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By now the term “low carb” has become synonymous with loosing weight and improving fitness. This diet seems to work well, and many people feel they have derived great benefit from it. The system seems simple enough – eat fewer carbohydrates (carbs) and you will loose weight. One must ask what the mechanics are behind all these success stories.

By reducing carbohydrates, you are cutting more calories than you would by reducing any other nutrient. While it may seem redundant, reducing “empty” or low nutrient value calories is an important part of changing your diet for the better. Reducing carbs, therefore, will help you curb your appetite, and allow you to eat foods that flush out of your system instead of being stored as fat tissue.

At the beginning of your diet, reducing refined sugars and starches will force your body to turn to the glycogen stored in the liver and muscles. Glycogen can be easily broken down into glucose - the energy or fuel your cells need in order to function. It takes a sizeable amount of water to store glycogen. This accounts for the sudden weight loss that many people experience when they start dieting. It is also why people reach a stagnation point after approximately two weeks. Once the glycogen is used up, and the water flushed, the next job is to reduce the fat tissue.

As long as your carbohydrate intake is lower than 50 or 60 grams daily, your body will seek to break down fat tissue in order to create more glucose. This, however, can be a struggle, as the body naturally wants to keep its stored up reserves. Thus, the metabolism will slow down in order to reduce the amount of fat tissue being lost.

Ketones, however, are also released when you get into the fat reducing stage of your diet. Ketones are normally flushed through your kidneys, and can act as an appetite suppressant. Increased ketones can lead to increased urination. During the fat burning phase of your carb diet, it is important to drink plenty of water, as you may become easily dehydrated.

While low carb diets appear to be effective and as reliable as diets go, not everyone can stay on the regimen for the necessary amount of time. Ultimately, the duration is a personal choice. As always, before starting any kind of a diet, it is recommended that you see a doctor.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Nutrition & Health.

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Tags: Carbohydrates, diet, glucose, metabolism, Nutrition & Health

Diabetes mellitus is a medical condition when the amount of glucose in the blood becomes too high. Glucose is moved from the blood to the body’s cells via a hormone known as insulin. Should the insulin level become too low, the blood glucose levels may rise resulting in diabetes.

By eating a balanced diet and taking regular exercise whilst maintaining a healthy body weight, one can assist with the prevention and delay of type 2 diabetes. Those who have developed diabetes should maintain a weight that is considered healthy and ensure that their diet is low in saturated fat and salt. They should, however ensure that their diet contains at least five portions of fruit and vegetables along with carbohydrates that are starching such as pasta, rice and whole-grain bread.

Untreated diabetes may cause increased thirst, the need to urinate more, weight loss, itching of the genital organs, blurred vision and tiredness.

Type 1 diabetes is also referred to as insulin dependant diabetes. The body’s immune system turns against itself and as result the cells that produce insulin are destroyed and the pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin. This type of diabetes usually develops in people under the age of 40 and in childhood.

Type 2 diabetes is when the body does not produce enough insulin or the insulin does not properly work. This type usually occurs in middle ages people. This type of diabetes is rapidly growing in the US due to people becoming fatter due to their poor diet and nutrition.

Treatment can include diet modification and physical activity for type 2 diabetes to help patients control their blood glucose level and help those patients who are overweight lose weight. It is usually possible to control this type of diabetes by diet and insulin. People with type 2 diabetes are advised to adhere to a healthy well balanced nutritious diet and will be give their individual dietary guidance by a health professional.

Likewise, a healthy nutritious diet and physical exercise can assist with the prevention of type 2 diabetes. Researchers have linked the regular consumption of whole grain foods to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Foods that are whole grain provide a person with many nutrients such as fibre, minerals, vitamins and resistant starch. They contain compounds such as antioxidants and phytoestrogens which can assist with disease prevention. Nutrients such as these may become lost in the refining process.

People with diabetes are advised to eat healthy – the same way that is recommended for the whole population. Their diet should contain plenty of fruit and vegetables, starchy foods and foods that are low in sugar, salt and fat. Bear in mind that cakes that are designed for the diabetic may not be beneficial as they can contain a lot of fat.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Nutrition & Health.

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Tags: antioxidants, diabetes, diet, exercise, glucose, immune system, Nutrition & Health, type-2-diabetes

It is very hard for us as parents to compete against processed fast food fun meals and to ensure that our children are eating a healthy balanced diet. Fast food is constantly being advertised on TV, promoted by their peers, and it comes in bright packaging, sometimes even accompanied by toys. When children are visiting fast foods restaurants or eating ‘fun meals’ they are missing out on the healthy nutrients that should be filling their little stomachs.

You should always make sure your child’s diet contains whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. To ensure their bones grow strong and healthy, they should also get good source of calcium. Healthy sources of proteins include fish, eggs, meat, poultry, and plant sources. These should be consumed on a regular basis for a healthy balanced diet. Foods such as these provide your child with the vitamins micronutrients and minerals, everything our children need to build strong, healthy bodies.

There is absolutely no reason why your child should be eating large amounts of sugar. Sugar in a child’s diet is seriously bad for them, but is found more and more to the highly refined processed foods available on supermarket shelves.

Some experts contend that a child’s behaviour can be dictated by sugar in their diet, particularly in their activity levels, whereas others state that sugar intake does not play a part. Sugar’s effects probably depend on the physiology of each child.

When a child’s blood glucose level falls below the normal limit, there is a release of adrenaline, known as hypoglycaemia. There are many signs and symptoms that can arise as a result such as sweatiness, shaking and altered behaviour and thinking. This adrenaline release occurs at a higher glucose level in children than that of adults. It is thought sugar itself is not the problem; it’s the highly refined carbohydrates and sugars which quickly enter the bloodstream and cause rapid fluctuations in a child’s blood glucose levels.

By giving your child a high fiber breakfast such as shredded wheat, oatmeal, bananas or berries, your child’s adrenaline levels will be kept at a constant level. This will enable them to maintain concentration throughout their morning. You should ensure that their lunch box is packed with high fiber foods such as whole grain breads and fruits, enabling them to continue through their day without sudden changes in their blood glucose levels.

A child’s insulin control can also be affected by refined sugars. Insulin determines how much fat a child will store. Sugars are found in nearly all foods. They are often referred to with different names such as sucrose, glucose, dextrose, sorbitol or corn syrup.

Sugar is in almost everything we eat, especially if it is processed or refined food. When you look at labels in the supermarket, you will find sugar under a variety of different names which includes sucrose, glucose, dextrose, sorbitol, or corn syrup on almost every label. The more uncomplicated meals from good wholesome foods contain much less sugar and are therefore much better for their tummies.

Fruit juice should only be taken in small quantities as well as it contains a lot of sugar. It is much better to offer your children whole fruit which is much easier to digest.

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Scott Meyers is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Nutrition & Health.

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Tags: aging, diet, Fiber, glucose, hypoglycaemia, Nutrition & Health, refined carbohydrates, vitamins, whole grains

Insulin resistance is now being understood to be a major contributor to the onset of diabetes. While we know that glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin tests can be used to detect diabetes type I or II, many in the general public did not realize that higher glucose levels over a long period of time can create insulin resistance, thus setting the stage for the more serious forms of diabetes in the future.

What causes insulin resistance? One can point to current dietary habits and lack of exercise as the main contributors.

The body’s cells need sugar in order to run their metabolic functions, from brain activity to running to the tasks of everyday living. Most of this sugar is presented to the cells through the bloodstream in the form of glucose. Glucose is produced by the liver from foods that are digested in the stomach and small intestine, and whose components end up in the liver for further processing. The liver produces enough glucose to power the then-needs of the body, while converting the rest of the sugars to fat for storage for later use.

The liver creates glucose from all food types, but is particularly stimulated by the carbohydrates, which are easier to convert to glucose with fewer byproducts (such as ketones, which are poisonous byproducts of the production of glucose from proteins).

Two general types of carbohydrates stimulate the liver in different ways: the ‘simple’ carbohydrates are converted much faster, and create large amounts of glucose relatively quickly after ingestion. Simple carbohydrates include all the things that we love to eat, but are regarded as junk food by the general media: unrefined sugars, such as those found in soft drinks and in our cereals, flour, such as that found in white bread and fried foods, and sugar found in candies like chocolate bars and ‘energy bars,’ which are mainly sugars.

The ‘complex’ carbohydrates, on the other hand, are converted to glucose at a much slower rate, which means that there is less of a glucose peak after one eats complex carbs. Complex carbohydrates include whole-wheat bread, spaghetti and other forms of pasta, and starches found in legumes like beans and potatoes. These are ‘complex’ because the liver must perform a series of chemical transformations before converting to the end-product, glucose.

Insulin resistance is the result of too much glucose circulating in the bloodstream for too long a time. The high levels of glucose stimulate the pancreas (more specifically, the Islets of Langerhans) to produce more insulin. And more insulin circulating in the bloodstream means that the cells are ‘tired’ of the excess of hormonal signal, and develop a resistance to the chemical.

Simple carbs, consumed in too great a quantity, are clear causes of this insulin overproduction. The other factor which contributes is inactivity. That is, the less one exercises, the less the body is able to absorb the glucose which is produced in such high quantities by the liver.

If, for example, one eats too many simple carbs, but goes out and runs for an hour, much of the insulin messages are accepted by the cells, glucose levels are reduced and insulin resistance doesn’t occur.

Insulin resistance is therefore caused by two main factors: the types of food one eats, and the amount of exercise one does after eating. Both affect the level of insulin circulating in the bloodstream, and therefore can have an important influence over insulin resistance by the body’s cells.

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John Lonergan is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on  Insulin Resistance.

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Tags: glucose, insulin resistance, type-2-diabetes

It used to be clear that Juvenile, or Type-I diabetes, occurred only with children, and Type-II (“Adult Onset”) diabetes occurred solely among adults. While Type-I diabetes remains a problem of the young, and has a different etiology than Type-II diabetes, both are climbing in incidence. Each has a different cause, and can be treated in different ways.

The classic definition of Type-I diabetes was a reduction in the ability of the pancreas to produce insulin. The insulin-producing parts of the pancreas—the Islets of Langerhans (a good trivia question on your college biology exam)—would somehow lose their ability to produce insulin. As a result, children of otherwise normal weight and constitution would need to move relatively quickly to treat their affliction, or die in a diabetic coma.

Recently, we’ve learned that much of Type-I diabetes occurs because children develop a form of auto-immune reaction to their own pancreatic cells. This hyperreaction to the body’s own cells results in a destruction of the Islets of Langerhans, and results in a lifelong need to replace insulin production with injections.

Type-I diabetes is a serious pathology, which can lead to much-increased levels of blindness, heart disease and neuropathies. If not treated properly, Type-I diabetics can contract diabetic ulcers of their feet and legs, leading to amputation.

We’ve seen a revolution in diabetes treatment with long-term insulin, better diagnosis, and, more recently, insulin pumps. The longer-lasting insulin gives the body a chance to respond in a more-normal way to spikes in glucose levels. Diagnosis has been improved through the institution of glycosylated hemoglobin tests, which are more reliable in predicting longer-term glucose levels. Finally, insulin pumps have allowed Type-I diabetics to better match their insulin production with their food intake, thus reducing the deleterious effects of too-high glucose in the bloodstream.

Type-II diabetes has been called “adult onset,” as it is closely linked to obesity caused by consumption of high-sugar, high-fat diets and a lack of exercise. Once exclusively a preserve of adults, Type-II diabetes has become an increasingly-common fixture amongst teens. It’s estimated that 13% of teens today have Type-II diabetes in the US.

This syndrome of early-stage obesity and resulting Type-II diabetes was almost unknown 20 years ago. The proliferation of junk foods and a sedentary lifestyle have caused the obesity epidemic, which in turn has resulted in an epidemic of Type-II diabetes throughout the population.

Type-II diabetes affects the body in much the same way as Type-I diabetes over the long term. While some people with Type-II diabetes can become insulin-dependent, some drugs (such as glucophages) can diminish the deleterious effects of excess insulin and glucose circulation. People with Type-II diabetes nevertheless encounter higher incidences of heart disease—estimates are three to seven times as high as non-diabetics—and related diseases, such as strokes, neuropathy and kidney disease.

It is clear that more exercise and weight loss can reverse the diabetic effects of insulin resistance. Since few obese patients are willing or able to increase exercise or reduce caloric intake, many are condemned to suffer the lifelong consequences of diabetes.

Type-I diabetes will be treated in the future by drugs and devices which reduce the body’s tendency in some people to attack its own cells. Anti-inflammatory drugs, immune suppressants and, in the future, more targeted drugs will improve the outlook for such people. Better and earlier diagnosis, coupled with this better therapy, will reduce the overall rate of Type-I diabetes.

Type-II diabetes, on the other hand, will continue to climb dramatically, along with the rate of obesity in this country. Without a clear strategy to reduce obesity, we must resign ourselves to the fact that more and more people will suffer from Type-II diabetes, and the resulting co-morbidities.

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John Lonergan is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on  Insulin Resistance & Diabetes.

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Tags: glucose, type-2-diabetes

Insulin resistance affects tens of millions in the United States. While insulin resistance can run in families, it is most influenced by lack of activity and the consumption of too much unrefined sugar. Both lead to an overweight condition, which then makes the problem of insulin resistance worse.

In order to understand insulin resistance, it is first important to understand how the body’s normal insulin-glucose cycle works, then what can go wrong with this cycle.

What is Insulin Resistance?

Insulin resistance is just what it sounds like—the pancreas produces more insulin than the body’s cells need. What’s more interesting is how insulin resistance develops in the first place.

How Should the Insulin Cycle Work Normally?

Your body has a finely-tuned mechanism for determining how much sugar is needed in the cells in order to function properly. The cycle goes like this:

1. The body has some glucose in each of its cells. Cells use up glucose due to activity. Brain cells use glucose if you’re thinking a lot (like doing a math problem or writing a speech). In fact, brain cells use around 20% of all the glucose your entire body needs—it’s an area that needs constant glucose in order to function!
2. The pancreas detects that the cells need more fuel—glucose—to carry on their functions. This organ produces insulin and sends it into the bloodstream. In a properly-functioning system, the cells absorb the insulin, which then triggers them to absorb more glucose.
3. The cells, triggered by the insulin, take in more glucose to keep their functions going.
4. As the level of circulating glucose declines, the insulin spurs your liver to produce more glucose. If it has lots of sugars nearby, it will use those (like when you’ve just eaten a candy bar). If there is less sugar, it will go to complex carbohydrates. If there’s none of that around, the liver will convert fat to glucose.
5. The glucose then circulates in your bloodstream and finds its way to the cells, whose appetite has been whetted by the insulin that they’ve absorbed.

And If I’m Insulin-Resistant, How does It Go Wrong?

The body’s finely-tuned insulin-glucose cycle worked well when we were all pursuing active lifestyles. The caveman hunters who had to run after prey every day got lots of exercise. And they ate foods that were unprocessed: game meats, complex carbohydrates (whole grains such as rice or wheat) and lots of fiber from tubers and other vegetables. The body never had an excess of sugars, as they just weren’t available in the diet.

This virtuous cycle persisted until a hundred years ago. People still worked hard in the factories and the fields, and food was generally wholesome.

In modern times, sedentary lifestyles and the high consumption of refined starches (like white bread) and sugars (like soft drinks or juice) have led to a disruption of this insulin-glucose cycle. The body consumes too much sugar and the cells use too little glucose. The result: circulating glucose levels and circulating insulin levels remain high as the pancreas tries to offset the overabundance of sugars in our system. Over time the cells become resistant to insulin, which means that ever-increasing amounts are required for the same response.

The result is insulin resistance. It’s a plague, but one that can be combatted by reducing our intake of refined sugars, losing a few pounds, and getting off the couch and putting our muscles to work!

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John Lonergan is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Insulin Resistance.

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Tags: complex carbohydrates, diabetes, glucose, insulin resistance, whole grains

Insulin resistance has reached epidemic proportions in the developed world. Closely associated with obesity, the main causes are too many refined sugars and starches, and inactivity. What is insulin resistance? What causes it, and what can we do to get rid of it?

Although there are certainly pharmaceuticals to deal with insulin resistance, it’s always better to understand the sources of the syndrome and deal with them in a natural way. The good news is that insulin resistance can be reduced or eliminated by a few simple changes to our diet and lifestyle.

How Does Our Insulin-Glucose Cycle Work in a Normal Mode?

Normally, our body produces insulin in response to activity. As our muscles and brain and other cells use energy (through physical activity or brain activity), they naturally absorb more fuel—glucose, for the most part—from the circulating bloodstream. Insulin intensifies this absorption; the more insulin in the bloodstream, the more glucose gets absorbed by the cells.

The pancreas senses this lower glucose level and produces more insulin. That hormone triggers the liver to produce more glucose, and should, in a properly-functioning body, trigger the cells to absorb more glucose. Thus the well-functioning insulin-glucose cycle keeps a balance of insulin and glucose circulating in the body, and adjusts as we are active in order to feed more glucose to the cells.

How Does Insulin Resistance Develop?

Insulin resistance is caused by a combination of two key factors, and made worse by a third. If a person doesn’t exercise very much, their body’s cycle can be pushed awry:

1. The cells don’t take up much glucose, because they aren’t very active (couch potatoes, apply here!).
2. If we eat something, the liver will produce more glucose, which increases the level in the bloodstream.
3. The higher glucose level spurs the pancreas to produce more insulin; the insulin tells the cells “wake up, and take in more glucose!”
4. As the cells don’t need the additional fuel, they cover their ears and say “I don’t believe you, insulin, because I don’t need more glucose.”
5. The result is insulin resistance—cells require more insulin to absorb the same amount of sugars.

Poor diet only makes this cycle worse. The more sugary snacks and refined starches (such as white bread and sugary soft drinks) we consume, the more glucose the liver produces. The liver can’t help it—it can’t convert all those sugars fast enough, so a lot leaks through the system and ends up in the bloodstream.

Seeing all this sugar in the bloodstream, the pancreas produces more insulin, the cells hold their ears and don’t believe the insulin, and insulin resistance gets worse.

What Can We Do Against Insulin Resistance?

The simple answer is: exercise more and eat fewer refined sugars and starches. Neither change needs to be drastic: just cutting out a couple of soft drinks or candy bars between meals can help our glucose levels return to normal. And a brisk walk or even brain activity (no, watching TV doesn’t count) can help the cells to absorb more insulin and glucose. Order is restored to the glucose-insulin cycle.

Oh yes, there is one more think that helps: lose a few pounds. Just 5-10% reductions in body weight can bring us back to ‘normal’ range for insulin use.

So it’s as easy as that? It’s always easy to tell others how to get healthy. But these simple changes in lifestyle will make a huge difference to your chances of developing insulin resistance—and eventually succumbing to Type-2 diabetes.

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John Lonergan is a staff writer for It’s Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Insulin Resistance.

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Tags: diet, exercise, glucose, insulin resistance, obesity