The solutions are all around you: Use local herbs
May 31, 2005
Diabetes should be taken as a state of being, not a lifetime sentence. Diabetics, you are neither helpless nor slaves to your hypodermic needle or doctor.
By Dr David Ssali
Diabetes should be taken as a state of being, not a lifetime sentence. Diabetics, you are neither helpless nor slaves to your hypodermic needle or doctor. You can use local herbs and eat healthy food, and do exercises, and your pockets won’t feel it.
Herbal medicine
Garlic (katungulucumu) stabilises the blood sugar level while cabbage, kidney beans (bigaaga) which contain arginine, and amino acid –– and aloe vera (kigagi), decrease the sugar level in the blood. Onions lower blood glucose levels by freeing insulin to metabolise it.
Their action may enhance and in some cases substitute that of the anti-diabetic medicines taken orally. While on herbal therapy, the patient must undergo periodic controls regarding the blood sugar level just as in any other anti-diabetic treatment.
The role of sugar
Refined sugar exhausts the pancreas, which is charged with producing insulin. In his essay, The Saccharine Disease, Surgeon-Captain T.L. Cleave illustrates how the introduction of refined sugar into the diet of traditional societies was an obvious starting point for the development of diabetes. In every culture he studied, it took exactly 20 years after their dietary change for the first cases of diabetes to appear (The Law of Twenty Years by T.L. Cleave). And for every 20 years thereafter, there is 100% increase in diabetes prevalence.
Societies which are discarding fast foods, sugars and refined flour to return to the seeds, nuts, berries, beans and corns of their ancestral diet, are once again regaining their health and blood sugar fitness.
Exercise
In modern-day fat, sugar and inactivity are the problem. Every diabetic, regardless of age or type, should be in a fitness protection programme. Exercise not only loses the fat but also lowers blood sugar and improves the health of body cells, making them insulin-sensitive. The cells of exercising muscles can extract glucose from the blood much more effectively than resting muscles can.
Minerals
Certain mineral nutrients in food are essential for normal blood sugar levels and insulin absorption. Among these are chromium (got from raw sugar and whole wheat flour), vanadium (got from vegetable oils, whole grains, seafood and liver) and magnesium (got from whole grains, dark green vegetables, molasses, nuts and bone meal).
Vitamins
Little-known B vitamins biotin and Niacin, B6 and pyridoxine are recommended. Vitamin B6 is fragile and easily destroyed during transportation, storage, preservation, processing and cooking foods. It is absent in fatty and processed foods.
Regulating Foods
Diabetics should be thoroughly tested for food intolerances, which may contribute to the disease by causing inflammation and autoimmune destruction of the insulin producing cells of the pancreas.
Foods that have a reputation for helping to prevent or control diabetes include legumes –– beans, peas and lentil. Half to one cup of beans per day can significantly reduce blood cholesterol levels and help control blood sugar levels of people who have Type II diabetes.
Soy beans also keep insulin levels under control. Diabetics should eat at least two meals a day of legumes. Good ideas are lentil stew or soup for breakfast and pinto beans for dinner. To remove some of the troublesome carbohydrates, soak dry beans in water for three to five hours and discard this water before cooking. To retain all the nutrients, use this water and eat alone.
Ideally, food sources should be raw, organic and unaltered.
Don’t you see how you can take control of your life and make a difference?
The writer is a consultant
in Herbal Medicine
Diabetes should be taken as a state of being, not a lifetime sentence. Diabetics, you are neither helpless nor slaves to your hypodermic needle or doctor. You can use local herbs and eat healthy food, and do exercises, and your pockets won’t feel it.
Herbal medicine
Garlic (katungulucumu) stabilises the blood sugar level while cabbage, kidney beans (bigaaga) which contain arginine, and amino acid –– and aloe vera (kigagi), decrease the sugar level in the blood. Onions lower blood glucose levels by freeing insulin to metabolise it.
Their action may enhance and in some cases substitute that of the anti-diabetic medicines taken orally. While on herbal therapy, the patient must undergo periodic controls regarding the blood sugar level just as in any other anti-diabetic treatment.
The role of sugar
Refined sugar exhausts the pancreas, which is charged with producing insulin. In his essay, The Saccharine Disease, Surgeon-Captain T.L. Cleave illustrates how the introduction of refined sugar into the diet of traditional societies was an obvious starting point for the development of diabetes. In every culture he studied, it took exactly 20 years after their dietary change for the first cases of diabetes to appear (The Law of Twenty Years by T.L. Cleave). And for every 20 years thereafter, there is 100% increase in diabetes prevalence.
Societies which are discarding fast foods, sugars and refined flour to return to the seeds, nuts, berries, beans and corns of their ancestral diet, are once again regaining their health and blood sugar fitness.
Exercise
In modern-day fat, sugar and inactivity are the problem. Every diabetic, regardless of age or type, should be in a fitness protection programme. Exercise not only loses the fat but also lowers blood sugar and improves the health of body cells, making them insulin-sensitive. The cells of exercising muscles can extract glucose from the blood much more effectively than resting muscles can.
Minerals
Certain mineral nutrients in food are essential for normal blood sugar levels and insulin absorption. Among these are chromium (got from raw sugar and whole wheat flour), vanadium (got from vegetable oils, whole grains, seafood and liver) and magnesium (got from whole grains, dark green vegetables, molasses, nuts and bone meal).
Vitamins
Little-known B vitamins biotin and Niacin, B6 and pyridoxine are recommended. Vitamin B6 is fragile and easily destroyed during transportation, storage, preservation, processing and cooking foods. It is absent in fatty and processed foods.
Regulating Foods
Diabetics should be thoroughly tested for food intolerances, which may contribute to the disease by causing inflammation and autoimmune destruction of the insulin producing cells of the pancreas.
Foods that have a reputation for helping to prevent or control diabetes include legumes –– beans, peas and lentil. Half to one cup of beans per day can significantly reduce blood cholesterol levels and help control blood sugar levels of people who have Type II diabetes.
Soy beans also keep insulin levels under control. Diabetics should eat at least two meals a day of legumes. Good ideas are lentil stew or soup for breakfast and pinto beans for dinner. To remove some of the troublesome carbohydrates, soak dry beans in water for three to five hours and discard this water before cooking. To retain all the nutrients, use this water and eat alone.
Ideally, food sources should be raw, organic and unaltered.
Don’t you see how you can take control of your life and make a difference?
The writer is a consultant
in Herbal Medicine