Diabetes

[The following is excerpted from the Conscious Rasta Report entitled "FOOD: It's About Survival!" I highly recommend this book to everyone I meet ($5.00 plus postage from the Conscious Rasta Press.]

Diabetes truly has become an ‘American epidemic’.  Diabetes is the inability of the body to adequately process sugar from carbohydrates and thus triggering the pancreas to secrete too much insulin to lower blood sugar level.  In effect, diabetes is a malfunction of the endocrine system, the system within the body that manufactures hormones, which trigger and regulate numerous body organ functions.  What must be noted is that environmental factors, far more than genetic propensity, are likely the single greatest contributing factor for developing diabetes.  Thus when diabetes runs through a family, it most likely would only have begun only when the family came to America.  I challenge the medical establishment to find widespread diabetes among Blacks in Africa as it is found in the so-called African-American.

A study conducted at the Picower Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, NY, in June 1996 pointed out the danger of “browned foods”, a tasty but toxic combination found in such delights as charbroiled steak with barbecue sauce, honey-glazed turkey and ham as well as cinnamon rolls.  The combination of sugar, protein and high cooking temperatures created high concentrations of a “a toxic material called advanced glycated end products, or AGEs” which are believed prime causes for the “deadly complications of diabetes.”

AGEs are even more deadly in persons with diabetes-induced kidney disease.  Glue-like AGEs clog up the blood vessels, stiffening the arteries and leading to formation of plaque and clots – impeding the tiny pores that strip waste from the blood.  Healthy people and diabetics in the study only excreted 30% of the AGEs they consumed while diabetics with kidney damage only excreted 5%, leaving 95% of the harmful toxins behind to clog up the body’s organs.

The study, conducted by Dr. Helen Vlassara, should lead to “proper dietary guidelines” such as to avoid mixing sugars and proteins (a fundamental of Western diets, browned meats, barbecue, baked pastas and baked goods in particular – donuts, cakes, pastries, etc.), more steaming of cooked foods and less grilling, frying, oven-baking and the likes.

Nearly a million people in the U.S. are Type 1 diabetics (also known as juvenile diabetes) that require daily insulin injections to control excess blood sugar.

It is estimated that 14 to 16 million Americans suffer from Type 2 diabetes (also known as adult diabetes).  Mainstream scientists, especially those within the highly questionable genetic research community, are quick to blame diabetes on genetic propensity, what they will rarely talk about is the grotesque amount of sugar, processed food and cholesterol consumed in the average American’s diet as well as poor food-combining, such as the combination of sugars with proteins at high temperature which creates AGEs.  Without a doubt, Americans consume the highest amount of these toxic foods per capita of any nation in history.  In actuality, adult diabetes has been proven controllable by strict dietary regimen, exercise and herbs (the allopathic doctors would substitute their drugs for Nature’s herbs).

EAT TO BEAT DIABETES: HEALTHY SUBSTITUTES FOR SUGAR

Sugar has been referred to as the “most abused drug on the planet” and the damaging affects of this non-food have been well publicized.  Sugar comes in many forms beyond the common highly processed version with which most of us are most familiar.  Sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, lactose, galactose, levulose – these are all different manifestations of the same thing...sugar! 

Unprocessed, or “low-tech” sugars maintain their natural stores of minerals and vitamins along with other valuable nutrients and are metabolized by the body better than “high-tech” sugars.  White sugar has been proven to be damaging to the body, impeding the digestion of other nutrients, contributing to a host of chronic diseases and impeding the immune system, in addition to the mental disruptions that we have all heard about. 

Substitutes for common white sugar, which all nutritionists agree should be eliminated from the diet, include: pure maple syrup, maple sugar, barley malt syrup, brown rice syrup, fruit juice concentrate, dried cane juice, honey, date sugar and granular fruit sweetener.  Chemical sugar substitutes such as NutriSweet, aspartame and saccharine, have demonstrated carcinogenic, or cancer-causing, effects and thus should be avoided by every means possible (many so-called “diet” sweets and colas contain these chemicals.