BY W. GIFFORD- JONES MD & DIANA GIFFORD-JONES
The most important thing readers should have learned from our article on diabetes is that pre-diabetes is reversible. Fancy pharmaceuticals aren’t to thank, rather, it’s glycemic control, achieved naturally, by managing blood sugar with the help of concentrated brown seaweed. But what’s glycemic control, and what’s so special about brown seaweed?
For decades, our articles have advocated for a change in lifestyle as a strategy for reversing the steady societal march towards higher and higher rates of type-2 diabetes (the consequence of complacency about obesity and other risk factors). Either people aren’t listening, or they are being overwhelmed by negative socioeconomic factors, such as the costs of healthy food choices, lack of time for the preparation of healthy meals, promotion of poor-quality food by manufacturers, and restrictions on access to green spaces in cities where people can get out to exercise and play sports.
Here’s another thing. It’s a mistake to think that only individuals struggling with obesity are at risk of diabetes. As we’ve written about in previous columns, it’s the fat you can’t see – visceral fat around internal organs – that is the greatest cause for concern. Studies show that pre-diabetes affects between 22% to 35% of people who would not meet the clinical definition of obesity of a body mass index over 30.
If you are pre-diabetic, and despite best efforts, visceral fat around organs in the body’s core is winning the battle, then pay attention to this research.
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of pre-diabetic men and women on a standardized program of exercise and a controlled-energy diet showed remarkable results from the regular use of a natural brown seaweed native to the Canadian Maritimes. While study participants in the placebo group saw progression of pre-diabetes, those taking the seaweed supplement saw improvement, including for some, a return to normal glycemic status.
But how does it work?
Blood sugar is controlled by a delicate mechanism. Following a meal, glucose molecules are absorbed into the bloodstream and carried to cells where they’re used for energy. It is the insulin produced by the pancreas that helps glucose enter cells.
If a meal contains excessive amounts of glucose, it’s stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen. Later, if blood glucose drops, another hormone glucagon, also produced by the pancreas, signals the liver to break down glycogen into glucose to restore blood sugar to normal levels.
Mild cases of hypoglycemia cause sudden hunger, dizziness, increased agitation, drowsiness, a pounding heartbeat and sweating. If the blood sugar drops further, patients exhibit personality changes, headache, blurred vision, confusion and slurred speech. Without treatment, symptoms progress to unconsciousness and convulsions.
There are over two hundred and fifty different names for sugar in our foods, including sucrose, glucose, fructose, syrup, juice, many more less familiar terms and we eat on average 142 pounds of it a year, about seven times the recommended amount.
With each meal of carbs and sugars, blood sugar goes up as does the production of insulin by the pancreas. Between meals, the opposite occurs. Large drops in blood sugar levels are responsible for unwanted cravings, mood swings and energy depletion. Today’s common high carb, high sugar meals accentuate these swings, resulting in what’s known as glycemic stress.
Brown seaweed blocks the breakdown of ingested starch and sugars, significantly slowing down their digestion rate and reducing glycemic stress
Next week, in the final part of the series, we’ll offer a challenge to readers with concerns about their own potential to fall victim to diabetes.
This is part five of a six-part series.
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Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, MD is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Harvard Medical School. He trained in general surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, Montreal General Hospital, McGill University and in Gynecology at Harvard. His storied medical career began as a general practitioner, ship’s surgeon, and hotel doctor. For more than 40 years, he specialized in gynecology, devoting his practice to the formative issues of women’s health. In 1975, he launched his weekly medical column that has been published by national and local Canadian and U.S. newspapers. Today, the readership remains over seven million. His advice contains a solid dose of common sense and he never sits on the fence with controversial issues. He is the author of nine books including, “The Healthy Barmaid”, his autobiography “You’re Going To Do What?”, “What I Learned as a Medical Journalist”, and “90+ How I Got There!” Many years ago, he was successful in a fight to legalize heroin to help ease the pain of terminal cancer patients. His foundation at that time donated $500,000 to establish the Gifford-Jones Professorship in Pain Control and Palliative Care at the University of Toronto Medical School. At 93 years of age he rappelled from the top of Toronto’s City Hall (30 stories) to raise funds for children with a life-threatening disease through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Diana Gifford-Jones, the daughter of W. Gifford-Jones, MD, Diana has extensive global experience in health and healthcare policy. Diana is Special Advisor with The Aga Khan University, which operates 2 quaternary care hospitals and numerous secondary hospitals, medical centres, pharmacies, and laboratories in South Asia and Africa. She worked for ten years in the Human Development sectors at the World Bank, including health policy and economics, nutrition, and population health. For over a decade at The Conference Board of Canada, she managed four health-related executive networks, including the Roundtable on Socio-Economic Determinants of Health, the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, the Canadian Centre for Environmental Health, and the Centre for Health System Design and Management. Her master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government included coursework at Harvard Medical School. She is also a graduate of Wellesley College. She has extensive experience with Canadian universities, including at Carleton University, where she was the Executive Director of the Global Academy. She lived and worked in Japan for four years and speaks Japanese fluently. Diana has the designation as a certified Chartered Director from The Directors College, a joint venture of The Conference Board of Canada and McMaster University. She has recently published a book on the natural health philosophy of W. Gifford-Jones, called No Nonsense Health – Naturally!
