It is believed that about ten million people, or 3 percent of the US population are undiagnosed diabetics. Poorly controlled diabetics have a life expectancy of 15 years below normal expectancy.

The earlier you discover diabetes the less it has gotten ahead of you.

What tips you off as to whether you have unrecognized diabetes, are there any particular symptoms? There are, but these symptoms typically do not come early in the game.

There is a problem here that explains why there are so many undiagnosed diabetics. Pre-diabetics do not display any symptoms at all, and many early diabetics do not have any either.

Early symptoms of diabetes, when they do appear, can be so subtle they are assigned a different cause, For example, excessive urination could be explained away as a chronic bladder problem, nervous irritability, or just getting older. As more symptoms arrive the disease begins to show itself

If there are few early symptoms and they are not harsh, you could easily overlook the symptoms for quite some time.

There are 3 high risk groups when it comes to unrecognized diabetes. Hispanics fall into the first group. The second large group is those, and in particular men, over the age of 60. The third is the largest group, the obese group – obviously the greater the fat the greater the risk.

Your symptoms of diabetes might be: frequent urination, excessive thirst, excessive hunger, slow healing sores or bruises, dry, itchy skin, unexplained weight loss, blurry vision, unusual tiredness or drowsiness, tingling or numbness in the hands or feet, frequent yeast infections on the skin or gums, or in the bladder or vagina

The most accurate screening test is the HbA1c test, but a simple fasting blood sugar is good too. Point of care instruments are too inaccurate for an official diagnoses of pre-diabetic or diabetic. A caregiver can refer you to a licensed laboratory, but the final diagnosis must be delivered by a professional.

For more on how to recognize diabetes before it’s too late to reverse it seepre-diabetic cures #1

Pre-diabetes is bad because it means you have too much sugar in your blood. Normal amounts of sugar are totally utilized and no longer hang around. Excess sugar, like people with too much time on their hands, usually gets into trouble.

Lots of blood sugar over a prolonged period of time causes glycation. Glycation is the name applied when a sugar bonds to a protein in the body and degrades, if not totally inactivates the business of the protein. Excess sugar permanently gums up the bodies machinery so to speak. That’s why so little of the body works well in a full-on diabetic – a warning for pre-diabetics.

The HbA1c level and blood sugar level are often tested together now. HbA1c tells the tester the activity of glycation over the past three months. HbA1c has now been elevated to the most reliable indicator of the progress of diabetes.

The international expert committee on diabetes has suggested that the HbA1c measurement is more accurate in judging progression of a disease than glucose measurements.

It has been determined that point of care instruments are not accurate enough to diagnose the true level of progression of the disease, however they might strengthen motivation to be further tested. Currently licensed laboratories are the only accepted method for accuracy.

HbA1c results above 6.5 percent ere now considered in the diabetic range according to new information. Pre-diabetics fall between 6.0 percent and 6.5 percent.

The process of moving from pre-diabetes to diabetes is not like filing something into this bin or that, it is a continuum, not necessarily a straight line either. It’s logical to assume that some are pre-diabetic prior to the threshold measurement of 6.0 percent.

Since the older you get the more likely you are to become diabetic, that adds another continuum. You don’t even have to have the usual precursors such as obesity, high blood pressure, inactivity, diabetes in the family, to be included in this continuum.

If you have reason to suspect you may be pre-diabetic, or worse, get checked. If you are old get checked.

There is much more to say aboutpre-diabetic cures #1

Recently newspapers have brought us news about vitamin D’s essential role in alerting the immune system. Everyone has long been aware of this nutrients role in reversing bone loss when combined with calcium

You may not have heard that vitamin D has an even bigger role in delaying or preventing diabetes.

It has long been suspected that a vitamin D deficiency may contribute to the development of type 1 diabetes; this as a result of animal and human observations.

Recently evidence is accumulating suggesting that altered vitamin D and calcium balances may have something to do with the development of type 2 diabetes.

There appears to be a relatively consistent association between low vitamin D status, calcium and type 2 diabetes as well as the onset of metabolic syndrome. Evidence from trials with vitamin D with and without calcium suggests that the two together may have a role in the prevention of the disease.

High risk populations seem to benefit the most from the supplementation of vitamin D and calcium: the obese, the elderly, Hispanics and certain ethnic groups, a family history of diabetes, and so on.

One function of vitamin D is that it preserves insulin secretion as well as the potency of the released insulin. Other evidence suggests that low circulating insulin levels is associated with increasing insulin resistance.

How much vitamin D should you take to avoid the start of diabetes? That question has not been answered yet. Too much vitamin D isn’t smart. It is an oil soluble vitamin which means it accumulates, it builds up. The usually recommended daily dose is 400 international units, that’s what most stores carry. 1500 milligrams of calcium is also an average dose. Professional might recommend a different balance.

Anastassios G. Et al. The Role of Vitamin D and Calcium in type 2 diabetes. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Clin Endocrine Metab. 2007; 92: 2017-2029

Alvarez JA, Ashram A. Role of Vitamin D in Insulin Secretion and Insulin Sensitivity for Glucose Homeostasis. Int J Endocrin

There is much more to say about how different nutrients help one resist diabetes, so seepre-diabetic cures #1

Nuts can be an excellent way of avoiding diabetes. A long lived study at Harvard School Of Public Health looked at nuts as well as other foods for their likelihood of retarding diabetes and other diseases.

Up to eighty percent of a nuts calories come from fat. Fortunately the fat is of the unsaturated type, and therefore good for us. It appears the nutrients in nuts increase the bodies control over glucose and insulin.

Nut eaters had a sixteen percent reduction in diabetes risk, in the Harvard study, if they ate one to four ounces of nuts a week compared to women who rarely ate nuts. Those who ate five or more ounces a week had a twenty-seven percent reduction in diabetes risk compared to the first group.

Did the peanut butter eaters do as well? Yes, they did. Just 5 ounces of peanut butter or more a week and they earned a 20 percent lowering of their chances of diabetes as opposed to those who avoided peanut butter.

Peanuts are not true nuts, they are legumes. But, they are near the usefulness of nuts, because they share many of the properties of nuts.

You may decide to add nuts to your diet to avoid diabetes or to reduce the need for other treatments. However, you must reduce your bread or red meat portions to offset the extra calories coming from the nuts. If you don’t, it is likely you will begin to gain weight, and the extra weight will then cause you to be more inclined to diabetes.

There are always other things to consider when you make a change in your diet. Two other problems to consider are rancidity and herpes.

Years ago a study was organized to determine if jars of peanut butter on market shelves in an average store contained some rancidity. All of the tested samples proved positive for rancidity. Assuming that is no longer true we are reminded that exposed oil in a warm environment will become rancid, so keeping the jars in a cool place is paramount. Rancid oils are very damaging to all tissues.

Herpes outbreaks are not uncommon in nut users. The amino acid, arginine is the bad guy here, it fires up the virus. The worst places it can strike are in the brain and eyes. In the brain the most common symptoms are headache, severe fatigue and depression. It’s biggest target is your bottom, but it likes to hit the ribs, the fingers, and the back: both upper back and lower back.

If you are healthy and don’t feel either of the above problems will affect you, then nuts may help you improve your diabetes program or avoid getting diabetes altogether. Either way, nuts can help you reduce fast foods.

For more on medical foods like nuts go toavoiding diabetes #1

They should mark packages, prediabeics beware. I was down at the local market the other day wondering if they had anything new to brighten my day. Sure enough there it was in a see-through package, a knock your eye out pastry with a great come heither look in its eye

I looked around to see if I was still in the diet food section of the store, I had to be sure I hadn’t drifted subconsciusly into the bakery area and was staring at an untouchable.

I look for the sign and found it read diet food section. Acknowledging this was my lucky day I swiftly tore the boxing open and chomped down on a mouthfull.

Yeah, I know I should have read the label first, but that would have spoiled my fun. I didn’t want to look but I did. The protein and fat content appeared okay, so I was good to go on this little gem, right? The nag in me made me read the rest of the lable before I finished off this little thrill. OH MY GOD – 70 calories – they must have left off a few zero’s.

How did the bakery that made this manage to concoct such a delightful delicacy with no more than a pitance of calories? That was a mystey I could not leave unexplored. The bakery was located near the market and the lable did provide a phone number, so ii called the number.

A young lady answered the phone with a voice like a teenager. She said she was the wife of the baker and that their business was 2 years old. She said they were growing like crazy, especially after they introduced the product that captivated me.

After she refused to dilvulge the formula I ask her what laboratory method the bakery used to determine calorie content. She said the Food and Drug agency told her they required a lable divulging the contents but did not specify which method the bakery use. I asked her again for the method – she said she looked it up in a book. Her method was to make a guess.

The product was safe by all food standards, well packaged and lying in wait for any naive individual who never questions a food lable.

This ia a personal story that is true and unexaggerated. Large food corporations use outside laboratories for food analysis. Regional and smaller companies get along with less. The point: when it come to diabetes and even prediabetes, the stomach can easily blindfold the eye.

Pre-diabetics can organize quicker with a diabetic meal plan #1

Glycation in a term used to describe the bonding of a sugar like glucose to a protein or a fat. Sometimes the protein wants to incorporate a sugar molecule into its frame to make it more functional, this it can do enzymatically. This type of bonding is normal and there is another name for it.

Sugars can haphazardly glycate to proteins in a passive manner. This bonding is harmful to the protein in that it significantly alters the functionality of the affected protein.

Table sugar is sucrose, it’s made up of glucose and fructose. They are divided in the stomach and then absorbed into the blood. Fructose is ten times more able to glycate than glucose.

Sugars are tacky things, the greater the number and the longer the exposure to them the higher the chances of glycation.

Glycations interfere with molecular and cellular functioning throughout the body as well as to throw off highly-oxidizing, toxic, side-products such as hydrogen peroxide.

As a consequence of glycation, long-lived cells in the brain or nerves, long-lasting proteins such as collagen, as well as DNA may incur significant damage over time. Paradoxically beta cells in the pancreas, the insulin-producing cells that could negate glycation, are also damaged. Damage by glycation results in blood vessel stiffening as well as weakening from collagen distortion.

Glycated molecules end up as a material called AGEs, advanced glycation end products, or toxic waste. Since no tissues in the body are immune to glycation it means all organs and systems are now vulnerable to chronic disease processes. Ahead may lie Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular problems, cancer, diabetes, neuropathies, eye and ear problem, and on and on.

Red blood cells are easily accessible and therefor can be easily measured for increases in glycating material. Recently it has been determined that the monitoring of the state of diabetes is best done by determining HbA1c. HbA1c is the measurement of glycated hemoglobin levels in the cells.

There are additional pathologies in diabetes beyond glycation, some may be worse, but they are less understood.

A disease such as diabetes, which is metabolically global, and is a life shortening disease. Pre-diabetes is therefore the ideal moment to shake your bottom on reversing this problem.

For more on the damage and treatment of diabetes godiabetes information #1