My Latest Hemoglobin A1c (HgA1c) Test is 5.2!!

Update to this post: My last hemoglobin test was a 5.6. Since I indulged a bit over Thanksgiving, I was thoroughly happy with this number!

Here's the history of my personal triumph.

I am so very happy with my latest hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) test - 5.2 is the lowest it has ever been since I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It's almost hard to believe but I have actually cured my diabetes!! This is mostly through changes in my diet but also by other natural means. It's amazing to me how wrong - DEAD WRONG - the conventional wisdom seems to be when it comes to what causes diabetes. It is NOT eating too much sugar or eating too many carbs, although we do eat too many carbs in our American diet. However, what actually CAUSES diabetes is what we eat that messes up our hormonal systems and leaves our cell membranes unable to function properly -- think industrial food.

If you would like to learn about the science behind what truly cures diabetes and get a detailed instructions on exactly how to cure diabetes without prescription drugs (which don't cure diabetes), go here and take a close listen. You can also go there by clicking on the big red button.

Here's my personal story with diabetes.

I really want to encourage anyone reading my blog that already has diabetes or has the potential to develop it to learn all you can about healing your body by eliminating certain "foods" in our modern diet that aren't really foods at all! You may want to also read my food can be medicine post.

I would also like to hear from others who have cured their diabetes naturally and have the proof like I do. Please leave me comments - I will respond I promise.

My Latest HbA1c Test Results Are In!

Hi All.

I've got some great news last week and I wanted to share it with you all. I think I've REALLY reversed my diabetes!

My latest HbA1c test results came back: 5.4 which is within the normal range. Yeah!!!

I was more worried about this one as I "cheated" many times over the holidays with the carbs and the sugary treats. I just can't stay away from some of our perennial favorites.

However, even though I cheated with the carbs, I've been really strict about NOT eating certain things and I think it's made a huge difference in my body's ability to handle the extra carbs and sugar and keep my blood sugar at normal levels.

By the way, if you aren't already having your doctor draw blood and doing regular HbA1c tests, I highly encourage you to do so. It's so much more useful and accurate than finger pricks. You get an average for the last 8-12 weeks.

If you are struggling to reverse your diabetes, be sure to check out this video. It is long but you need to watch all the way to the end. It is very possible to cure your diabetes and get off the roller coaster traditional medicines if you have the right information.

Large Research Study Shows Strong Link Between Air Pollution and the Rate of Diabetes

Hi Guys,

This was a very well designed study covering the entire United States.  The results show a very strong correlation between the level of air pollution in a given area and the incidence of diabetes. Take a look at the maps in the actual published research paper and you'll see what I mean:

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/10/2196.full

If you just want a quick summary of the results, here's the press release by the hospital involved in the study: 

http://www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom/Site1339/mainpageS1339P1sublevel663.html 

And here is one of the many popular press articles:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/10/diabetes-air-pollution/1

I'll be writing some articles on this soon so stay tuned.

Happy Halloween Everyone! Don't let those ghouls get you.

Maxine

Why I Was Banned From Certain Diabetes Forums - and Why That Matters To You!!

Hi Everyone,

I've been debating whether or not to post this . I don't want to use this blog as a place to just vent because I want my blog to be entirely helpful to other people who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and to their loved ones looking for useful practical information. HOWEVER, I think I will vent a little here because I think you all need to know about this because there is so much information out on the net that looks good on the surface but it is actually being spun by those who profit from the diabetes epidemic and/or by those that have bought into their propaganda.

I participate in various forums around the net. It is a great way to connect and learn and a great way to share what you know with people who really need it. HOWEVER, there is an ugly dark side: moderation to the extreme to keep certain information off the net that might cut into the multi-billion dollar diabetes business. In the last few months, I have signed up to participate in two of the largest diabetes forums on the net. However, when I attempted to add to the conversation regarding natural ways to reverse diabetes, and in one case just talking about my own personal experience, I was immediately banned and they refused to even communicate with me about it. I was stunned and I began to look around the net only to discover that this has happened to literally dozens (probably hundreds) of others.

It turns out that anyone that talks about any natural way to prevent and/or reverse diabetes automatically gets banned from these sites. Anyone who even shares a personal story or how they reversed their diabetes naturally gets banned permanently and immediately!!! So, I started taking a closer look at who owns these sites, who runs these sites, and how these sites are funded. Guess what? They are closely connected to the multi-billion dollar diabetes "industry." This includes the pharmaceutical companies, traditional medicine specialists, and certain non-profit organizations that are in their camp as well. They are all profiting from the pharmaceuticals that diabetics have to take the rest of their lives, the ongoing testing, the medical checkups, all the diabetic equipment being sold, and all the various jobs in the medical and non-profit sector. These companies and individuals would not prosper if diabetes was cured naturally or prevented naturally. I know this is a dark topic but if we cure the diabetes epidemic naturally, we put these guys out of business and it is BIG business.

I remember watching a YouTube video of a doctor giving a lecture on how to cure diabetes naturally. He was asked to write an article (for money) in a well-known diabetes magazine. However, it was never published because he refused to do what the editor asked: modify his article so it didn't say that diabetes was curable. He was told by the editor that they couldn't publish an article that said that because the advertisers would never stand for it. (I'll look for that link and edit this post to include a link to that later if I can find it - if anyone reading this knows offhand, please post it here).

So, my main message to my readers is this: be very very wary of any information you read on websites, magazines, brochures, etc that include any advertising from the mainstream medical establishment, especially ads for diabetes pharmaceuticals and diabetes supplies. In my opinion, these sources of information are highly suspect and not in any way balanced. They will not tell you the truth, certainly not the full truth, because their advertisers simply won't stand for it.

Consider the source of all information you receive and please understand why there aren't more people like me out there telling you the truth about how to reverse and prevent type 2 diabetes naturally.

Maxine

P.S. As an important side note: I was recently told by the webmaster of a large diabetes site that she could not link to my blog because she did not believe that diabetes could be reversed. She wouldn't even engage in an informed dialog on the issue. There are pharmaceutical ads and diabetes supply ads on her site.

How Much Sugar Do Americans Consume?

The human race did not evolve to consume so much carb as we currently consume and it's bound to reak havoc with our bodies. Some have called sugar the silent killer. So, I wanted to ask just how much sugar do Americans consume?

Several internet sources claim that the average American consumes more than 150 pounds of sugar per year, some, well actually many, consume much much more! I think the original source for this factoid came from a 2002 report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and of course the sugar association disputes it. When my Grandmother was a little girl, the average American only consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year so things have changed considerably. Oh, the same agency reports that many Americans eat almost double this amount per year! Of course, the Sugar Association, founded by members of the sugar industry, strongly disagrees with these stats.


According to the American Heart Association:

The average American consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar a day (that's simple sugar, not carbs in general). They say the biggest sources come from soda pop (33%) and candy (16.1%), ...hmmm, what about the high fructose corn syrup I read on the ingredient label of almost every condiment package I pick up these days and the vast majority of processed food packages I read... well, first they say cakes, cookies, and pies contribute 12.9%, sweetened fruit drinks 9.7%, sweetened milk products (like icecream and sweetened yogurt) contribute 8.6%, and sweetened grains like cinnamon and honey-nut waffles another 5.8%. Ok, add all that up and you've got 86.1%. I'm betting this is actually an underestimate because things like condiments often don't get counted. I recently went through a drawer of condiments collected from various fast food restaurants. I threw out about 80% of them because they contained high fructose corn syrup.

Looking at high fructose corn syrup specifically (which I believe is even worse than eating plain white sugar): the average American eats about 98 pounds of this stuff a year. I find it really difficult to avoid because so many products contain it. You basically just have to resolve yourself to not eating processed pre-packaged convenient food. One of my solutions is to cook more quantity when I cook up something really good and freeze individual servings in handy dandy microwaveable containers (yes, I know...microwaves aren't good either....working on that one but having to do this one step at a time).

More on this topic later.

Why You Should Eat WILD Salmon If You Are Diabetic (eat it as often as possible)

 Ok, I know wild salmon is darn expensive but remember food is medicine...if you catch a good sale, toss it in the fridge....or alternately, you could marry a salmon fisherman/woman (just a joke, sort of)

Wild Salmon Can Help Make Your Diabetic Cell Membranes Function Properly Again

You may have heard that omega-3 is good but you may not realize how important it is to the healthy functioning of our cell membranes and why that's important to diabetics. Unlike type 1 diabetics, type 2 diabetics usually produce plenty of insulin. In type 2 diabetics, the problem is really more about improperly functioning cell membranes, i.e. type 2 diabetics are insulin resistant.
When we eat, our food is broken down into glucose. This glucose enters the blood stream and the hormone insulin aids the glucose in transport across the cell membrane. The glucose must get inside the cell to fuel our bodies. If the glucose stays in our blood stream and does not get inside our cells, it doesn't do us any good and it causes type 2 diabetes.
It turns out that in order for our bodies to build healthy cell membranes capable of transporting the glucose across them, we have to have the proper building blocks. Omega-3 is one of the key building blocks to creating a healthy cell membrane. American diets are notoriously low in omega-3. To make matters worse, the American diet consists of lots of artificially manufactured trans fats which are unfortunately added to a wide variety of foods. These trans fats get substituted for the omega-3 in our cell membranes when there isn't enough omega-3 around.
Fish in general is rich in omega-3 but fatty cold water fish like salmon, herring, and sardines have by far the highest concentration of omega-3. For this reason, salmon is one of the healthiest foods a diabetic, or anyone at risk to develop diabetes, can eat.

Diabetics Can Not Convert Vegetarian Sources of Omega-3 Into the Right Type of Omega-3 Efficiently

The omega-3 found in vegetarian sources like flax seed, flax oil, and walnuts is a type of omega-3 called ALA. While humans can convert ALA into the more important types of omega-3 called DHA and EPA, it turns out we do not do so very inefficiently. Females convert it better than males. Young people convert it better than older people.However, the very best humans can do (in a young healthy female) is a 25-30% conversion. And most importantly to those with diabetes, some diabetics can't convert much ALA at all.
If you are diabetic, it is extremely important that you get enough DHA and EPA so your body can build new cell membranes and repair old cell membranes with the right type of omega-3. The right type of omega-3 is not found in vegetarian sources except for certain kinds of algae. If you are an omnivore, your best choice for obtaining omega-3 is salmon or a high quality salmon oil supplement. If you are a strict vegetarian, you need to look into taking an algal supplement that contains DHA and EPA.

Wild Salmon Has Less Mercury and Other Toxins Than Farmed Salmon

This fact was counterintuitive when I first learned about it but it makes sense if you know why. Mercury and other toxins like PCB's become more concentrated as they move up the food chain. This is why top predators are always more susceptible to toxins than those lower on the food chain. The classic example of this is DDT making the egg shells of predatory raptors too thin. Wild salmon eat a much wider variety of food than do farmed salmon, including things lower down on the food chain. Farmed salmon basically just get to eat the feed given to them. It turns out that much of this feed contains fish mill made from salmon so the toxins just become that more concentrated.

I like to skillet poach my salmon and either eat with lots of fresh lemon or a mixture of sour cream, lemon, and dill. Yum! If others have more suggestions, please leave a comment and I will post.

If you want to know the other best foods for diabetics and why...and how these foods can not only control but actually REVERSE (i.e. CURE) your diabetes, please check out the reference guide I review at the top of this page. It's MUST HAVE info for all diabetics and those who are at risk to develop diabetes which is more than half of the American population unfortunately. It also tells you what foods you have to avoid at all costs.

Why Don't Doctors Check Insulin Levels BEFORE They Prescribe Drugs That Raise Insulin?

When someone is first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the doctor bases this diagnosis on blood tests that check to see if they have an abnormally high level of glucose in your blood - i.e. high blood sugar. If their blood sugar is just a little above the normal range, the doctor might just call it "pre-diabetes" or "high blood sugar" but if it's too much above the normal range for blood sugar, they'll call it "diabetes." However, the main point I want to make in this article is that even though doctors test for blood sugar levels, they almost NEVER test for insulin levels! It is possible to test for insulin (it is expensive though) but they are just not trained to do so. I don't know of any way to test for insulin levels at home but I really wish there were.

However, insulin levels can be just as important, if not more important, as blood sugar levels! Many type 2 diabetics that have higher than normal insulin levels experience the dawn phenomenon and almost all of them have a build up of fat in the liver. Some type 2 diabetics have normal levels of insulin but most actually have ELEVATED levels of insulin - this means if you are a type 2 diabetic, it is more probably than not that you have elevated insulin levels. This is because what's causing your type 2 diabetes is NOT low insulin or bad insulin but rather insulin resistance in your cell membranes. So you are producing adequate amounts of insulin, it's traveling to your cell membranes, but it can't get through the cell membrane to do it's job and help glucose enter the cell - instead, the glucose builds up in the bloodstream causing the symptom of "high blood sugar."

Now how does the medical community usually address your type 2 diabetes...

People who have been diagnosed with diabetics are encouraged to check their blood sugar regularly - prick their fingers several times a day and use test strips to check instantaneous blood sugar levels. In fact, the more they check their sugar, the more "cooperative" you are seen to be as a patient - they call you a "compliant" patient. When you go back to the doctor, they almost always prick your finger to check your blood sugar right there in the office plus it has become almost standard to draw blood and do a hemoglobin a1c test to determine what your average blood sugar has been for the last 3-6 months. This test is actually far more accurate than the finger prick method, but again, they are almost never testing for insulin levels even though they've already drawn blood for the hemoglobin a1c test! They literally have no way of knowing whether your insulin levels are normal or high!

Why aren't most doctors ordering tests to check for insulin levels? And... why is this important? Read on...

Approximately 95% of all diabetics are type 2 diabetics. The majority of type 2 diabetics still produce a normal amount of insulin - or a surplus of insulin because their bodies are trying to compensate for their cells being "insulin resistant." I know I'm sort of repeating myself here but this is a really important point.  When this happens your pancreas is working over time producing extra insulin. As the cell membranes become even more resistant, the pancreas works even harder producing even more insulin. Eventually, the pancreas can't produce enough insulin and a more severe level of type 2 diabetes develops that requires the injection of insulin just like type 1 diabetics - sometimes doctors will even call type 2 diabetes type 1 diabetes when it reaches this advanced stage.

So, instead of just a surplus of glucose in their blood, many type 2 diabetics also have a surplus of insulin surging through their circulatory system reaping havoc on all their systems!

And... with this situation going on, what do many medical doctors do? They prescribe oral medications that actually encourage your pancreas to produce even more insulin! This doesn't make any sense to me if you view the bigger picture. While it's usually true that this brings the blood sugar down temporarily, it usually ends up taxing your system so much that these patients have to keep increasing their oral medications and eventually go on insulin.

Wouldn't it be better to treat the underlying CAUSE of diabetes - those damaged cell membranes that are so insulin resistant?!? (that's exactly what we do when we reverse diabetes naturally and why this is a CURE, not just a treatment of symptoms!)

Again, several of the most popular oral medications prescribed by doctors for type 2 diabetics work by stimulating the pancreas to produce MORE insulin. These include the sulfonylureas such as Minodiab (generic: glipizide), glyburide (brand names: Diabeta, Glynase, Micronase), and Amaryl (generic: glimepiride). They also include the meglitinides which include Prandin (repaglinide) and Starlix (nateglinide).

Now, I'm not a doctor, but I've got to ask the following important questions:

1. If you are a type 2 diabetic and you are already producing a normal amount of insulin or even a surplus of insulin, why would your doctor prescribe a medication that will actually raise your insulin levels even more - especially when higher than normal insulin levels can damage your body?

2. Why don't most doctors check your insulin level BEFORE they prescribe your type 2 diabetes medication(s)? Shouldn't they know what your insulin levels are BEFORE they prescribe your diabetes medications since many of these drugs stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin when this is not really what you need and is going to be really hard on your pancreas and "burn out" your beta cells?

Elevated levels of insulin are detrimental to the human body. Your system can become so taxed, it basically wears out the cells in the pancreas that produce the insulin and causes your diabetes to progress to a more serious state over time.

I encourage everyone reading this to discuss with their doctor the possibility of ordering an insulin test. If they won't or even if they are hesitant to do so, you may want to shop for a different doctor.

I mentioned above that the natural way we reverse diabetes actually addresses the underlying cause of diabetes - those insulin resistant damaged cell membranes. We work on healing the cell membranes and also on make sure we don't cause undue damage to them again. Much progress can be made in just 3-6 months (this was my personal experience as well - after I QUIT taking medication that caused my pancreas to produce so much insulin I was getting the shakes due to LOW blood sugar and roller coaster highs too) and eventually all your cells will either be replaced by cells with healthy non-insulin-resistant cell membranes or repaired to completely normal functioning. Take a look at this comprehensive guide that shows you how to do this.