with those in the lowest occupational level of having a 1.86 - fold risk of getting diabetes.

The international team of researchers found that the most important factor that contributed to increased risk to develop diabetes among the lowest socio-economic status is the body mass index. They expected this result but what they did not expect was that the effects of physical activity and diet were less than they thought they would be. The same is true with alcohol intake and smoking.

The researchers concluded there is a need to address this issue more and to work at a solution to lower this risk. For instance, how do we reach this group? What programs can we develop to make this group recognize the imminent danger and to help them eliminate this risk? Please comment and offer any solution that you may have so we can all help end this diabetes war we are on. Read more about Diabetes Risk Factors.

Can Insulin Be Abused?

Insulin can be abused, that's for sure but it is not well known yet. There was a teenager who tried to inject himself with insulin thinking that it will give him a high. You see he saw his mother acting drunk when she had low blood sugar so he thought injecting himself with insulin could get him a high too. He started sticking some into his arm but he got scared and pulled the needle out in time. This is not the only type of case for insulin abuse. Young girls who suffer from eating disorders try to control their weight by withholding insulin. Some athletes have used insulin to increase muscle mass.

Risks Involved There are risks of death involved for injecting insulin by someone who does not have diabetes. This could bring down the blood sugar level leading to hypoglycemia. If not treated, it could result in loss of consciousness, coma or seizure or even death.

What To Do One needs to talk to the kids about insulin Tell them that it can kill people who are not diabetic. Tell them too that it does not give anyone a high. A certified diabetes educator can help you with two major areas to stress. One is that insulin is prescribed in small doses to specific individuals which if not taken properly could lead to hypoglycemia that could be fatal. The other point is that it does not give one a high. Rather it makes one feel bad. The certified diabetes educator can also advise one on ways to talk to the family about insulin.

Here's a diabetes guide to dramatically improve blood sugar control and Eliminate the Need For Insulin Shots! Remember I am not a doctor so whatever you want to change with your treatment plan should be talked over with your doctor. I’m just sharing some opinions and experience that have helped other people.