Manage Your Blood Sugar Naturally

In the US, nearly 25 million people—or 1 in 10 adults—have diabetes, making it one of the top health challenges facing our country today. So what can you do to get a handle on diabetes, or better yet, prevent it in the first place? The best solution is the same in both cases: weight loss.

Lose Weight, Lose Diabetes

If you’re seriously overweight, maintaining a normal blood sugar level is like trying to squeeze a 42-inch waist into a pair of size 36 pants—it’s next to impossible. More than 90 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight. In fact, the link between diabetes and obesity is so strong that it’s led to the coining of a new word: diabesity.

Sadly, the treatments that conventional physicians often use to control glucose actually increase weight gain, making it more difficult to manage blood sugar levels. It also leads patients with diabetes down a dark path toward painful neuropathy, kidney disease, vision problems, and cardiovascular disease.

You may not realize it, but diabetes is the number-one cause of blindness, leg amputations, and kidney transplants, and this disease dramatically increases risk of heart attack.

But there’s a bright side. For most people, getting a handle on weight is all it takes for blood sugar to normalize, complications to fade away, and overall health to rebound. And if you’re overweight but haven’t yet been diagnosed with diabetes, losing weight can nip it in the bud.

Why Do Obesity and Diabetes March in Lockstep?

Type 2 diabetes, which affects 95 percent of all diabetics, is caused by insulin resistance. In people with this condition, the beta cells in the pancreas make plenty of insulin, the hormone that moves glucose from the blood into the cells, but the cells are unresponsive to insulin’s actions. This leads to a rise in blood sugar. The pancreas responds by churning out more insulin, and the net result is elevated levels of both glucose and insulin.

Obesity throws fuel on the fire. Adipose tissue (fat), especially in the abdominal area, releases fatty acids that impair beta-cell function and insulin sensitivity. It also produces immune cells that lead to chronic, low-grade inflammation. Inflammation, in turn, increases insulin resistance and risk of diabetes.

Fat cells also secrete hormones. One of these hormones is leptin. Although leptin is best known for its governing effects on appetite and energy metabolism, researchers from Boston’s Joslin Diabetes Center discovered that it also has direct effects on insulin secretion and beta-cell growth.

At the same time, the high levels of insulin that are characteristic of type 2 diabetes promote weight gain. That’s because insulin is the body’s primary fat-storage hormone—it ushers fat as well as glucose into the cells. So the higher your insulin level, the greater your potential weight gain.

The best way to break this vicious cycle is to shed excess weight. Yet most physicians offer interventions that do exactly the opposite.

Lifestyle Changes Also Offer Powerful Protection

Inactivity and poor diet, which often lead to obesity, clearly contribute to existing cases of diabetes, but research shows that eliminating these factors can provide powerful protection against the disease as well.

In a long-term study, which began in 1986, researchers divided patients with slightly elevated blood sugar levels (prediabetes) into three groups. One group was placed on a diet (more vegetables, less sugar, reduced calories), another on an exercise regimen, and the third on both a diet and exercise program.

Six years later, the individuals in the diet/exercise group had a 51 percent lower risk of developing full-blown diabetes, compared to a control group who’d made no lifestyle modifications.

Even more astounding, upon follow-up in 2006, their incidence of diabetes was still 43 percent lower—which means that these lifestyle changes helped keep diabetes at bay for 14 years after the study’s completion!

This study proves that implementing a good exercise and diet program now can have far-reaching, long-term benefits.

Four-Step Program for Diabetes

In a nutshell, to prevent or treat type 2 diabetes, I recommend the following:

1. Weight Loss: This is the best therapy for treating and preventing type 2 diabetes. Bear in mind, however, that there’s no magic bullet for weight loss. It requires changes in eating habits, regular exercise, and commitment. Fortunately, I’ve discovered a program that is, hands-down, the most effective and easy-to-stick-with approach to weight loss I’ve come across in my 35 years of practicing medicine: a mini-fast with exercise.

2. Diet: The most therapeutic diet for diabetes is a low-glycemic, Mediterranean-style menu with lots of vegetables and lean protein, such as fish and poultry; modest amounts of fruit (one serving per day); and healthful fats like olive oil. Stay away from sugar and starches—pasta, cereals, and other grain-based foods drive up blood sugar and increase appetite. 

3. Exercise: I recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise (brisk walking, slow jogging, etc.) five or more days a week, and several sessions of resistance exercise weekly. Walking and other forms of aerobic exercise lower blood sugar and burn calories; while resistance exercise such as weightlifting builds muscle and improves long-term insulin sensitivity.

4. Nutritional Supplements: To guard against complications of the blood vessels, nerves, eyes, and kidneys, take a potent, antioxidant-rich daily multivitamin. To lower blood sugar, take 100 mg of vanadyl sulfate, 600 mg of alpha lipoic acid, 200 mcg of chromium, and 200–400 mg of Gymnema sylvestre daily. These supplements may be taken individually or in combination formulas.