Stopping the pain.

[MikePollard]

I'm going to write today to shine the spotlight on the nutrient that should be of most concern to you as a diabetic. If it isn't, or is something you don't give a lot of thought to I hope at least it will when you finish reading.

There are only three macronutrients - protein, fat and carbohydrate.

Every time you sit down to a meal, in all likelihood all three will will be on your plate (unless of course you are ‘snacking’ on junk). However in this instance we are going to concentrate on the one that has damaged, and is still damaging you - carbohydrate.

When you consume any carbohydrate, whether, rice, potato, pasta, flour etc, in a very short time (starting in the mouth) it will be circulating in your bloodstream as glucose (in the case of sugar it will be half fructose, half glucose).

Glucose, outside of exquisitely controlled parameters, is toxic, and when those parameters are exceeded the body reacts very quickly to get things back to normal. To try and duplicate this mechanism with exogenous medicines or hormones is next to impossible. By that I mean if you think you are covering a carbohydrate rich meal by taking a fixed dose of Metformin say, then you are sadly, and badly mistaken - and that’s why so many people come on this forum baffled when their testing is wildly out of whack.

Now we come to the main point of this post and if you take this on board you are a long way into understanding and controlling your condition, and it’s this:

The body can only do two things when it comes to dealing with a carbohydrate load - BURN IT or STORE IT. 


So, if your metabolism isn’t broken you will be burning it for energy, and storing it on a continuous, smoothly running cycle. However, if you are diabetic, this doesn’t happen. You will only be able to burn it, as the storage mechanism will be badly dysfunctional, with you desperately and futilely trying to duplicate natures way with drugs or silly ‘alternative’ medicines. All the time you will still have high blood sugars doing long term damage to your heart, kidneys, eyes - in fact every organ in the body.

It’s like banging your head against a brick wall and complaining about the pain, when stopping what you are doing is the only thing that will stop the pain.

So, if after reading this and don’t want to be looking down at a blackened gangrenous foot in a few years, you know what to do.

By the way - ‘starting in the mouth’ (above). Try this. Take a small piece of bread and put at the back of your mouth between cheek and gum. Leave it there for ten minutes then swish it around. It will now taste sweet, as the hormone ptyalin will have broken the starch down to glucose.