this site has all sorts of good info on diabetes

http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/diabetic-diet.html

LC cheesecake from Galina

I had to steal this easy recipe from Galina:



For my husband's birthday at the end of June I didn't want to use an oven (it was already too hot in a Florida), bought a sugar-free cheese-cake, put it in a bigger container, mixed juice from frozen cherries with gelatin and 1/3 cup of sour cream, 2 whipped egg whiles,cherries,poured all that over the cheesecake (I covered sides of container with a parchment paper and put a parchment paper strip under the cheesecake in order to lift it after the jello will make the cherry mousse solid ). You can use a chocolate mouse and any nuts as topping as well

trying to decide if metformin/glucophage would help me

From the wikipedia entry on metformin (I underlined parts I want to remember):

Metformin treatment of people at risk for type 2 diabetes may decrease their chances of developing the disease, although intensive physical exercise and dieting work significantly better for this purpose. In a large U.S. study known as the Diabetes Prevention Program, participants were divided into groups and given either placebo, metformin, or lifestyle intervention, and followed for an average of three years. The intensive program of lifestyle modifications included a 16-lesson training on dieting and exercise followed by monthly individualized sessions with the goals to decrease the body weight by 7% and engage in a physical activity for at least 150 minutes per week. The incidence of diabetes was 58% lower in the lifestyle group and 31% lower in those given metformin. Among younger people with a higher body mass index, lifestyle modification was no more effective than metformin, and for older individuals with a lower body mass index, metformin was no better than placebo in preventing diabetes.^[20] After ten years, the incidence of diabetes was 34% lower in the group of participants given diet and exercise and 18% lower in those given metformin.^[21] It is unclear whether metformin slowed down the progression of prediabetes to diabetes (true preventive effect), or the decrease of diabetes in the treated population was simply due to its glucose-lowering action (treatment effect).^[22]

here is a link to the study mentioned above:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1370926/


looking through the study, the medication intervention is less that stellar as the participants must have been eating pretty high carb (relative to what I eat) since they were encouraged to follow the 'Food pyramid'.  What that means to me is that the medication intervention potentially could have seen even greater success if they had suggested lower carb:

"The standard lifestyle recommendations for the medication groups were provided in the form of written information and in an annual 20-to-30-minute individual session that emphasized the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Participants were encouraged to follow the Food Guide Pyramid 14 and the equivalent of a National Cholesterol Education Program Step 1 diet, 15 to reduce their weight, and to increase their physical activity."

the recommendations for the intensive lifestyle modification group don't mention low-carb, although it was low- calories and emphasized walking:

The goals for the participants assigned to the intensive lifestyle intervention were to achieve and maintain a weight reduction of at least 7 percent of initial body weight through a healthy low-calorie, low-fat diet and to engage in physical activity of moderate intensity, such as brisk walking, for at least 150 minutes per week. A 16-lesson curriculum covering diet, exercise, and behavior modification was designed to help the participants achieve these goals. The curriculum, taught by case managers on a one-to-one basis during the first 24 weeks after enrollment, was flexible, culturally sensitive, and individualized. Subsequent individual sessions (usually monthly) and group sessions with the case managers were designed to reinforce the behavioral changes.

i lost 10% of my body weight and have kept it off for 3 years (although my lower abdomen is still big) and this not did cure me of impaired glucose tolerance, although i probably was worse off before i lost the weight.

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cancer and high blood sugars

Rates of Cancer Rise Significantly with "Mildly" impaired Blood Sugars A Swedish study that followed 64,597 people for 10 years discovered that there was a very strong increase in the risk of cancer for those participants, no matter what their weight who had fasting blood sugars over 110 mg/dl (6.1 mmol/L) or who scored over 160 mg/dl (8.9 mmol/L) two hours after a glucose tolerance test. The risk continued to grow as participants moved into the diabetic category, but not by the same increment as it did when they moved from normal to what most doctors consider "mildly" impaired. The cancers most responsive to the higher blood sugars appear to those of the pancreas, endometrium, urinary tract, and malignant melanoma.Prospective Study of Hyperglycemia and Cancer Risk.Pär Stattin, MD, PHD, Ove Björ, BSC, Pietro Ferrari, BSC, Annekatrin Lukanova, MD, PHD, Per Lenner, MD, PHD, Bernt Lindahl, MD, PHD, Göran Hallmans, MD, PHD and Rudolf Kaaks, PHD.Diabetes Care 30:561-567, 2007

diabetes with no symptoms/probable cardiovascular system damage

two more things i wanted to add:

1. my blood work has been good for lipids and fasting glucose- my A1c was 5.6, which i knew would be off since i was anemic at the two times i had it done. what i didn't realize is that the A1c will be artificially low if someone is anemic and in actuality should be much higher.

2. i have been eating not extremely high fat, but fatty sausage, burgers, eggs, etc thinking it was OK since I was eating low-carb. The problem is my diet was actually just like a high carb diet since my body couldn't process glucose correctly and my blood sugars were probably high. so i probably did some damage to my heart and vascular system which i will try to reverse.

what symptoms did i have that i was diabetic? none. sometimes you have to test based on factors other than symptoms (such as family history and other abnormalities, such as giving birth to large babies) 

8/12/12 first test disbelief

i did the test:

fasting blood sugar: 90

ate 60 grams of a fast-acting carb (oatmeal)

1 hour later: 219- measured again in disbelief: 265

2 hours later: 197-measured again in disbelief: 191

3 hours later: (after vigorous exercise): 101

from jenny ruhl's website (the same one linked below):

If your blood sugar went over 200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/L) at any time you testedd, you just registered a diabetic blood sugar level and should consult with a doctor as soon as possible. Two random tests results of 200 mg/dl are considered diagnostic of diabetes according to the Diagnostic Criteria for Diabetes Mellitus published by the highly conservative American Diabetes Association. 

since i don't want to take medicine, i'm going to see if i can control this according to dr. bernstein's target of 30 grams of carb a day plus exercise plus going leaning more to eating 2 meals a day instead of 3. he says a normal person will have a reading of 85 even right after eating, except for a very carb-laden meal. if the meter is off +/- 10 its, that means i could go up to 95, but i might be hypoglycemic at 75- so i won't strictly shoot for 75.

i shudder to think where i would be if i hadn't started my version of ef in 2009. i now know that i need to implement a much stricter version of ef. i would never have known to do this if i hadn't bought the glucose meter and if i had never found dr. bernstein/jenny ruhl. i didn't even want to buy it- my husband did. i thought he might be pre diabetic, but using the same 60 grams of carbs, this numbers were much better. At 1 hour after the 60 grams of carbs, he was 137/143, at 2 hours he was 110/111. 

Because i eat lower carb, i can maybe subtract 10 points from my 2 hour reading, but even then i am over 200. 

predicting who gets diabetes from jenny ruhl's info

i am starting to delete past posts that i think led to dead ends.  right now wooo has put me on to jenny ruhl who has collected some awesome info on diabetes of which i am taking the bullet points and saving them here:

What this means is that if your blood sugar tests over 100 mg/dl fasting more than once, your fastingblood sugar is likely to go over the 125 mg/dl (7.0 mmol/L) level used to diagnose full diabetes within 3 years. More importantly, and not addressed in this article, if your blood sugar is at 100 mg/dl fasting, it is very likely that your post-meal blood sugar is heading towards the diabetic range, which is over 200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/L) which is why your fasting blood sugar is deteriorating. High post-meal blood sugars kill beta cells. If you can bring down those post-meal highs, you may be able to prevent the beta cell death that is destroying your fasting control! ps i don't know why the above didn't paste right- i will try to fix it later and put link up More: The data here suggest strongly that truly normal people--people whose fasting blood sugar is close to 82 mg/dl and whose 2-h result on an OGTT is closer to 90 than 140 probably don't become diabetic.Those whose blood sugars are higher than this true "normal" do even though the current diagnostic standard embraced by the American Diabetes Association tells them they are normal. They may go on for many years showing only slight changes from year to year, but eventually they suddenly hit a critical point where their blood sugar control suddenly deteriorates very swiftly.