As a diabetic you understand all too well the feeling of being displaced, the feeling of not fitting in. It would seem that the right way of being, the correct mode of existence, is one in which insulin is properly processed, but diabetics do not have this "proper" ability to process their insulin, and as such are left out in the cold. How do you participate in normal social events when your body can't take care of itself the way it's supposed to; the way other people's bodies process insulin?

As someone dealing with this disease you cannot change your condition, you cannot force your body to properly process the insulin that it has such difficulty with, but you can change your mindset towards your disease. To find yourself, you must be willing to search for a community that will nurture you as an individual.

Finding your peer group is one such way of addressing your problem with processing insulin. You should reach out to the diabetic community and see if you can find common ground with other individuals who are unable to process insulin. By identifying people with similar life goals and life problems you will be able to relate and hopefully learn something about yourself. How to do this? How to take that big step towards jeopardizing yourself, towards risking your security?

As a diabetic you have to throw off the chains of your disease and embrace the aspects that will not change. One aspect that will not change is the limits of the diet you are allowed to keep. As a diabetic you must only eat the foods that will allow your body to intake insulin at appropriate levels. Similarly, if it is necessary, you must be able to take insulin injections and be able to test your insulin levels multiple times throughout the day.

By relating to a community of individuals who share your needs and the same required lifestyle that you have, your life will seem less like a hindrance, like social baggage, and more like the individual way of being that is yours. Your way of existing too can be a bridge to more contact, to a better understanding of yourself and a more perfect way of life. There are numerous communities online and numerous support groups that are more than ready to hear your personal story.

Embracing your life narrative as a diabetic is the most important social obstacle facing you as a diabetic individual. Not only is keeping the difficult parts of your life secret bad for your psyche, but is bad for the social psyche that you bring into relationships. Even as a diabetic, with the pain and difficulties you have faced, you are still a member of the social community.

To be a thriving member of that community, and to come to peace with yourself, you must be willing to take the steps to open up about your pain and your fears. Many people will not be able to hear your stories, they will not be open to hearing the struggles of a life lived with disease and distress, but by connecting to a community of diabetics, you will have a secure place to find your role in society.




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If you are diabetic then it is more than likely that the advice you have been given revolves around maximising so-called complex or low glycemic index carbohydrates (those that cause your blood sugar to rise fast) and reducing fat in your diet. This is because diabetics have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, which is widely believed to be caused by raised cholesterol levels from fat in the diet.

However, studies increasingly show that the fat-raises-cholesterol-and-causes-heart-disease theory is wrong, and that carbohydrates rather than fat cause the damage that leads to heart disease. So why is it, then, that low carbohydrate diets are not advised for diabetics? The fewer carbohydrates that diabetics eat, the lower their requirement for oral hypoglycemic drugs or insulin to normalise their blood sugar levels. Why encourage carbohydrates when it is the carbohydrates that are not only the immediate problem, but the main cause of the long term complications of diabetes, as well?

The trouble is, it takes many years for long-held beliefs to change in medical and government health advice circles. This is especially the case where these beliefs are constantly reinforced by the drug companies and agricultural and food manufacturing industries, who have much to lose should healthy eating advice change from the status quo.

Nutritional medicine experts such as Dr Richard Bernstein, Dr Robert Atkins and Weston Price have long maintained that type 2 diabetics can often be cured and taken off their diabetes medications completely by following a low carb diet, but they have largely been ignored by mainstream medicine. Now, however, the weight of scientific evidence is fast becoming overwhelming. Although this is unlikely to translate into official changes in dietary advice for diabetics for some time to come, many diabetics may now feel there is sufficient information on the issues around low fat versus low carb diets for them to make their own informed choice about the diet they should follow. It is important, though, to carry out any changes in diet in consultation with your doctor, as you may need to reduce or even stop your insulin or other diabetes medications.

If you or someone you know is diabetic, particularly type 2, and you want to know more about recent advances in understanding about using low carb diets in diabetes, the Nutrition and Metabolism Society web site is a good source to start with, particularly the section on low carb diets and diabetes.

Remember: it's your body, and your right to make an informed decision on how to deal with your diabetes. Challenging what your doctor or other sources of dietary advice say and seeking out the information you need can be daunting. But perhaps the following might help spur you into action:

Dr Bernstein, diabetes doctor and a diabetic himself, writes in Diabetes Health of his belief that the only way to keep insulin levels down and blood sugars normal is to reduce fast-acting carbs such as bread, pasta and sugar. He says that the American Diabetes Association does not support this approach because they maintain that 'diabetics are either too stupid or lazy to follow it'. He also suggests there is another institutional problem with normalising blood sugars via a low carb diet: doctors' fears of having a patient die from hypoglycemia, for which they could be sued. So doctors might prefer to keep their patients' blood sugars unnaturally high. If they die of heart attacks, or of other disease, as often happens, they won't get sued for that.

Dr Mary Vernon, co-author of 'Atkins Diabetes Revolution' says on her website that she used to tell her diabetes patients what she had been told to tell them in medical school but it wasn't helping. This made her wonder whether the advice was wrong, so she went back and looked at the biochemistry. This reminded her of a fact which has long been known, but which often gets forgotten. Insulin's primary job is to store fat and block fat burning. What her patients were doing on their high carb diets was to make large amounts of insulin, store fat very effectively and gain weight hand over fist. So she started advising them to eat low carb and they lost weight and improved their blood sugar levels tremendously. The news got around and soon she started getting referrals from other physicians whenever they had patients with metabolic problems.

A low carbing diabetic who contacted me recently told me: 'I get so cross that all my current ills are due to the high carb low fat diets that the doctors had me following.' She said that she followed these diets to the letter but her diabetes was getting steadily worse. Every time she had a blood test she was told she was not in control. However, when she changed to a low carb diet, the blood tests started coming back normal. She told the diabetes nurse she was low carbing, to which the nurse replied 'I thought so, it is the only way you could get those results!' So medical professionals do know low carbing works for diabetics, but they still recommend the traditional high carb low fat diet!



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The tingling, burning, itching, and numbness of diabetic neuropathy are well known to all too many diabetics. But did you know that the condition can be triggered not just by high blood sugars but also by too much salt?

After five to ten years of poorly controlled diabetes, many diabetics experience a form of nerve damage known as diabetic neuropathy. This condition manifests itself in an astonishing number of ways. There can be the well-known

* Numbness or insensitivity to pain or temperature
* Tingling, burning, or prickling
* Sensitivity to touch, even light touch and
* Sharp pains and cramps

of peripheral neuropathy. But there can also be the

* Bloating, alternating constipation and diarrhea (diarrhea is worse at night), nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite
* Copious sweating while eating
* Dizziness when moving from seated to standing position
* Overheating and
* Problems with bladder control

of autonomic neuropathy. And there can even be the

* Aching behind an eye
* Chest or abdominal pain sometimes mistaken for angina, heart attack, or appendicitis
* Double vision
* Inability to focus the eye
* Pain in the chest, stomach, or flank
* Pain in the front of a thigh
* Severe pain in the lower back or pelvis and
* Problems with hearing

of focal neuropathy, all caused or aggravated by prolonged, uncontrolled, high blood sugars in diabetes.

All of these wide-ranging varieties of nerve damage in diabetes stem from a combination of high blood sugars, deficiencies in antioxidants, high triglycerides and cholesterol, and too much salt. Uncontrolled blood sugars cause an accumulation of hydroxyl radicals, peroxinitries, and superoxides, all of which soak up antioxidants needed to protect nerves. If there are enough antioxidants in circulation, however, the free radicals don't do damage.

When there is a shortfall in available antioxidants, free radicals attack the structure of a nerve, causing it to be riddled with holes, known as vacuoles. When enough vacuoles accumulate, the nerve simply dies.

Treating this panoply of nerve problems is accomplished, as you might imagine, with antioxidants. The best-studied antioxidant for this purpose is alpha-lipoic acid. Relatively high doses of alpha-lipoic acid, 600 to 1800 milligrams a day (the absolute maximum you should take), often restore sensation and then relieve burning over a period of 3 to 4 weeks.

You do have to continue to take the alpha-lipoic acid to get its benefits, and you should take a formula that combines alpha-lipoic acid with the B-vitamin biotin, which alpha-lipoic acid depletes. Or, even better, keep your blood sugars under control. Just a few weeks of keeping blood sugars under 100 mg/dl (5.5 mM) all the time, not just after meals, begins to reverse diabetic neuropathy in noticeable ways.

There are several other ways to treat this condition:

* Acupuncture relieves pain, but it won't work if you are on certain antidepressants. That's because the mechanisms through which acupuncture relieves pain depends on an adequate amount of serotonin at the nerves. If you are still building up serotonin levels, the acupuncture will not work.
* Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) can relieve pain caused by neuropathy in the hands and feet. Just don't start with the setting too high.
* And if dizziness is a problem, try elastic stockings. Keeping circulation going to the brain prevents vertigo.



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