The End of Diabetes

All forms of life maintain a reducing environment within their cells. That means they are continually removing wastes and removing free radicals. Disturbances in this normal redox state occur from micronutrient deficiencies and can cause toxic effects through the production of peroxides and free radicals, which damage all components of the cell. When oxidative stress occurs, certain by-products are left behind and are excreted by the body, mostly in the urine. These by-products are oxidized DNA bases, lipid peroxides, and malondialdehyde from damaged lipids and proteins. The higher the levels of these various markers (which can be measured in the urine), the greater the damage to the cells—marking the advancement of an oxidative stress-induced disease

Gluconeogenesis is the breakdown of muscle tissue to fabricate glucose after glycogen stores have been depleted. As the liver’s glycogen stores are utilized and diminish, true hunger signals the need for calories before muscle breakdown begins, thus preventing the onset of gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis becomes activated after the glycogen stores have been depleted, so if fasting is continued too long, the body would utilize muscle tissue as a glucose source. Does the body want to waste muscle to maintain our glucose levels? Of course not. We get a clear signal to eat before that begins. I call this clear signal true hunger. True hunger is protective of our muscle mass and gives a clear signal to eat before the beginning of gluconeogenesis, as the glycogen stores are running low and glycolysis is winding down.

Most often these uncomfortable symptoms occur simultaneous to our blood sugar decreasing and glycolysis beginning, but they are not caused by hypoglycemia. While we feed off glycogen stores, rather than actively digest and assimilate glucose, our bodies cycle into heightened detoxification activity—so these sick feelings that accompany glycolysis are a result of tissue sensitivity to mobilization of waste products, which occurs when most active digestion is finished. They occur when the blood sugar is at its lower plateau. These symptoms are obviously not merely caused by low blood sugar, though the symptoms occur in parallel with lower blood sugar

If we try to stop taking nicotine or caffeine, we feel ill. This is called withdrawal. When we stop doing something harmful to ourselves, we feel ill because the body attempts to mobilize cellular wastes and attempts to repair the damage caused by the exposure. If we drink three cups of coffee a day, we would get a withdrawal headache when our caffeine level dipped too low. When we consume more caffeine again, we feel a little better because it retards detoxification, or withdrawal. In other words, the caffeine withdrawal symptoms can contribute to our drinking more caffeine products

The glucose absorbed right after a meal is called postprandial glucose. After the carbohydrates from the meal are broken down to simple sugars and eventually utilized or stored in the body, most of the glucose not burned is stored as glycogen in the liver and muscle tissues. Glucose is continually utilized to fuel our cells and especially our brain. Our brain use makes up 80 percent of our caloric needs in the resting state. After the meal’s contribution is utilized and digestion ceases, we start to gradually burn down our candle of stored glycogen in the liver as our glucose source. This catabolic or breakdown phase, when stored glycogen is our main source of glucose, is called glycolysis. When glycogen stores are being burned for glucose, toxins are better mobilized for removal and repair activities are heightened. Spending time in glycolysis, while resting the digestive apparatus in this non-feeding stage, is important for health and a long life

Another revolutionary finding besides the importance of consuming a sufficient quantity and variety of nutrients is that high-nutrient eating suppresses your appetite. You naturally desire fewer calories. So although this book is about eating less, you don’t realize you are eating fewer calories and you don’t desire more calories. The nutritarian diet style blunts your desire to overeat

Phytonutrients are required for the body to properly detoxify metabolic waste products—they enable cellular detoxification. When we don’t eat sufficient phytochemical-rich-vegetation and instead consume low-nutrient food and excess animal proteins (creating excess nitrogenous wastes) we often exacerbate the buildup of metabolic waste products in our bodies.4 These wastes are just like drug toxins.

Recently a systematic review was performed of published human intervention studies comparing high- and low-GI foods or diets and their effects on appetite, food intake, energy expenditure, and body weight. In a total of thirty-one short-term studies, the conclusion was that there is no evidence that low-GI foods are superior to high-GI foods in regard to long-term body weight control.4 More recent research compared the exact same caloric diets, one with a lower and one with a higher GL, and demonstrated that lowering the GL and GI of weight-reduction diets does not provide any added benefit to calorie restriction in promoting weight loss in obese subjects.5 So the GI and GL are important, but they cannot be the primary focus of a healthy diet. They are just one of many aspects to be considered when understanding what makes this proposed diet style ideal

Also keep in mind that nutrient-density scoring is not the only factor that determines good health. For example, if we ate only foods with a high nutrient-density score, our diets would be too low in fat. So we have to pick some foods with lower nutrient-density scores (but preferably the ones with the healthier, higher nutrient-containing fats such as seeds and nuts) to include in our high-nutrient diet.

The GL is the accurate measurement here, not the GI. Carrots are not a negative food, even for the diabetic, as the GL is only 3. This is why raw carrots are a favorable weight loss–promoting food. Instead of focusing narrowly on the concept of GI, we have to consider the other values of the food as well as the healthful qualities and GL of the entire meal when put together. By the way, weight loss and micronutrient adequacy are more important than minor and temporary fluctuations in blood sugar, because they lead to long-term wellness and resolution of the diabetic condition