Zinc + Vit D In Helping Diabetes

Low serum vitamin D levels are more closely associated with diabetes than obesity is, claim Spanish researchers, who go on to suggest that vitamin D deficiency may be linked to an increased risk for type 2 diabetes.

They found that serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels are reduced in prediabetic and diabetic individuals compared with those who have normal blood glucose levels, independently of body mass index (BMI).

The study was published online February 23 in the  Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

"Our findings indicate that vitamin D is associated more closely with glucose metabolism than obesity," commented senior author Manuel Macías-González, PhD, of the University of Málaga, Spain. "The study suggests that vitamin D deficiency and obesity interact synergistically to heighten the risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders.

"The average person may be able to reduce their risk by maintaining a healthy diet and getting enough outdoor activity," he suggested.

This is interesting with Ireland and also with CF. Vitamin D is a fat solubale vitamin and we all know that PWCF cannot absorb them. However, you can get Vit D from the sun, and thats what the study also suggested. Although, CFRD isn't down to not just getting enough sun, getting outdoors, or maybe taking a Vit D supplement can help with CFRD.  Also, Vit D deficiency can also be related to depression and low moods. 
Consult your Dr before jumping into buying Vit D supplement!!!

Zinc is also another supplement that can help with Diabetes. It is an essential mineral that plays very important roles in the body. We cannot make zinc, so we need to find it from food sources. seafood, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and dairy products. Zinc is better absorbed from animal foods than from plant foods, since compounds called phytates that are found in plants can hinder its absorption

It is stored in the muscles, blood cells, the retina of the eye, skin, bones, kidney, liver, pancreas and in men, the prostate.

Zinc helps with our immunity system to function correctly, in the form of an antioxidant. It protects our cells from free radicals. 

However, I'm not talking about zinc to help our immune system but I feel its good to point it out. Zinc is essential for the formation of insulin in the pancreas. 
Interestingly, a study over 7 years showed that people with Diabetes and who died from a heart attack were zinc deficient. 
One reason for this is that diabetics tend to have increased excretion of zinc. Additionally, high blood sugar levels creates significant oxidative stress. Thanks to research from UCD we know about oxidative stress and mucus formation in CF ( UCD Research on CF ). The use of antioxidants has been shown to help improve oxidation, while also enhancing your body’s response to insulin.

On another note, zinc can also improve your mood. People who suffer with depression have shown to have lower zinc levels.

But before you go popping any of the above, talk with your Dr as there are some side effects to both supplement. 

How To Make Tortillas From Scratch

Tortillas are stupidly easy. I prepped, cooked, and eat them in 42 minutes. So here's a step by step on how to make them.
I did try use rice flour but because rice flour has no gluten in it, i found it difficult to roll out the dough.

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  Scully TherapyClinic

  Makes 6-8; 
  - 250grams flour. (I used whole grain and normal flour. 150grams of whole grain and 100grams of plain. But you can make it using all whole grain) 
  - 140-150ml water 
  - glug of olive oil 
  - pinch of salt
  

  I then put in a few herbs and spices just to make them a little different. I used 1/2 a teaspoon on chilli powder, 1/2 a teaspoon of paprika and 1/2 a teaspoon of ground fennel seeds.

  - Mix together until everything is combined. Roll into a sausage shape and divide into 4 sections.

  - Put flour on the counter so they don't stick the rolling pin and the counter. Roll out as thing as you can.

  - Transfer into a pan with no oil and on a fairly high heat. Keep them on the pan until you think they are done, and look like done. Maybe 90sec each side.

  - Then fill with what you like. I put in homemade chilli con carne. Or spiced chicken with tomatoes, avocado, peppers and shredded courgette and kale.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The photo below is a homemade tortilla, tuna, red pepper, rocket and kale, and a homemade chipotle (chilli) mayonnaise. 

Sugar

First of all, we all drink tea or coffee. The majority of people add sugar. So typically we drink maybe 3 cups a day and 2 teaspoons of sugar. That's 6 teaspoons of sugar a day from tea or coffee alone! Frightening when you think about it. 

I'm going to show you how devastating sugar. Not only are blood sugar levels on the rise when eating sugar but the diabetic rate is on the rise as well. Notice that the rate of diabetes is higher for the people 45 and older. The reason behind this is because it's late onset diabetes.

In 2010 the population of people over the age of 45 who have diabetes was 135,000 people. 

In 2010, 12,000 people between the ages of 18-44 were diagnosed with diabetes. 

The projection of this rate shows that by the year 2020 the people 45+ with diabetes will have risen by 30% to to 175,000 people. 

Between the ages of 18-44 the rate will have risen by 26% to 135,000 people. 

Let's do the maths. In 10 years the rate of people with diabetes will have risen by 56%. THATS IF WE DONT DO ANYTHING NOW TO CHNAGE OUR HABITS. 

I have a love hate relationship with sugar. I absolutely love it, but it hates me. Since being diagnosed with hypoglycemia earlier this year, I now check very single item of food for sugar. In the italic letters "of which sugars" in nearly microscopic size. 

Yes, everyone looks at calories and fat, thinking that that is the only thing that matters in keeping obesity down. In fact, I feel one of the biggest reasons for obesity is sugar, or in other less common terms high fructose corn syrup.

Let's look at obesity levels in Ireland. 1 in every 10 kids under the age of 3 are obese. Let's look at what a lot of working parents are feeding these babies. Those squeeze tubes of puréed food from flavours of ragu to cottage pie. Have the parents stopped to think how much spoonfuls of sugar is in each portion. Well I did. (I'm not a parent). There is the same amount of sugar in those puréed foods then there is in a can of Coke. Sick isn't it? 

So with that, I came across a wise man in Amsterdam wanting sugar to have the same warning for sugar as there is for tobacco and alcohol. A bit far fetched? I thought so to when I first read it until I had a think about it. 

Read the article below;

"Paul van der Velpen, the head of Amsterdam's health service, the Dutch capital city where the sale of cannabis is legalised, wants to see sugar tightly regulated.

"Just like alcohol and tobacco, sugar is actually a drug. There is an important role for government. The use of sugar should be discouraged. And users should be made aware of the dangers," he wrote on an official public health website.

"This may seem exaggerated and far-fetched, but sugar is the most dangerous drug of the times and can still be easily acquired everywhere."

Van der Velpen cites research claiming that sugar, unlike fat or other foods, interferes with the body's appetite creating an insatiable desire to carry on eating, an effect he accuses the food industry of using to increase consumption of their products.

"Sugar upsets that mechanism. Whoever uses sugar wants more and more, even when they are no longer hungry. Give someone eggs and he'll stop eating at any given time. Give him cookies and he eats on even though his stomach is painful," he argued."

Furthermore, I found a study claiming "Study shown that if rats had a free run at either sugar or cocaine, they opted for sugar". 

The consumption of sugary drink have doubled since the 70s. The hidden danger in sugary drinks? High fructose corn syrup. Why the corn syrup? Corn syrup is cheaper to mass produce. 

In the London 2012 Olympic, a study has shown that athletes had the worst teeth since the Olympics began. I put this down to sports drinks and the amount of coffee that athletes seem to drink. What do you put in coffee? Sugar!! 

Interestingly, black teeth became fashionable back when the first Queen Elizabeth modelled her black teeth as it was a sign of wealth. Only the rich upper class had the money to afford sugar.  The fact that you ate so much sugar that your teeth turned black was seen in the same wealth as people who were fat. If you were fat you could afford the foods that made you fat.

Historically, diabetes was called "The Pissing Evil". The urine smelt and tasted sweet, and a diabetic sufferer would urinate a lot. What's interesting is that diabetes is more common in black people. I believe this is down to sugar cane being readily available. I stand to be corrected.

Scotland. Seems like an odd place to pick out. If you look at the wealthy building scattered around Scotland, and in particular Glasgow. If you know the Art Museum and how big it is. This building (shown in picture) was owned by one person. He owned sugar cane plantations in Barbados. Barbados was the biggest producers of sugar cane. He actually had as much as 13,000 slaves, and also started to sell the slaves. As far as I'm aware, he is the first person to do this.  Scotland was filthy rich, and the majority of the mansions in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland were all owned by plantation owners. Sugar began to be imported into Britain, and started to be used in tea and coffee. Believe it or not, but the first coffee house was in Glasgow. Business men used to use coffee houses instead of pubs for business meetings as the sugar and caffeine in coffee gave them mental alertness, instead of them sipping beer and getting them drunk. History repeats itself. Look at how bad the Scottish diet is. After all, they did invent the deep fried Mars bar. 

The French wanted in on this sugar cane as it was like what oil is today. They felt they would become wealthy from the small white granules. However, the Brits blocked the French from travelling to the Caribbean to bring home the sugar. Napoleon got very frustrated until a group of scientists found sugar beat. Sugar beat was cheaper and easier to mill, making sugar more available to the general public. With the accessibility of sugar, it then became the fuel for the industrial revolution. From here, "high tea" was invented. People used sugar as a quick source of energy to work, and because it was now cheaper, they could use it more. The working class needed to work more hours in the day to get money to live. They didn't have time to cook full meals, and slow cook cheaper cuts of meat. 

Doesn't that last paragraph sound familiar? Eating quick, readily available meals, which lack in quality, and are packed with refined sugar! Parents don't seem to have the time to cook dinners. The convenience of taking an item out of a box, throw it in the oven for 30 minutes and you have a full meal in front of you. Yes, this saves time. Yes it's easier. But no, it's not good. 

Let's look at war rations. I know things have changed since World War 2, but what I am getting at is sugar portions.

Under rationing, every adult was allowed 8oz (230g) a week - on average we have twice that now.

Just one bowl of a typical breakfast cereal, a serving of baked beans with lunch and a Jaffa Cake would take you over your World War II sugar ration without so much as a sprinkling of white stuff.

It's also interesting to point out that sugar is a mixture of fructose and glucose. The brain can not detect fructose as much as other food sources. So when you keep eating sweet foods, you keep eating them because they don't fill you. Because you can't detect the amount of fructose that enters the body, you eat more then needed, which then turns to fat. That's the sneaky part and leads to obesity. 

What I want is for foods to show on the front of the cover how many spoonfuls of sugar each serving amounts to. An image of a spoonful of sugar and a little X to the power of whatever amount of spoonfuls of sugar it contains. 

Since being diagnosed, I am now more aware of sugar content in foods. Walk me down an aisle in the shopping centre that doesn't have something with sugar in it. In a loaf of white bread there is 2.5 spoonfuls of sugar in it. However, it doesn't taste sweet at all, but yet we consume so much bread in this country that 2.5 spoonfuls of sugar, plus the copious amount of sugar in everything else adds up, and so too does the amount of diabetic patients. 

One cake, or bar of chocolate won't harm you, but it's the accumulative amount that will. Please be more aware of sugar content.

 

Preventing Hypos During & After Exercise

You may be able to prevent, treat, or reverse your impending hypoglycemia during exercise by some novel means. Remember the hormonal effects of intense exercise discussed previously? Some researchers decided to study the effect of doing a short, maximal sprint to counter a fall in blood glucose levels. Some males with type 1 diabetes ate breakfast after injecting their usual insulin dose, waited until their blood glucose levels were no higher than 200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/L), and then did 20 minutes of easy pedaling on a cycle ergometer. At the end of that, they immediately performed a 10-second cycling sprint. Interestingly, the sprint prevented a further decline in their blood glucose levels for at least 2 hours afterward (compared with when they didn’t do it). This technique works anytime during exercise. Although sprinting will have a limited effect if you have extremely high levels of insulin or a blunted hormonal response, it’s still beneficial as a short-term means of potentially raising your glucose levels. Whenever you start to feel low, sprint as hard as you can for 10 to 30 seconds to induce a greater release of glucose-raising hormones.

Along the same lines, another study by the same researchers confirmed that doing the same 10-second sprint, but this time immediately before doing 20 minutes of moderate-intensity cycling, also works to keep blood glucose levels from falling for the 45 minutes after exercise. Levels still fall similarly during 20 minutes of exercise, but the large increase in hormones elicited by the preworkout sprint apparently may keep them from dropping as much afterward.

You can even keep your blood sugars higher during exercise by interspersing 4-second sprints into an easier workout. When diabetic exercisers do a 4-second sprint once every 2 minutes during 30 minutes of otherwise moderate cycling, their glucose-raising hormones again stay higher and their blood sugars decline less. These effects are the result of both greater glucose release (by the liver) during exercise and less glucose uptake during exercise and recovery. Watch out, though, because when the hormonal effects wear off, you may end up more likely to develop hypoglycemia because doing sprints uses up more muscle glycogen.

After exercise, your main concern will be prevention of postexercise, late-onset hypoglycemia, which can occur both because your glycogen levels are low and being replenished (during which time your insulin action is higher) and because hormonal response to low blood sugars diminishes after exercise. Keep in mind two key points to prevent it. First, if you can start to restore your muscle glycogen right after exercise at the fastest rate possible by taking in adequate carbohydrate, you’ll be less likely to get as low later on. The period in the first 30 to 60 minutes after exercise is the critical time when your muscles can take up glucose without much need for insulin. Second, you may have more than one time following a workout when it feels as if your body is rapidly depleting your blood glucose. A recent study showed a biphasic increase in carbohydrate requirements—both right after exercise and again from 7 to 11 hours afterward. Be on the alert for this second wave of potential postexercise hypos and prevent them with adequate food intake and medication changes.

Another study suggested that when it comes to prevention of lows during and after exercise, not all drinks work equally well. Volunteers with type 1 diabetes took in water, whole milk, skim milk, sports drink A (carbohydrate and electrolytes), or sports drink B (carbohydrate, fat, and protein) before, during, and after an hour of moderate cycling in the late afternoon. The number of calories in the drinks averaged around 450, and no insulin adjustments were allowed beforehand. Interestingly, all the drinks except for whole milk and water spiked blood sugars above 200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/L) during the time between the end of exercise and dinner. Sports drink B (with the extra protein and fat) caused persistently elevated blood glucose levels. Glucose declines after dinner were least in people who drank the whole milk. So, although carbohydrate is most important to replace in the short run, for longer prevention of lows, extra protein and fat intake may also help.

This column is excerpted from Diabetic Athlete’s Handbook (released November 2008 from Human Kinetics), which contains essential exercise-related information and examples for type 1 and type 2 diabetic exercisers. Look for it in stores or find links to places to buy it online on www.shericolberg.com, along with additional information.