User-friendly information and and evidence-based recommendations to manage type 2 diabetes is available in DEFEATING DIABETES by Brenda Davis (a past chair of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association) and Tom Barnard, MD (clinical adjunct Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario).

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter:

“Type 2 diabetes can quietly wreak havoc inside a person’s body long before symptoms become serious. In recent years, experts have come to realize that people go through months and even years of various prediabetic conditions before being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes is now recognized as a medical condition of higher than normal blood sugar affecting more than sixteen million Americans. Without treatment,
people with prediabetes are headed down a rocky road to full-blown type 2 diabetes.

For many people, the first step to diabetes is insulin resistance, in some cases even before diabetes can be diagnosed, Insulin resistance can also be part of a syndrome leading to prediabetes and full-blown type 2. Insulin resistance syndrome is characterized by high blood pressure, abdominal fat, high blood fats, low HDL or “good” cholesterol, obesity, and high uric acid associated with increased heart attacks. Insulin resistance syndrome is also sometimes called metabolic syndrome or syndrome X. Insulin resistance increases your chances of having a heart attack. It can be corrected with weight loss and exercise.

To understand how insulin resistance works, imagine that cells in our bodies have “gate—keepers” called insulin receptors. Insulin, the key hormone that allows glucose to enter the cells, is produced by the beta cells of the pancreas. Insulin’s job is to travel from the pancreas to cells all over the body, unlocking the cells so glucose can enter. After glucose enters, the cells can immediately use it for energy, store it for rapid use later on, or convert it to far for use as energy even later.

When the gate—keeper cells function normally, they are sensitive to insulin and respond, taking up glucose or blood sugar from the blood. If the gate-keepers are insensitive to insulin, they do not “open up,” and glucose or sugar remains in the blood stream, despite insulin being present. The glucose is not burned off for fuel, and its continued presence stimulates production of more insulin. Because the body is not using insulin properly, the pancreas is “confused” and keeps pumping more out in an effort to compensate.. The body remains stubbornly insensitive to increasing amounts of insulin, eventually becoming resistant. As a result of resistance to insulin, blood sugar is not burned or metabolized, and blood sugar rises, leading to diabetes and a host of other health problems, including heart disease.”

DEFEATING DIABETES by Brenda Davis, RD and Tom Barnard, MD is available now at <a href=”http://www.magnico.com/products/defeating-diabetes”>Defeating Diabetes link</a>.

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