What is everything you have ever been told about conventional medicine and diabetes is wrong? Is lowering your blood sugar not the answer to treating diabetes?
Copyright (c) 2014 LifeWorks Integrative health
If you are overweight, a diabetic, suffer from insulin resistance, or suffer from metabolic syndrome, we have news to share with you regarding conventional medicine and diabetes. Conventional medicine just may be making your condition worse. In fact, lowering your blood sugar may actually increase your risk of death. Findings in The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that treatment with conventional medicine for your elevated blood sugar levels may be doing you more harm than good.
Conventional Medicine and Diabetes:
The ACCORD StudyIn 2008, a study known as the ACCORD Study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine and this study continues to revolutionize our understanding of diabesity. This published study is one of the most profound pieces of literature on why conventional treatments for diabetes simply are not doing their job.In this study, 10,000 patients with diabetes were assigned to receive either intensive or regular therapies to help lower their blood sugar levels. These patients were monitored and their risks of stroke, heart attack and death became more elevated. In fact, the patients who had successfully lowered their blood sugar levels actually had increased their risk of death the most.
Yes, the sounds confusing if not entirely backwards from everything you may have been taught. Let's repeat: the patients, who had successfully lowered their blood sugar levels, had the higher risk of death. You are probably wondering: how is this possible? This goes against everything you may have been taught. The goal of conventional medicine and diabetes is to lower blood sugar levels. We've always believed that elevated blood sugar levels were the problem when it comes to diabetes.
Chances are, most of your are wondering why would lowering your blood sugar levels actually lead to an increased risk of death.It may or may not come to as a surprise to you, but this study had to be stopped after just three and a half years. Why? It was evident that aggressively lowering blood sugar levels led to more heart attacks and more death.
This study completely goes against everything that we've for years. This study completely contradicts the way conventional medicine has been treating diabetes for a very long time. So, how could lowered blood sugar levels actually increase your risk of death? The answer is simple: elevated blood sugar levels are actually a symptom of an underlying biochemical, metabolic and physiologic process that are out of balance. Because of this, lowering blood sugar levels with medication is not going to address the underlying issues that caused the high blood sugar levels in the first place. It may also come as a surprise to you that many of the methods used to lower blood sugar levels, such as oral hypoglycemic drugs and insulin, are actually making the problem of diabetes worse by increasing insulin levels.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition caused by too much, not too little, insulin. Insulin is the real problem behind diabesity.
Conventional Medicine and Diabetes:
Insulin Resistance is the Real Cause of DiabesityInsulin resistance occurs when you fill up your diet with lots of empty calories. When your diet is full of quickly absorbed sugar, liquid calories and carbohydrates, insulin resistance occurs. When insulin resistance occurs, your cells slowly become resistant to the effects insulin should have on them. You need more and more to complete the same job of keeping your blood sugar levels even. As a result, you develop insulin resistance.It is important to remember that high insulin levels are the first sign that you may be experiencing a problem. The higher your insulin levels are, the worse your insulin resistance is. As a result, your body begins to deteriorate. Did you know?
Insulin resistance is the leading cause of rapid and premature aging. Insulin resistance can lead to stroke, heart disease, dementia and cancer.Increasing insulin levels can also lead to an increased appetite, weight gain (especially around the abdominal area), inflammation, oxidative stress, high cholesterol, high blood press, thickening of the blood and an increased rate of cancer, depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Conventional Medicine and Diabetes; Treating the Disease
Conventional medicine is very clear cute. It's either yes or no, you have the disease or you do not have the disease. Doctors practicing in the field of conventional medicine are taught that you either have diabetes or you do not have diabetes. In conventional medicine, there are no gray areas. This approach can be misguided and dangerous, because it does not take into account the underlying cause of the diabetes.
Practicing this approach to treating diabetes ignored one of the most fundamental laws of biology, disease and physiology: the continuum concept. There is a continuum from optimal health to imbalances in your health. This can lead to serious illness. Whenever possible, we need to address these issues, this way we can intervene and reverse the process. Keep in mind, that the sooner we address the process the more likely we are to determine to optimal health.
When addressing diabesity, most doctors are just going to look at your blood sugar levels. Keep in mind that your blood sugar levels actually rise very late in the progression of diabetes. Conventional medicine tells us that if your blood sugar is 90 or 110, you do not have diabetes. However, if your blood sugar is over 126, you do have diabetes. This does nothing to help the problem of diabetes.Given our current level of understanding of diabesity, we need to stop watching and waiting. This leads to diabetes and in some cases, this can be deadly. For this reason is why why diabesity is underdiagnosed.
The approach of watching and waiting is not working. Nearly all of the 100 million Americans with pre-diabetes are undiagnosed. We need to do something about this.
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