I am a 60-year-old male that was diagnosed with Non Insulin Dependent Type 2 Diabetes a year ago in Oct 2017. My HbA1c was 7.5% on Jan 10 2018 and has since lowered to 6.7% on Sept 5 2018.
I suspect I became insulin resistant because I started on a ketogenic diet from Nov 2016. Initially, I was just trying keto out but starting from Ramadan (May) 2017, I went full steam ahead on a nutritional ketosis diet. The main downside was the high oil and fat intake caused lipoprotein overload and made me insulin resistant by Sept 2017. Basically, lipoproteins block insulin receptors at the cellular level, denying glucose entry into cells, where it would have been burnt up as fuel. Instead, glucose remains in the blood at elevated levels - the definition of diabetes.
Having only learnt about this yesterday, I’ve now embarked on a diet for diabetics.
The dietary requirements for Diabetics is very specific. Its not vegan or vegetarian as such. It is plant-based, yes, but is it also whole food, meaning no processed or refined plant products such as oils, sugar, flour or alcohol.
Oils are to lipids as refined white sugar (white sucrose crystals) are to carbohydrates.
Whole food means you can eat coconut or kelapa parut or kelapa parut blended in water but not coconut oil, VCO or santan squeezed from kelapa parut without the coconut hampas. This is what is meant by whole food—minimal or no processing, refining, or extraction processing involved. This leaves your food whole, with all antioxidants, leptins, micro-nutrients, vitamins, enzymes, trace elements, and etc. intact.
As oils are refined products, they are excluded but, more importantly, they are excluded because the main cause of insulin resistance is lipoprotein overload as oil (fatty acid) molecules block the insulin receptors of our cells. When the insulin receptors are blocked, insulin is unable to allow glucose to enter the cellular tissue to be burnt up as fuel. Instead, glucose remains circulating in the blood - and this what diabetes is defined as - high blood glucose levels.
Diet for diabetics is also mainly raw food because nutrients like vitamins, enzymes and antioxidants are damaged by heat.
Think of insulin as a key, literally. The insulin receptor as a keyhole. Insulin unlocks the door that allows glucose to enter your cells to fuel your cells, giving the energy to allow your muscles to contract and for you to move.
But correct nutrition is just one aspect of controlling diabetes, exercise is another. All that excess glucose in your blood needs to go somewhere (your cells) and be burnt up. Even if the glucose door to your cells is open, glucose will not enter if there is no need for it. Its only needed when you exercise. Without exercise, glucose will still remain circulating in your blood. Exercise doesn’t have to be hard work; any form of daily exercise that makes you sweat for 30 minutes daily is sufficient. This is better than working out for three hours once a week. The daily consistency is required to continuously remove glucose from your blood.
There are five biomarkers to determine whether someone is insulin resistant or truly insulin sensitive. They can be summed up by the acronym PILAF:
P - (blood) Pressure
I - Ideal Body Weight
L - Lipid Profile
A - HbA1c
F - Fasting Blood Glucose
All five indicators need to be seen as a whole to get a complete picture of what’s actually going on. Looking at just fasting blood glucose (which I check once a week) and HbA1c (check every 3 months) is insufficient.
And as they say in CBT, understanding what’s going on, in itself, cures you.
I’ve come to this level of understanding after one year of researching about diabetes and insulin resistance as a patient because both my physician and my nutritionist are next to useless, they simply don’t have enough time to educate me on my condition. I believe we as patients have to be responsible and accountable for our own health, we cannot abdicate this entirely to our healthcare providers.
And, I’m still learning...
https://www.masteringdiabetes.org/recipe/
Copyright 2003-2018 Azlan Adnan. This blog post is sponsored by The Green Party of Malaysia
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