Diabetes Case Study Part 3 - Diet

This is to answer your question about diet and diabetes.  My understanding of your question is that you want to know what effect diet has on your type 2 diabetes.

 

 

To understand the relationship between diet and diabetes type 2, it helps to understand the nature of diabetes.  Diabetes is a manifestation of the body's attempt to correct conditions that have developed from violation of natural laws.

 

Violation of natural laws!  I have never heard of such an idea!  You are telling me that I have been violating natural laws and that is why I have diabetes!!  My mother was a diabetic and how can my diabetes be caused by "violation of natural laws"?

 

Calm down a bit and listen.  This is getting off the subject of diet.  I apoligize for getting off the subject.  However it is useful to have a broad understanding of the subject of diet and to understand the relationship between diet and disease if we understand what disease really is.  Disease is the body's attempt to correct conditions that have resulted from violation of natural law.  But that is a subject all of its own.  So let us leave that subject for now.  If you are open to it, we can tackle that subject next time.  But for now it seems best to leave it and just talk about diet and diabetes. 

 

Yes, just tell me what the relationship is between what I eat and my diabetes type 2, I do not want to hear that I am violating natural law.  What is natural law anyway?

 

Let's talk more about natural law and disease next time.  Let's just talk about diet and diabetes for now.  Is that ok?

 

Ok, so what is the relationship between what I eat and my diabetes type 2?

 

You know that when you eat things that put sugar rapidly into your blood stream, that your blood sugar goes up rapidly.

 

Yes, I know that when I eat white bread, potatoes, icecream or cake or pie or other desserts, that my blood sugar goes crazy!  Why is that?

 

Sugar is made up of units called molecules.  These units or molecules can be connected together in groups of thousands, or groups of twos, or they can exist as single units.  How well they are connected depends on where we find them.  In the bags in supermarkets or in cookies or cakes or pies or icecream these units are always found in single units, not connected at all.  In apples, peaches, plumbs, pears, whole wheat or nuts or in  any natural fruit of or seeds or grains or even nuts, the units are found in twos (fructose) or in thousands (unrefined carbohydrates).

 

So what difference does it make to my diabetes whether the sugar I eat is well connected in thousands or in twos or signle sugar molecules?

 

That is the key question.  We have to understand one fact to appreciate the answer to that question.

 

So what is the one fact I need to understand?  Natural law??

 

The one fact I am talking about is natural law, but let's not get into natural law.  Natural law is simply a statement or description of fact, reality that is seen in nature.  The one fact that needs to be understood is a fact about digestion. The body absorbs molecules one at a time.  The body does not absorb big groups of thousands of molecules all connected together - that is not normally or usually.  There are exceptions to this reality of the normal, adult, mature intestinal tract.  There is a condition that has been named "leaky gut syndrome" where groups of molecules all connected together are absorbed into the blood stream through the intestinal mucose or gut.  But this is not normal for adults.  It is normal for babies to absorb the mother's colostrum (antibodies the mother has to protect the immature infant) which are big (thousands of units connected) molecules.  The point is that individual sugar units (refined sugar) are absorbed directly and quickly into the blood stream.  This results in a surg or a spike in high blood sugar.  Well connected molecules consisting of thousands of individual units all connected (unrefined sugar or unrefined carbohydrates).  Digestion consists in taking these all apart so that they can be absorbed into the blood stream one at a time as single units.  This takes time for digestion.  It takes time for the body to take the thousands of connections apart.  It takes very little time to absorb the single units - once they are taken apart into single units.

 

 

Good questions.  It takes about 5 hours for digestion to be completed.  This means that it takes two or three hours for the carbs to be changed from groups of thousands of sugar units into single sugar units to be absorbed into the blood stream.  So what this means is that for refined sugar to be absorbed into the blood stream in two or three minutes, it takes two or three or hours for the thousands of connected units to be taken apart.  These single units are presented slowly to be absorbed rapidly into the blood stream.  So for the same amount of sugar to hit the blood stream already taken apart ("digested") to be absorbed in minutes causing a great rise in blood sugar calls for lots of insulin to control this surge in blood sugar.  Then by the time the insulin is absorbed into the blood to take care of this great surge of sugar - suddenly the sugar inflow is all finished and the end result is that the blood sugar falls below normal because of the large amount of insulin that the surge in blood sugar called for.  This is how refined sugar in the diet ends up with hypoglycermia (low blood sugar) and feeling shaky and calling for more sugar!  Contrast this with the same amount of sugar eaten as unrefined sugar in whole plant foods that takes several hours to all be digested and presented to the blood stream and absorb as single units into the blood stream.  When the unrefined sugar that is going to be presented little by little, first starts being presented and rapidly absorbed into the blood, a small insulin response is called for.  And the sugar keeps coming for the insulin to take care of and the blood sugar never does rise too high.  When the sugar stops being absorbed several hours later, there is no fall in blood sugar because of the small insulin response that the initial small rise in blood sugar called for.

 

So does diabetes only have to do with eating too much sugar?

 

Yes and no!  Diabetes, by definition means a problem with blood sugar control by the body.  An experiment that a Dr. Pitts performed in a university setting on students illustrates the importance of fat in the diet.  He had a group of normal students eat lots of cake, pies, white bread with jam - all the "good things" for a few days and then did a glucose tolerance test on them and not one of them tested to be diabetic.  He then did part 2 of his experiment on the same students a few weeks later.  Only this time instead of feeding them lots of refined sugar, he fed them lots of refined fats.  He had them eating high fat foods for several days and then tested them again with a glucose tolerance test, and they all tested positive for diabetes. Today, we understand that fat has 200% more influence on causing diabetes as compared to refined carbs.

 

 

All excellent questions!  The equivalent of the US dollar in our world is sugar in the body.  Sugar is the energy-producing molecule in the body cells.  Every cell in the body gets its energy from the energy in sugar.  Fats and proteins can be burned by muscle cells under stress to produce energy - but not by the brain, even under stress.  So put this all together in this way:

1. Eat unrefined foods that will take time to digest and that will supply your body-glucose requirements little by little over many hours.

2. Exercise to tolerance every day so that your body-cells  will use the sugar in the blood normally.

3. Unrefined carbohydrates are the food supply for energy that your body is designed to run on.  So take about 70% of your food energy in unrefined carbs.

 

These three things will help the body control the use and flow of sugar in the body and have the tendency to correct the problems that result in violation of natural law with respect to energy flow and usage in the body.

 

I can understand eating unrefined food and exercise to help my diabetes.  I can understand eating about three quarters of the energy source in foods being carbs, but this talk of violation of natural law disturbs me!  Give me a break before talking more about that!

 

OK