My mom was a very no-nonsense type of person. When her blood sugars began to rise slightly as she entered her 70s, she announced that she did not want take any diabetes medicine. From then on, she kept her blood sugars normal through a combination of common sense and careful carbohydrate consumption. Once, she was hospitalized for what she called a “minor procedure.” The procedure went fine, but not the food. The first meal they brought her consisted of breaded fish (frozen), mashed potatoes (instant), corn (canned), a dinner roll (frozen), and tea (2 sugar packets on tray). “If I ate that, my blood sugars would have gone through the roof!” she told me. She drank the tea (without sugar), and called my dad, who arrived in short order with a chopped salad, roasted peppers, and meat loaf. Continue reading
Category Archives: Diabetes
Testimonial from an Old Friend
I was scrolling back through some posts that I wrote over a decade ago, and came across this one. I decided to include it here once again to highlight the message that diabetes is reversible. A great many people feel that their diagnosis is inevitable, and that once it appears on their list it will stay forever. Not true. Continue reading
When Your Heart Becomes a Home
A while back I wrote about various ways a heart’s function can become compromised. Think of the heart as having electricity, carpentry and plumbing. Today’s post focuses on the plumbing. Heart attacks are a plumbing problem, a blockage in the blood vessels, or pipes, of the heart. Yes the heart has its own blood supply. Blockages are caused by a clot, or a thick layer of plaque. If blood can’t pass through a vessel, then all the cells beyond the blockage quickly become starved for oxygen, after which they die. This is a heart attack. Continue reading
Cottonseed Oil, Crisco, and Trans Fats
About ten years ago, some fifty years after concerns were first raised about a possible link between trans fats and heart attacks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled that partially hydrogenated oils, the primary dietary source of trans fats in ultraprocessed food items, were no longer “generally recognized as safe” in human food. Processed food manufacturers were given three years to reformulate their products or to request an exemption. This action was predicted to prevent thousands of fatal heart attacks a year. Multiply that by 50 years to get an idea of the effect trans fats have on your heart. Continue reading
Ultraprocessing Hits the Popular Press
I am thrilled to report that the discussion about ultraprocessed items has finally reached the popular press in a big way. This past week Jancee Dunn, a wellness columnist for the New York Times, wrote a week-long series about different aspects of ultra processing, beginning with her love of sprinkle-covered sheet cake. Then Reuters covered California governor Gavin Newsom’s recent executive order focusing on reducing consumption of packaged snacks and sugar-containing beverages, and investigating the effects of synthetic food dyes. This order cited a 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report showing that 73% of American adults aged 20 or older are overweight and/or obese, and 38% of children and youth aged 12-19 are pre-diabetic. Continue reading
Giving Your Body the Help it Needs
Some years ago, when my patient, Mrs. Price, heard me say that her blood sugar measurement had come back from the lab at 204, a single tear ran down her cheek as she said, “My eldest granddaughter is getting married next year.” A blood sugar measurement over 200 is one way to confirm a diagnosis of diabetes. Both of Mrs. Price’s parents had died in their 60’s from complications of uncontrolled diabetes, or chronically elevated high blood sugars. This is what I told her. Continue reading
Learning to Keep Your Blood Sugars Normal
As a doctor, it’s easy enough for me to think I understand a disease state, and then to know how to manage it with medication to be taken two or three times daily. I spent hours and hours studying that problem. I talked with patients who were diagnosed with that illness, and learned how it changed their lives. But it’s still not the same as having someone close to you diagnosed with it. Continue reading
Defining Diabetes
Diabetes is a complex disease whose hallmark is elevated blood sugars. Persistently uncontrolled diabetes causes devastating and costly complications. My former patients knew that I would pay any price, whether it involved medication or not, to keep their blood sugars in the normal range. No matter what it costs to keep blood sugars normal, let’s be honest: It costs a lot more not to. We continue to see skyrocketing costs of medical care for patients with diabetes and associated complications. But prevention is not just the most economical approach; it’s also the most humane one. Continue reading