Dr. Jonny Bowden

Tag: blood sugar

  • Cinnamon for High Blood Sugar?

    Cinnamon for High Blood Sugar?

     

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    “You have HIGH BLOOD SUGAR”. Those are five words you’d really rather not hear from your doctor at your next checkup. High Blood Sugar is the first step down a road that can easily lead to metabolic syndrome (a kind of pre-diabetes that puts you at considerable risk for heart disease) or even diabetes itself. When your blood sugar is high, all kinds of metabolic events occur, none of them good.

    Foremost among them is an overproduction of the “sugar-clearing” hormone insulin. Insulin clears the bloodstream of excess sugar. The more sugar in the bloodstream, the more insulin the pancreas has to send out to get the job done. Too much insulin can set you up for high blood pressure. Insulin sends a message to the kidneys that says: “Hold on to the sodium, dude!” This means that you have to hold on to more water to balance the excess sodium. Excess sodium plus excess water translates to high blood pressure – an enormous risk factor for heart disease. Insulin is also known as the “fat storage hormone” High levels of circulating insulin make it difficult to lose weight.

    Even more frightening, high blood sugar is being linked to a significant increase in the risk of cancer. Have I convinced you yet that controlling your blood sugar should be one of your top health priorities?

    Cinnamon! Cinnamon has an uncanny ability to moderate blood sugar. Many plants and individual phytochemicals can lower blood sugar, but many of them accomplish this at a price of imposing some nasty toxic cost on the body. Not cinnamon! C. Leigh Broadhurst, Ph.D., and her research team at USDA have identified new phytochemicals in cinnamon called chalcone polymers that increase glucose metabolism in the cells twenty-fold or more and no side effects in sight!

    Cinnamon was the star in the prestigious Journal of the American College of Nutrition. The active ingredient –methylbydroxychalcone polymer or MHCP- seems to mimic insulin function, increasing the uptake of sugar by the cells and signaling certain kinds of cells to turn glucose into glucogen (the storage form of sugar).

    Researchers found that even 1 g of cinnamon a day reduced blood sugar 18% to even 29%; and the cost just a couple of bucks! BTW: It will also reduce cholesterol by 12% to as high as 26%. Researchers at Georgetown University found that cinnamon reduced the insulin level in rats with high blood pressure.

    Buying cinnamon in bulk is cost effective and highly recommended. In my book: The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth” I provide you with different recipes on how to ‘Sip this Medicine”. Why wouldn’t you add a cinnamon bark to your brewing tea?

    Meanwhile, I sprinkle the stuff on everything-great with my oatmeal, and definitely with my morning cup of java. Because cinnamon can affect insulin and blood sugar, work with your health care practitioner on adding this natural prescription to your routine if you currently take insulin or medications for high blood sugar.

     

     

     

  • High Blood Sugar and Memory Loss

    High Blood Sugar and Memory Loss

    High blood sugar puts you at risk for memory loss and cognitive problems, according to a new study out of Japan.

    In this study, 1017 people in Japan, all under the age of 60, were given an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). In a glucose tolerance test, the person is given a fixed amount of glucose (sugar) and then their blood levels are monitored for several hours so that doctors can track how quickly and efficiently the glucose is “cleared” from their bloodstream. (The test is frequently given as part of a diagnostic workup for diabetes and insulin resistance.)

    Based on their glucose tolerance tests, the researchers were able to classify the subjects as diabetic, pre-diabetic, or non-diabetic.

    What the researchers found was that even after adjusting for variables like age and sex, the incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease, vascular dementia and all-cause dementia were significantly higher in subjects with diabetes. Remember, by definition, diabetics have blood sugar issues and don’t do well on glucose tolerance tests, so this study clearly links blood sugar issues with an increased risk of dementia.

    Diabetics in this study had a whopping 74% increased chance of winding up with dementia from any cause whatsoever (“all-cause dementia”).

    But here’s what’s interesting. Of the 308 people who started the study with pre-diabetes, a very significant 25% of them ultimately developed dementia. The American Diabetes Association estimates that 79 million people are walking around with pre-diabetes, which is defined as the state that occurs when a person’s blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes.

    As many of you may know, cardiologist Steve Sinatra and I are currently at work on a book about heart disease. In reading the copious amount of research on fat, cholesterol, sugar and the heart, it’s become stunningly clear to me that we have been barking up the wrong tree for thirty years by trying to reduce fat in the diet and bring down our cholesterol.

    What we should have been looking at is sugar. (You’ll see why when the book comes out.)

    But sugar isn’t just a culprit in heart disease. Cancer cells feed on sugar. High glycemic (sugar) diets are implicated in heart disease, diabetes, and nearly any condition in which there’s a lot of inflammation.

    This new study adds dementia and cognitive problems to the long and growing list of conditions you don’t want to have that are negatively impacted by a high-sugar diet.