Diabetes Hotline Newsletter
"Helping you to control and improve the quality of your life."

Issue #10

In This Issue... ... ...

1) High Blood Pressure – A symptom that often accompanies diabetes.
2) False Advertising? – Pre-packaged “Low Carb” foods aren’t low carb!
3) Another Diabetic Success – “I feel more alert and alive!”
4) A Healthful Recipe: Cold Shrimp Stuffed Avocados

Dear Reader,

By learning more about the causes of diabetes you can decrease or eliminate your dependency on drugs and/or insulin, while at the same time naturally reducing your blood sugar levels.

This newsletter will provide you with information, based on medical, clinical and scientific research to help you better understand the diabetic condition, and what is true and what is false. This is so you can better judge for yourself what you can do to improve your condition.

The most important actions you can take to improve your diabetic condition are adopting a low carbohydrate diet, using effective nutritional supplements, and getting some exercise.

If you have questions, email me at bob@realfoodnutrients.com or call our toll free number (888) 580-9390. Our website address is: www.realfoodnutrients.com

I wish you the best of health.

President

High Blood Pressure and
Type 2 Diabetes!

High blood pressure commonly occurs to diabetics. In truth, diabetes and high blood sugar levels are really only two of the many symptoms caused by insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is caused by a diet that is too high in carbohydrates over a long period of time. In an attempt to keep blood sugar levels in a normal range the body produces increased levels of insulin.

Increased insulin levels can cause blood pressure to increase in one or both of the following ways:

The arteries of the body are normally like soft flexible rubber tubes. Each time the heart pumps the arteries expand slightly to maintain the blood pressure within normal levels.

The arteries are lined with smooth muscle tissue. High insulin levels promote the strengthening and thickening of smooth muscle tissue. This results in the walls of the arteries becoming thicker and more rigid. Thus when the heart beats the arteries can no longer expand as well as before and the blood is now forced through a narrower tube resulting in higher blood pressure levels.

Another way blood pressure levels go up is that insulin resistance (high insulin levels) promotes the buildup of plaque within the arteries of the body (atherosclerosis). This has been observed in numerous clinical trials and long-term studies. As plaque builds up within the arteries, the opening for blood to flow through the arteries becomes narrower, the heart must beat harder, resulting in raised blood pressure levels.

In some cases people will develop high blood pressure before developing high blood sugar levels. In other cases high blood sugar levels show up first, which is followed by high blood pressure levels.

To lower high blood pressure levels, most doctors prescribe one or more pharmaceutical drugs. These drugs can often artificially lower the blood pressure levels, but they do not address or correct that which is causing the blood pressure to be high in the first place — the high insulin levels in the body. This results in people often having to take blood pressure medications for life and never being rid of the problem.

The reason that blood pressure medications are normally by prescription only is that they can be lethal if taken incorrectly.

This is clearly covered in the following excerpt by two professionals in the medical field:

“A type of therapy used by the majority of physicians
in our country for the past forty years is the administration of drugs at sublethal levels. Drugs, of course, are alien chemicals that are not normally present in the cellular environment of the human body. They radically alter man’s biochemical-physiological internal environment and often occasion very severe side effects. Needless to say, drugs do not halt or prevent the disease process, especially degenerative disease; at best they offer symptomatic relief, while the fundamental, underlying disease process continues uninterrupted.”

excerpted from Brain Allergies
by William H. Philpott, M.D. & Dwight K. Kalita, Ph.D.

This is the second in a series of articles that is discussing in more detail each of the symptoms resulting from insulin resistance. Each article is designed to give you a better understanding of what is causing these symptoms to occur and how to effectively reverse them.

Are pre-packaged “Low Carb” foods
really low carb?

In the last couple of years there have been more and more prepackaged foods going onto shelves in supermarkets and health food shops that are advertised as having a “Low Carb” content.

Being a diabetic, it is important to maintain a low carb intake for several reasons: 1) carbs convert to sugar (glucose) in the digestive tract and raise blood sugar levels, 2) to compensate for the increase in sugar coming into the bloodstream, the body increases its production of insulin, which adds to the already existing problem of insulin resistance that diabetics must deal with, and 3) the excess sugar in the bloodstream that cannot be pushed into the cells of the body for food and energy get converted into triglycerides (fat) and get packed away in the fat cells causing weight gain.

To maintain a low carb diet the diabetic must have the correct information on the carb content of the food he or she is eating. Many new pre-packaged foods today have prominent wording the front of the packaging about it being “Low Carb” and stating that the product has only so many “net carbs” or “effective carbs” per serving.

Some of the “low carb” products that can be found on shelves are energy bars, noodles and even cookies. In inspecting several of these products, the energy bars had 2 “Effective Carbs” per serving, but when looking at the nutritional panel on the back it said Total Carbohydrates per serving was 24. The noodles advertised 5 “Net Carbs” per serving on the front, but the nutritional panel on the back stated Total Carbohydrates per serving was 43. The cookies advertised at only 2 “Net Carbs”, yet the nutritional panel stated Total Carbohydrates at 15.

How can this contradiction be and which information is correct?

Not counting carbs occurs two ways: The first is that some food manufacturers use sugar alcohols as ingredients to sweeten their products. The common sugar alcohols used are mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, lactitol, isomalt, and maltitol amongst others.

Because these sugar alcohols are not technically sugar (even though they do contain carbs and do raise blood sugar levels — but more slowly than sugar) the food manufacturers do not count their carb content or label it as zero.

The second way that carbs are not counted is: Fiber is known to help lower blood sugar levels. Because of this, certain food manufacturers count the number of grams of fiber per serving and subtract that number from the number of carbohydrates. Of course this is not based on any scientific evidence that the fiber cancels the carbs, but these food manufacturers do it anyway.

By using the above two techniques the result is “Net Carbs” or “Effective Carbs” which are advertised on the front of the packaging as the carb contents per serving.

But if you look at the nutritional panel on the back of these products it lists the true Total Carbohydrates per serving, which is required by law to be shown there.

So, do not be fooled by misleading advertising gimmicks, judge the carb content by looking at the Total Carbohydrates in the nutritional panel on the back of the product. If you have been using these incorrectly labeled products, you now know the real carb content of the foods you are eating. This will make it easier to keep your blood sugar levels under control.

Another Diabetic Success

"My name is Ed Hightower and I recently ordered your diabetic vitamin pack. I've been on it for about three weeks now and my results have been outstanding! Your informative newsletters on my diabetic condition helped me to understand my condition in ways that I never understood before.

"The right foods to eat to benefit me and the ones to stay away from have been a tremendous help to me! The effects of carbohydrates and physical fitness (muscle building) on my condition all have worked.

"Since I’ve started on your program I have followed your advice on everything. I have noticed a big difference in my energy level. I'm not tired all the time like I used to be. I feel more alert and alive! I've lost weight in my stomach and I’m liking the way that I’m looking!

"Yes, and another thing I don't have the urge to eat all the time like I used too (I'm not compelled to eat). My blood sugar levels have been in the normal person range(70-120). Actually, my biggest problem has been morning sugar levels. It was so frustrating trying to keep them under control. I'm happy to say that I had to cut my bedtime medication in half because my blood sugar was dropping to low, in the forties and fifties and I was getting the shakes!

"I feel great! The amount of energy I now have is terrific – I can just get up and go, and I don’t have food cravings any more.

"Anyway, I’ve been very pleased with everything and do appreciate the concern that you've shown me. I thank you! By the way my sister is a diabetic also and I told her about you guys."

Ed Hightower, California

A Healthful Recipe for the Diabetic

Cold Shrimp Stuffed Avocados
3 large avocados
juice of 1 lemon
1 pound cooked shelled shrimp coarsely chopped (reserve 6 whole shrimp)
1 hot chili pepper, peeled if fresh, seeded, washed and chopped fine
1 hard-cooked egg, chopped
2 dozen pitted green or black olives, chopped
mayonnaise
pepper
3 Tbsp minced fresh coriander leaves or parsley

Cut avocados in half lengthwise, pit, and scoop out the flesh. Put the flesh into a bowl, and then sprinkle the shells with a little lemon juice to prevent darkening. Mash the avocado flesh with a fork. Add the shrimp, hot pepper, egg and olives and mix well. Add enough mayonnaise, beginning with 1/3 cup, to bind the ingredients together. Pepper to taste. Stuff the avocado shells with this mixture. Top each with one of the reserved shrimp and sprinkle with coriander. This recipe makes 6 servings.

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