Blood Sugar

The energy that we need to live and function AND heal must come from the food we eat.  Difficulties extracting this fuel are addressed in Digestive Path Defects.  For our discussion in this page, we assume the fuel has been successfully extracted and turn our focus to how our fuel is managed, or mismanaged.

The 3 organs primarily responsible for managing/budgeting fuel are

• the liver,
• the adrenals and
• the pancreas.

Typically, (what my clients have indicated) the liver is compromised in its function first (from drugs, OTCs, anger, overeating, inflammation).  One of its many duties is to release fuel stores in response to the adrenal’s warnings that fuel (blood glucose) levels are dropping.  When this function is impaired, the adrenals continue attempting to stimulate liver response and eventually the adrenals become exhausted, especially if there is also a lot of ongoing emotional or physical stress.  At this point folks crave sugar/carbs to bring up sinking levels of glucose or rely on coffee to stimulate their burned out adrenals.  Migraines begin around this phase with vomiting and in some cases seizures will occur (idiopathic, of course, although this has been shown to be the case in childhood seizures).  Eventually these folks have trouble sleeping all through the night.  If the liver is increasing in toxicity, night sweats may also occur – in women AND men  (Excessive sweating is often the result of a communication failure between the liver and adrenals.)  When these people indulge in the sugar and carbohydrates they crave, they will provoke an insulin response from the pancreas.  These people know they feel better when they eats carbs but in this phase the continual insulin hits result in weight gain and vascular damage.   For an eating plan that reduces stress on your glucose regulation see the Insulin Resistance Diet.  The rules are quite easy.  I’ve also posted some Low-Carb ideas to get you started and some info on the proper handling of grains.  When the pancreas falters at reducing blood glucose levels the kidneys will pee it out.  If they too have been damaged by all the above unaddressed health insults (esp high blood pressure meds) then your blood tests will show high glucose levels.

Dysglycemia (glucose mismanagement) – comes in three stages

An analogy first, of course.  We control the amount of energy applied to the wheels of our cars by an accelerator and brake. This way we can speed up if we need to, or slow down to make a turn or stop to park the car.  But imagine trying to get from here to there with an accelerator/brake that has a mind of its own. Such is the person with dysglycemia.  Simple carbohydrates go into the blood stream so quickly (the accelerator pedal to the floor), and upset the delicate balance of energy in the body.  Like nutritional speed, sugar requires all sorts of regulatory hormones to respond.  Stress also causes glucose levels to increase as more fuel is needed to ‘run from the bear’.  The body may over respond to reduce the sugar levels (the brake goes to the floor). The organs responsible for glucose regulation begin to fatigue and soon don’t respond very well. This results in the following conditions all considered dysglycemia – faulty regulation of fuel:

1. Hypoglycemia– generally the sugar levels fall and the liver does not respond to the adrenal’s call to unpack glycogen from storage and bring glucose levels back up.  This low blood sugar is characterized by spaciness, fatigue, mood changes,  sugar cravings, headaches, tremors, temperamental outbursts, depression, excessive sweating, sweaty palms, hot flashes, palpitations, cold extremities, seizures AND and panic attacks.  Hypoglycemics usually awake at night for no reason – except that unbeknownst to them their blood glucose levels have slowly glided to the basement and, due to a sluggish liver, adrenaline is released to produce fuel from breaking down muscle. Since the brain needs oxygen and glucose to work, some of the early signs are foggy thinking. HY-A (#950-0) is often useful here (take 3 with each meal reducing with symptoms). This is the first herbal combo to use with your ADD or ADHD kiddo (See creative dosing).  Red Beet Root Formula (#870-0) is also excellent here.  Long term brain starvation results in memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s.  So HY-A is cheap compared to the misery these diagnoses bring.  Been there.  Done that.  Many of these symptoms are associated with adrenal exhaustion and are discussed in the endocrine document.
2. Syndrome X– A result of many sugar shocks – lots of insulin is in the blood so glucose is shuttled to fat.  Here the glucose levels vary widely giving symptoms of both low and high glucose levels.  The liver is compromised in function and the adrenal is becoming exhausted.  This precedes adult onset diabetes. Signs of Syndrome X are high triglycerides and weight gain pot-belly fashion. Begin reducing foods with high glycemic index such as sugar, breads, potatoes, carrots, corn flakes, cereals, (and no juicing) etc.  A reliable glucose-balancing phytonutrient food source is Energ-V (#875-8) 4B, 4D.  Follow the Insulin Resistance Diet religiously for the rest of your life – it is really easy.  After about 4 weeks on the Energ-V add the HY-A to support the liver and adrenals and so you stop craving sugar.  See Lifestyle Compensations for insights on other kinds of cravings and some easy low-carb starter ideas.
3. Diabetes– (which means honey urine) The body is trying to reduce the high blood sugar by dumping excess sugar into the urine that it no longer needs or that it cannot regulate.  Intelligent, huh?
4. First, THINK!  Why would your body be elevating your blood glucose levels?  Because either it has lost its ability to regulate them OR it needs higher glucose levels for some good reason.  Glucose levels go up with stress, injury, and infection.  Why?  Because your intelligent body has work to do and it needs glucose (fuel) to accomplish what it is programmed to do by its Creator.
5. Second and important, DON’T USE ASPERTAME OR NUTRASWEET OR SPLENDA AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON.  They are dangerous chemicals that have been shown to cause weight gain and impair glucose regulation (probably by toxifying the liver)!  Use Xylitol (#5435-3)as sweetener instead.  This is from plants (not chem. labs), and is naturally sweet AND won’t damage your liver thus make your diabetes worse!!!  And xylitol is low glycemic and thus won’t provoke an unstable and vascular damaging insulin response.  Phew!!  OK, moving right along…
6. The real enemy is insulin because it is a vascular inflammatory and, likely the reason the kidneys could not dump excess sugar. The kidneys need ample circulation to filter the blood but inflamed blood vessels (from chronically elevated insulin) create a situation similar to our interstates at rush hour with lane closures. Open circulation to the kidneys and pee out the excess blood sugar to give your pancreas a rest.  For this you could simply use JP-X (#1222-7)3B, 3D, reducing to 2B, 2D after 3 weeks.  I have observed that my diabetic clients often want kidney formulas so I wonder if the kidney’s ability to off-load glucose became intermittently compromised and then just went south.  If I hadn’t seen it so often, I wouldn’t have had to come up with an explanation.
7. Follow the Insulin Resistance Diet religiously for the rest of your life – it is really easy.  In addition take Chia Seeds.  My clients have told me that these high protein seeds definitely help stabilize their blood sugar levels.  That document will explain how to use them.  I’ve also posted some easy low-carb ideas.
8. Many of my clients report that Dr. Christopher’s formula I-X lowers their blood glucose levels. This was a surprise to me too because it is a traditionally used to raise iron levels in the blood – and is very effective for that.  Anyway don’t argue with success, take I-X (#1218-4)  3B, 3D, reducing to 2B, 2D after 3 weeks or just watch your blood sugar levels and see how little you need.  Although it helps, it is not a stand alone remedy for most folks.
9. You must unclog your liver so it can metabolize all the insulin that is damaging your heart and vascular system.  I-X (#1218-4) may help in this fashion too.  Remember from Blood Supply Issues that the liver is in charge of ‘too-muchness’.  So you must do the Gentle Liver Cleanse at some point in your journey back to good health, especially if you have taken mucho OTCs or prescriptions (see below).
10. There are pharmaceuticals that raise blood glucose levels (tricyclic antidepressants, beta blockers, corticosteroids, thyroxine, diuretics, epinephrine, estrogen, lithium, phenothyazines, etc.).  Do your homework here. Diabetics are cash cows to modern ‘medicine’ and there is no incentive whatsoever for them to resolve the problem.  A patient cured is a customer lost.  Get involved in your health.  Take your blood sugar and blood pressure and record them.  As you improve with nutritional intervention, negotiate with your doc about a sane reduction in meds.  If he/she won’t, get another doc to monitor your progress.
11. If these common sense approaches are followed and you are not seeing improvement, make an appointment.

Pharmaceutical Phactoids – In the unlikely event that your doc failed to warn you that…

Scientists link diabetes drugs to heart failure    (Avandia and Actos)

US may ban treatments used by hundreds of thousands in UK

Sarah Boseley, health editor  (Friday July 27, 2007  The Guardian )

Two of the most commonly used drugs for diabetes, which were taken by hundreds of thousands of mostly overweight people in the UK last year, are causing widespread heart failure, scientists warn today.

Use of the drugs, prescribed by doctors for type II diabetes, has doubled in the past three years as a consequence of a growing obesity problem. Last year 1.8m prescriptions were written across the UK, which scientists say equates to several hundred thousand patients taking the drugs which are recommended for use across the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

But researchers today call on Nice to think again, revealing that as many as one in every 50 patients taking the drugs Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone) over a period of 26 months will have to be hospitalized for heart failure.

The class of drugs, they say in the journal Diabetes Care, doubles the risk of heart failure, and even those with no history of heart problems are affected.

“This means that the diabetes drugs could have caused thousands of additional cases of heart failure, creating a substantial burden on hard-pressed NHS services,” said Dr Yoon Loke, a clinical pharmacologist at the University of East Anglia who carried out the research with Wake Forest University in the US. “I think Nice should re-evaluate their decision to recommend these diabetes drugs.”

Concerns about the safety of the drug were triggered in May when a leading US cardiologist published evidence of a link to heart attacks and death. The manufacturers strongly contested his study in the New England Journal of Medicine. [Well, duh.  But intelligent folks are onto Big Pharma by now.  They just say no.]