How
do I keep my blood sugar down without taking insulin
or medications?
by
Mike Adams (see
all articles by this author)
A reader asks:
"I have tried just about every kind of medicine
to keep my sugar down, but my doctor insisted I start
on insulin and take five other medicines as well. I
have tried exercise and walking, but nothing really
helps. Do you have any advice?"
There
are a lot of good answers to this sort of question.
First of all, I applaud you for looking at
alternatives other than taking drugs to get your blood
sugar down. But I have several questions about your
situation, because this is an issue that is completely
in your control. When you say, "I have tried
exercise and walking, but nothing really helps,"
does that mean you are still exercising and walking,
or did you try it for a few days and then give up on
the habit? Because blood
sugar will never be normal unless you engage in
regular physical
exercise.
That
means a daily basis.
I recommend at least 30-45 minutes of walking or other
cardiovascular exercise on a daily basis, with one day
off each week for rest. And ideally, you should work
your way up to much more strenuous forms of physical
exercise such as swimming, aerobics, dancing, Tai Chi,
Pilates, and so on. Frankly, I don't know what it
means to "try" exercise. Exercise is not
something to be tried as an allopathic response to high
blood sugar. Exercise is something that the human
body was designed to do on a regular basis, so it's a
habit that you and all of us should adopt for life.
The
second answer to this question really gets to
something that wasn't asked in your question, and that
is, what causes high blood sugar
in the first place? The answer to that is your
diet. The simple fact is your blood sugar
cannot be high unless you consume foods that are high
in carbohydrates.
My guess is that your diet consists of quite a few refined
carbohydrates. These might include potato chips, soft
drinks, bread, or other items made with white
flour. You might be eating breakfast cereal or
items that are sweetened with corn
syrup or high-fructose corn
syrup. In fact, biologically speaking, there is no way
for your blood sugar to be high unless you are eating
these foods in the first place.
Certainly,
you could experience high blood sugar from eating a
lot of fruits if you ate nothing but fruits and didn't
consume balancing quantities of protein and fat, but
my guess is, based on the nature of your question and
a lot of experience in talking to other people who are
having trouble with blood
sugar levels, you are probably consuming large
quantities of refined carbohydrates. I'm not being
blameful here, just matter-of-fact. I've been there,
too: I ate sugars and white flour up until I was in my
mid 20's.
That,
in effect, is the answer to your question. If you
really want to get your blood sugar down, it's time to
change your diet. Remember, your health
outcome is in your hands. You are the only person
who can alter your blood sugar on a permanent basis,
and the way to do that is to make new choices in the
types of food and beverages
that you consume.
First
off, soft drinks should be avoided for the rest of
your life. If you need help in transitioning off of
soft drinks, read my book called The Five Soft Drink
Monsters, which is available at Truth Publishing.com.
Given your apparent history with high blood sugar, it
is absolutely essential that you avoid soft drinks for
the rest of your life. These beverages contain
somewhere around 12 to 15 tablespoons of sugar per can,
and that is like poisoning your system. Even a lot of
walking won't counteract the blood sugar spiking
effects of drinking soft drinks, so you've got to find
a way to get off of these soft drinks starting right
now.
You
also have to tackle refined white flour and all
products made with it. This may mean giving up all
breads and cereals, pastries, crackers, cookies, and
other similar foods. Believe me -- you won't die from
giving up these foods. In fact, the truth of the
matter is that you will probably die early if you don't
give up these foods. These foods are simply
incompatible with healthy human beings and balanced
blood sugar
levels.
I
could go on and on about which foods to avoid, but I
think you get the idea. Basically, you could learn a
lot from the Atkins diet about refined carbohydrates.
Just be sure to search out foods that are very low in
their carbohydrate count. These would include healthy
fats and oils such as avocados, nuts and seeds, and
flax oil nutritional supplements.
You
should also get good quantities of healthy protein
into your diet. Good protein sources are isolated soy
protein and soy products such as tofu or soy milk. I
also strongly recommend spirulina
as an outstanding protein source, because its protein
is highly digestible -- plus you'll get the added
benefits of the spirulina phytonutrients
at the same time, which are known to have anticancer
properties.
By
the way, it's also possible that you have nutritional
deficiencies that are part of the problem here,
although the large problem is no doubt the foods you
are choosing to consume. But you could have a
deficiency in chromium,
which is a trace mineral that plays an important role
in insulin
sensitivity, so you could supplement with chromium and
see if that helps. You could also benefit from taking
GLA supplements. This is a healthy
oil found in spirulina and
various plants such as the primrose plant. So if you
take primrose supplements, you'll be giving yourself
some GLA, which has been known to help balance blood
sugar levels.
On
the herbal front, there are some other things you can
do as well, such as taking gymnema
sylvestre, or you could
read about the blood sugar lowering effects of the
cinnamon herb. In fact, there are quite a few herbs
that help stabilize blood sugar. But once again, these
are only things to be done in conjunction with a major
lifestyle change that moves you away from refined
carbohydrates and soft drinks.
Also,
it's important to note that any of these changes
should only be conducted with the expert advice and
consultation of a physician or a qualified naturopath.
Unless you are well-versed in blood sugar and human nutrition,
you shouldn't tackle these issues in isolation. Make
sure you get a qualified professional to help you with
the transition, but also emphasize to those
professionals that you are working toward a lifestyle
change, rather than a quick fix.
Lastly,
you might wonder what the role of insulin and blood
sugar medications
might be in this case. If your blood sugar is
dangerously high (check with your doctor about what
level he or she considers to be dangerous), then
insulin and medications are definitely recommended for
the short term. But that's the key here -- short
term only! You don't want to be
dependent on these medications, and you need to make
it clear to your health care provider that you only
want these medications to reduce the acute danger
while you make lasting lifestyle changes in an effort
to get off of those medications and off of insulin
injections for the rest of your life.
These
medications can be lifesavers in the short term, but
remember, there is toxicity associated with all prescription
drugs, and the prescription drugs related to diabetes
and insulin have a horrifying history of dangerous
side effects, including outright liver failure, which
has killed at least 10,000 people and permanently
harmed the livers of 100,000 or more. One
anti-diabetes drug called Rezulin, for example, was
finally pulled off the market after killing thousands
(but that's another story...).
The
trap that most people get into with this kind of
system is they end up being too lazy to engage in
physical exercise, or they don't have enough
discipline to make healthy
food choices. So they end up using the herbs or
the pharmaceuticals as a crutch. They figure, hey, if
I can use these drugs to get my blood sugar down to
healthy levels, then I can just take these drugs for
the rest of my life. That is a huge mistake. In fact,
it could be a fatal mistake, and I strongly urge you
to resist the temptation to rely on herbs or medicines
or even insulin as a lifelong approach to balancing
the blood sugar levels.
If
you're going to be healthy, you've got to get your
body into balance on its own, and the only way to do
that is to get outside, get some natural sunlight on
your skin on a regular basis, get a daily dose of
physical exercise, take lots of superfood
supplements and make healthy food choices that avoid
refined carbohydrates and other metabolic disruptors
that promote high blood sugar.
There
is no shortcut to doing this. And yet, at the same
time, what really works in
this case are strategies that are either dirt cheap or
free. So, not only will you be much healthier if you
adopt this new lifestyle, you will also save yourself
a small fortune |