One in 3 people in the United States have prediabetes. As the name implies, your blood sugar incrementally goes up as the years go by. Up to 70% of individuals with prediabetes will eventually develop diabetes. Doctors monitor your blood work and then when it looks like you’ve developed diabetes they give you medicine to lower the blood sugar.
This is not the correct approach to take. It’s important to nip any disease process in the bud. The ancient doctors of India described 6 stages of a disease process we go through as we work our way towards a disease we can name. In the first two stages, imbalances are occurring but there are no symptoms yet. By the second and third stage, you start developing symptoms, like in this case, your blood sugars start to become elevated, but since they are not in the diabetic range it is not yet considered diabetes. But by the 5th and 6th stages enough damage has been done to the tissues and the physiology that you can now in fact name it as a disease, such as diabetes.
We don’t want to sit back idly through the years and just watch our blood sugars increasing slowly over time until we get diabetes. The ancient doctors said it’s much easier to reverse the early stages of a disease process, but much harder to reverse it once you’ve progressed to the point where you can name it as a disease. So it will be much easier and make more sense to try to reverse these various imbalances which are responsible for elevating the blood sugar before it’s too late. You don’t want to start trying to do something about it once you are diagnosed with diabetes. And you don’t want to suppress the symptom of diabetes, the high blood sugar, by just bringing down the sugar using a pharmaceutical, and at the same time avoiding why the blood sugar is high in the first place.
So let’s take a look at what we can do in the early stages of the disease process. And if in fact it’s too late and you already have a diagnosis of diabetes, you should still examine all the imbalances that led up to it, because these same imbalances could cause other diseases if you let them fester.
One usually thinks that the pancreas is the main problem with diabetes since the pancreas makes insulin which lowers the blood sugar. And while yes, at some point the pancreas does play a role in the development of diabetes, the initial culprit lies in the liver.
And as I’ve stated before in many of my videos, the liver is at the root of so many disease processes because it has hundreds of functions in the body, so if the liver becomes corrupted, almost any disease process can result.
Just about all my prediabetic patients present with a liver which is ailing. And sure enough research is bearing this out. New studies are showing that people with fatty liver disease are much more likely to develop diabetes within 5 years than those with healthy livers.
So if you notice your blood sugars start to go up, this should send an alarm to start taking better care of your liver. Many people have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which means that they don’t even drink alcohol, yet their liver is fatty. Consuming alcohol causes most of the fatty liver disease we hear about, but with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease the same thing can happen even without drinking alcohol. So what would be causing this situation?
Well, a large cause are the bad fats we consume — such as vegetable oils, and the poor quality olive oils which are processed using heat and chemicals and contain vegetable oils. These types of oils cause a lot of liver damage because they form a poison when you cook with them. And since everything you swallow has to be processed by the liver, they end up scarring the liver and causing a fatty liver.
Some of the research shows that a fatty liver is the greatest indicator for whether or not you will develop diabetes — it is much more a causative factor than the levels of insulin.
So here’s what you need to do if your blood sugars start going up and your doctor decides it’s OK to just watch the levels inch up each year.
Start prevention now! First and foremost, give up the vegetable oils: canola, safflower, ground nut (peanut), sunflower, mustard seed, palm oil and the cheap olive oils. Instead use high quality organic cold-pressed olive oil and ghee (made from grass fed cows).
Eat only good quality natural sugars, such as evaporated cane juice, date sugar, coconut sugar, jaggery and maple syrup because the refined table sugars, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup and agave all damage the liver.
Of course give up alcohol immediately as it is highly toxic and very damaging to liver cells. Plus alcohol is converted into sugar once it enters the body, causing elevated blood sugar levels.
Start on a program to reduce weight if you are obese because obesity can also cause diabetes. This can happen because overeating stresses the membranous network inside of cells, known as the endoplasmic reticulum, causing it to process more nutrients than it can handle. It sends out an alarm signal to the cell telling it to dampen down the insulin receptors on the cell surface. This causes insulin resistance which causes the blood sugar to go up.
Another reason obesity causes diabetes is that when you are obese excess fats drain into the portal vein causing excess fatty accumulation in the liver which results in insulin resistance. The portal vein normally carries nutrient-rich blood from the digestive tract to the liver. So you don’t want too much fat being dumped into the liver at any one time, causing a fatty liver.
Exercising also helps to bring down your blood sugars. When you do moderate exercise your muscles work harder and use more glucose which can lower your blood sugar.
There are numerous herbs nature has given us to clean the liver, regenerate the liver cells, and other herbs to cool down the heat in the liver. It turns out that the liver actually overheats when it is holding on to lots of toxins and poisons. And when it overheats it gets angry and can’t control the blood sugars.
Many people will tell you that they brought their blood sugar down by eating karela (also known as bitter melon or bitter gourd) several times a week. That is because the bitter taste is good for both lowering the blood sugar (the sweet taste increases it) and at the same time the bitter taste pulls the poisons out of the liver allowing it to control the blood sugars better.
A January 2011 article published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology showed that a 2,000 mg daily dose of bitter melon reduced blood glucose levels similar to metformin. It also protects the beta cells of the pancreas, where the insulin is made.
Even Sloan Kettering posts the benefits of eating bitter melon on their website. They claim that modern research shows that the substances in bitter melon act in the same way as insulin, by increasing the entry of glucose into the cells and promoting its processing and storage in the liver, muscle and fat.
They also state that bitter melon prevents the conversion of stored nutrients to glucose and the release of this glucose into the blood, which keeps the blood sugar within normal limits. In fact, reductions in blood sugar after taking bitter melon can be seen quickly, as soon as 30 minutes, with the greatest reduction occurring at 4 hours and lasting for 12 hours.
We also have wonderful herbs which lower the blood sugar, such as gymnema sylvestre. It’s also called gurmar in Hindi, which means “destroyer of sugar.” It is perhaps the most famous Ayurvedic herb used for lowering blood sugar. Gymnema both stimulates insulin secretion and can actually regenerate the pancreas cells which make the insulin. Studies have found that the sugar-blocking effects of gymnema occur just 30 seconds after you put it in your mouth! And they last for one hour!
Gymnema can even help to take away your sugar cravings because of its unique property: it turns out that the atomic arrangement of the gymnema molecules is similar to that of glucose molecules. They can actually fill the receptor locations on the intestines preventing the sugar molecules from absorbing which results in low blood sugar levels.
And gymnema is also famous for its ability make sweet foods less appealing by reducing the ability to taste sweet. The active ingredients in the gymnema do this by blocking the sugar receptors on the taste buds. In study after study people who consumed gymnema had less desire for sweets which helped keep their blood sugar low.
Indian Kino has also been used as a traditional medicine in Ayurveda for treating diabetes. It can reduce the symptoms associated with diabetes, such as frequent urination, overeating and a burning sensation in the limbs. It can also increase the insulin production in the pancreas.
The leaves and bark of the guduchi plant play a major role in stabilizing blood sugar levels and controlling diabetes. It can increase the production of beta cells in the pancreas, the cells which make insulin, resulting in good insulin and glucose levels in the blood.
Ancient herbs and spices used for centuries in Indian cooking have the potential to control diabetes. For example, both turmeric and cinnamon stick increase your sensitivity to insulin. Remember, insulin lowers your blood sugar. If you become less sensitive to its effects, known as insulin resistance, your blood sugar might increase.
It is also recommended to soak 2 tsp of fenugreek seeds in hot water overnight. Drink the water in the morning. The seeds slow down the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates, which helps to keep the blood sugar low.
Another good recipe to lower high blood sugar is to soak 4-6 medium sized okra pods in water overnight. Cut both ends of the pods and slice them in half lengthwise. Soak them in a cup of water overnight and drink the water in the morning. It turns out that the fiber in the okra lowers blood sugar by slowing down the absorption of sugar from the intestines.
Scientists believe that the Indian curry leaf, an ingredient used in many curry dishes and in traditional Indian healing may contain agents that slow down the rate at which starch turns into glucose in people with diabetes. The curry leaves control the amount of glucose entering the blood stream. And cooking with curry leaves are also beneficial for blood sugar because they tend to boost insulin activity, stabilizing the blood sugar.
So as you can see, the best way to treat diabetes is to prevent it, by not allowing it to progress from the prediabetic stage. However, even if you do have diabetes, please try some of these suggestions as you may still be able to reverse the damage to both the pancreas and the liver. I have been able to lower the diabetes medications in many of my patients by using these recommendations and in some cases patients were able to come off their medications altogether.
I hope you learned how to properly manage high blood sugar by using all of the remedies nature has given us in the form of foods, herbs, spices and plants which are all famous for the prevention and treatment of diabetes and have been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine.
Thank you.