Controlling Blood Glucose Levels – Clinical Update
by Dr. Greg Fors, DC – Board Certified Neurologist DIBCN Posted On: 09/30/2009
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than 2 out of 3 adults and 1 out of 3 children in the United States are overweight or obese, and these numbers continue to climb. Our ‘Standard American Diet’, high in refined carbohydrates and sugars, is creating a modern plague of obesity and Type-2 Diabetes. There are nearly 21 million Americans suffering from Diabetes and the National Institute of Health estimates that as many as one-third of these individuals are unaware of it. Astonishingly, the CDC announced on June 15, 2003, that as many as one out of every three children born in the year 2000 will develop Diabetes by middle age!
The primary culprit behind this rising tsunami of metabolic dysfunction is the lack of exercise and a diet high in refined carbohydrates and sugars with a high glycemic index. Comparatively, complex carbohydrates from unprocessed whole foods such as fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and whole grains have a low glycemic index. Important to your patients is the fact that recent research has found that a diet of high glycemic foods not only leads to Obesity(1), Diabetes and Heart Disease(2), but also Chronic Inflammation, Pain and eventual Cognitive Impairment and Dementia.(3) With these alarming facts it is vital for everyone in healthcare to do all that is possible to educate the public to help remedy this destructive epidemic.
When blood sugars are not tightly controlled, the high availability of glucose in the blood causes glucose to be attached to structural or enzyme proteins in the cells. The attachment of glucose to proteins form destructive products called AGEs (short for advanced glycosylated end products). AGEs are aptly named because they definitely increase the aging process and the development of chronic degenerative disease. It is this attachment of glucose to structural or functional proteins in the body that causes many of the side effects in Diabetes, such as Heart Disease, Blindness, loss of sensation, and poor wound healing. One of the primary ways that AGEs create all these health problems is by attaching to cell membranes and turning on a gene that creates chronic inflammation.