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
Tag Archives: blood sugars
Strategies for Improving Your Blood Sugars
This week I’d like to talk about the concept of diet-controlled diabetes. Sometimes, when a patient’s most recent bloodwork demonstrates a mild elevation in their blood sugars, their doctor offers them an opportunity to try to improve their sugars without medication. If the patient is able to bring their blood sugars into the normal range through changes in the way they eat, perhaps along with increasing their activity levels to some extent, the doctor diagnoses this patient with what they term “diet-controlled diabetes.” 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
Returning to the Beginning: Two Core Messages
Today I want to focus on two of the core messages to which I continue to return time and time again: First, there is an enormous difference between real food and manufactured calories. And, second, as we have been discussing at length in recent weeks, manufactured calories have been associated with an epidemic of chronic diseases, including not only diabetes, coronary artery disease, and obesity, but also depression, dementia, and other brain diseases. Continue reading
Nourishing Breakfast Ideas for Kids and the Parents Who Love Them
A while back, a good friend of mine, an elementary school teacher at a small school north of Detroit, says “The kids are bouncing off the walls by 9:30.” It occurs to me that maybe their blood sugars are falling, though 9:30 a.m. is pretty early for that. Then he says that a snack usually helps get them back on track. Yeh, I think, it’s probably their blood sugars. Continue reading
Trying to Eat in a Hospital
My mom doesn’t take diabetes medicine; she keeps her blood sugars normal through a combination of common sense and careful carbohydrate consumption. A few years ago, she had to be hospitalized at her local hospital for what she called a “minor procedure.” The procedure went fine, but the food did not. Continue reading
Inspiration & Motivation for Your Reading Pleasure
On a regular basis, I have to tell a new patient that their blood sugars are too high. But please don’t shoot the messenger: It’s nothing personal. Not when the latest statistics reveal that fully one-half of the population over age 65 is now diabetic or prediabetic. And certainly not when the stats show that the majority don’t even know. Unbelievable, right? But it’s true. It’s either you or your spouse. You or your next-door neighbor. You or your best friend. Fifty percent. It doesn’t have to be this way. Continue reading
Let’s Go For a Walk
This is a good week to talk about taking a walk. When it comes to health care, I consider mobility a goal of the highest priority. The one other goal about which i feel this way is blood sugars; I’ll pay any price to keep patients’ blood sugars normal. And I’ll pay any price to keep a person mobile. When my kids were growing up, and they were feeling crummy (I’m cranky; I don’t feel well; I’m bored; I have too much homework), I would always say, “Go for a walk!” It got to be a joke in our house. They took it to the next level. Fever? Go for a walk! Migraine? Take a hike! Broken leg? Walk it off! Appendicitis? “Very funny,” I said. Continue reading