T2 Diabetes In this chat succession Marty extends my education of T2 diabetic nutrition. Every diabetic is different. Only the titles T1 or T2 suggest there are groups of people who share some similarities. It makes sense for find out from qualified people who know your full medical history what is correct for you, doesn't it? This is intended for discussion only.
Marty says:
I would go with the Zone diet or the Omega diet (Mediterranean diet) as a good base diet to shoot for as far as carb, protein and fat mix is concerned. Food allergens can contribute to the problems that diabetics have but I have never felt very comfortable trying to work through this area. A good natural healer will try to identify the food allergens in your diet and get them out. Responding to food allergens on a chronic basis is going to add to the oxidative stress that a diabetic is under. Another way to deal with this potential problem is to get the gut tight again.
Try to limit aspirin and alcohol use (Werbach says no alcohol but that is too restrictive in my opinion). If you can keep the gut damage down and feed the good gut bacteria with yogurt and FOS, your gut should be able to prevent any food allergens that may be in your diet from getting into your blood. Digestive enzyme mixes are sold for the same purpose, get better protein digestion so that any pieces which may get past the gut are not going to be allergenic. Using a Betaine HCL supplement along with the digestive enzymes should help even more.
I would go with the healing foods (try to make them a regular part of your diet) and I would go with the rotation concept (don't keep eating the same thing day after day). I would also go with trying to limit sugar intake and getting the fiber up (try the range that Sylvia recommends which is
25 grams per 1,000 kcalories). A diet analysis program can let you see how you are doing with fiber, carb, protein and fat intake. I would not fixate on any amount or percentage. There is no magic amount or percentage (in my opinion), the goal is to move your diet more toward a diet that should help you with your diabetes (blood sugar tests tell you how you are doing plus you can often just feel the effect that food is having on you).Supplements (assumes three meals per day and also assumes a basic multivitamin /mineral supplement with the RDA or less):
Retinol (diabetics convert very little beta-carotene to vitamin A): 16,000 IU per day (two 8,000 IU retinol gel caps, one per meal). Niacin (only use the nicotinamide form): 100 to 150 mg per meal. Vitamin C ( 1 gram with each meal).
Bioflavinoids (500 mg with each meal or two pine bark or two grape seed extract pills with each meal).
Vitamin E (mixed natural), 200 IU with each meal. Use a multivitamin /mineral with a snack to get the other fat solubles without the added E.
Coenzyme Q10 (go with the oil form, especially rice bran oil which will give some tocotrienols): 50-100 mg with each meal.
Carnitine (500 mg per meal)
Chromium (I would use the Brewer's yeast as the source of the chromium with each meal). If you can't tolerate it, then chromium picolinate or polynicotinate at 200 to 400 microgram per day (use a chromium supplement with one or two meals)
Magnesium (250 mg with each meal).
Calcium (200 mg with each meal)
Manganese ( 2-4 mg with each meal)
Inositol (300 mg with each meal)
Biotin (10 mg with each meal)
Potassium (use Morton's lite salt which is a 50/50 mix of KCl and NaCl).
Phosphorus (hypophosphatemia is extremely common in diabetics):
Use a dibasic calcium phosphate supplement for the calcium and this will also provide the extra phosphate that diabetics need.Zinc (15 mg with two meals, the multivitamin/mineral should cover one of these two15 mg of zinc doses)
B6 (Try to find the pyridoxal phosphate form because the pyridoxine form can cause nerve damage and diabetics are much more prone to have a problem with B6 if the plant pyridoxine form is used rather than the animal pyridoxal phosphate form). If all you can find is the pyridoxine form, go with just 50 mg with one meal. If you can get the safe pyridoxal phosphate form, then 50 mg with two meals.
Folic acid ( 400-800 micrograms per meal) Folic acid, B6 and B12 are all needed to get homocysteine levels down in the blood and homocysteine is a risk factor for increased damage to the arterial walls (heart disease) and diabetics already have a high risk for developing heart disease so you don't want to add to the risk.
B12 (1-2 mg per day)
Thiamin (25 mg with each meal), use the multi to give a little more.
Copper (just use the RDA of 2 mg per day coming from the multi)
Lipoic acid (100 mg with each meal)
Taurine (500 mg with each meal)
MSM (500 mg with each meal)
N-acetyl-cysteine (200 mg with each meal). Werbach recommends glutathione but it can't get past the gut very well. N-acetyl-cysteine will raise glutathione levels in all cells in the body but it, like cysteine, does have some potential toxicity and may actually act as a pro-oxidant at high levels. I would never go above 1 gram per day even though several grams is recommended by some. Staying under 1 gram per day should be safe, even for a diabetic. Murray, like Werbach, thinks that glutathione works better than N-acetyl-cysteine in raising glutathione levels in the body. For gut, blood and liver it probably does. But for other tissues, N-acetyl-cysteine is probably going to be necessary. Murray recommends 3 grams of glutathione per day for diabetics and glutathione, unlike N-acetyl-cysteine, has no potential toxicity. Murray also recommends pantothenic acid for diabetics. He says that diabetics should never be given nicotinic acid to lower their LDL (he actually prefers the time release inositol hexaniacinate form of nicotinic acid for all of his patients except diabetics). Murray claims that 900 mg of pantothenic acid per day works very well to safely lower LDL in diabetics without destroying their glucose control. Pantothenic acid is a very unconventional LDL lowering agent and I agree with Murray that it appears to work and is going to be safe in diabetics but it does not give the rise in HDL levels that nicotinic acid does (but it does not screw up glucose control either).
Gymnemna herbal extract (400 mg with one meal)
I would use diet to get omega-3's rather than using oil supplements.
Additional antioxidants would be useful but this is already a very long list. We will be coming out with a supplement line just for cancer patients. What I hope to do is eventually develop a supplement line just for diabetics.
I don't know if this helps or hinders you Quentin. I used to try to help educate cancer patients on the importance of supplementation as part of their cancer treatment program but the very large number of different pills from 20 or more different bottles frustrates most of them (just tell me what's most important and keep the bottle count down). That's why we are trying to come up with a limited number of bottles with supplements designed just for cancer patients. If it works, I think that diabetes will be the next disease that we will try to tackle.
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Marty B. "You are what you eat."
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