Diabetic Food List + Plus

Like many people with diabetes, I try to follow my doctor’s advice by eating well from a diabetic food list that suits my personal tastes and preferences. But because I have not quite been able to get my blood sugar levels totally under control, I also keep looking for additional diabetic friendly foods to include in my diabetic diet that may give me an extra edge in an endless battle.

Turmeric
One such food that I have been reading about of late is Turmeric, a well-known spice used in India for thousands of years, but also now popular world wide in the kitchen as an ingredient in cooking. Although for people with diabetes, more emphasis will likely be paid to turmeric’s reputation regarding its touted medicinal properties. For the diabetic, they may be more important, or at least be an incentive to incorporate turmeric into their diabetic diet.

Turmeric has been used in the ancient and traditional form of medicine from India called Ayervedic for thousands of years. Ayervedic medicine emphasizes lifestyle and dietary approaches to good health and treating illness, and incorporates the use of herbs and other plant foods. Part of it’s philosophy is to prevent disease through eating the right foods. Not unlike the suggestion by Hippocrates to “Let food be your medicine”.

Turmeric is the vivid yellow spice used in curry and gives the bright color to mustard. The active property of turmeric is curcumin, known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Several scientific studies have confirmed its powerful anti-inflammatory properties and the benefits of its use in treating rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory ailments. In their treatment, curcumin was found to have an effect equal to powerful prescription drugs and over-the-counter ant-inflammatory products — but without any of the toxic effects of those drugs.

Inflammation is thought to be associated with obesity and the onset of type-2 diabetes and from experiments carried out on obese mice, it appears that turmeric can possibly lessen insulin resistance and prevent type-2 diabetes by minimizing the inflammatory response generated by obesity. That’s good for the mice . . .

A video called “Turmeric for Diabetes”
For a good description and depiction of the research mentioned above, I recommend the video that can be accessed by visiting You Tube Video. The research discussed took place in 2008 and the comment was made that the research team planned to do research with humans, as yet I have not found any update on such research, but as the video suggests, it wouldn’t do any harm to spice up your meals with turmeric.

So that’s OK for diabetic and obese mice, but what about us humans?
An interesting observation has been made that turmeric and other curry powder ingredients, such as cayenne, cumin, and garlic, may help promote improved blood circulation. It has been noted that the incidence of blood clots in countries that use curry in foods is much lower than in the United States where curry is used far less. It has been theorized that the curry ingredients have a property that prevents platelets in the blood from sticking to each other and that would, in turn, also prevent the formation of a blood clot that could otherwise lead to a heart attack or stroke.

On the website of the University of Maryland Medical Center there is an article describing turmeric. After some encouraging and positive comments about the possible benefits of turmeric in relation to osteoarthritis, atherosclerosis, and cancer, the entry on diabetes merely summarized the above mentioned studies by saying that when researchers gave turmeric to laboratory animals with diabetes, their blood sugar levels were lowered, and so were their blood cholesterol levels. An added remark was that the researchers cannot yet determine whether turmeric would be helpful in treating people with diabetes.

Another positive for turmeric as a diabetic menu item are the reports claiming that curry ingredients help prevent heart disease, a common health complication facing all people who have diabetes. Heart disease is the primary cause of death in the diabetic population of America. A well known cardiologist stated in his book words to the effect that “If you tell me you are a diabetic, I will tell you that you will die of heart disease”. Blunt, perhaps too blunt for comfort.

If taken as a supplement in capsule, the recommended dose I have seen published is to take One (1) 300 mg capsule up to 3 times daily. Turmeric and curcumin are considered safe when taken at the recommended doses as are the amounts found in foods. However, a caution is in order.

As a precaution
Anyone with diabetes should talk to their doctor before taking turmeric supplements. The fact that turmeric may lower blood sugar levels just may cause a problem when it is taken at the same time as diabetes medications, and might possibly cause a situation of low blood sugars and at an extreme, may bring on a hypoglycemic event.

For pregnant and breastfeeding women: while it is safe to eat foods that contain turmeric, turmeric supplements should not be taken.

About asking the doctor
Having said that it might be wise to ask the doctor whether it is OK to do so before adopting new specialized or exotic food items that might interfere with current medications that are being prescribed, I would like to comment that many doctors do not really know the answers to such questions. When I raised such an issue with my doctor, who generally supports the use of vitamins and mineral supplements, his humorous, and I assume honest response, was “How should I know, I’m only a doctor!”

My own solution as a type-2 diabetic
From the anecdotal comments and from the research reports, I suspect that some people would benefit from the use of turmeric although that may not be the case for everyone, since at least in some respects, every individual is unique. My solution is that I am going add curry to the diabetic menu and to eat more curry dishes, I like them anyway so it should not be difficult to do.

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I have just read a short article, titled somewhat emphatically, “Vinegar Reduces Postprandial Glycemia” in a May, 2011 online issue of one of my favorite diabetes information sources, Diabetes-in-control.com.

Diabetes-in-control.com is a website providing news about diabetes and related blood sugar topics that is primary for medical professionals. But it is also for persons like me who are not medical professionals but who have diabetes. I am a long-time Type-2 diabetic.

I have seen references in the past stating that vinegar, like many other non-pharmaceutical products, can be helpful in lowering blood sugar levels. Whenever I learn of such possibilities, I always try to check further to obtain details and now having done so, I can summarize them on this Diabetic Food List website.

The information is mainly about the claim that vinegar, when ingested with food as part of a diabetic food plan, can help manage the elevated blood sugar levels of diabetes and can also moderate cravings for food, and thus contribute to weight management. But there are also opposing claims that counter those of the article mentioned in the opening of this piece so I will make reference to those too. Perhaps the opposing viewpoints can be of value to other diabetics who may be considering make changes or additions to their own diabetic food lists. As it states on this website’s home page, “Our objective is to provide information regarding a wide range of foods and how they can fit into a diabetic meal plan and a diabetic lifestyle.”

About the article
The exact article mentioned above has also appeared in other diabetes oriented journals of recent date and on other websites. It is not stated in the article just when the research referred to was actually carried out, however it must be assumed to be of relevance now for it to have been recently reported.

The article describes the results of a small study carried out by Arizona State University researchers from which it was concluded that small amounts of vinegar in meals can help achieve a lesser rise in blood sugar levels after a meal than would normally be the case. Many diabetics find that their blood glucose levels spike quite substantially after a meal and take longer than the the preferred two hours to return to a more normal lower range. If vinegar can help overcome that diabetic problem it would seem to provide a welcome benefit that might warrant its inclusion in the diabetic food list.

The test
The participants tested a 20 gram drink of apple cider vinegar added to 49 grams of water, and a single teaspoon of saccharine. There were other tests carried out with versions of non-vinegar drinks, one of which contained a placebo, so that the results could be compared with the vinegar drink. The study commenced with a breakfast meal, eaten on an empty stomach, consisting of a bagel and orange juice.

Blood tests were made immediately before the meal and then at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes after the meal. The study showed that after one hour, the vinegar content drink resulted in a 35% lesser escalation than that produced using the placebo version drink.

The Diabetes-in-control article also referred to a Swedish study published in 2005 in which vinegar was shown to the rise in blood sugars after consuming food.

My personal comment
I have also read comments from diabetics who have used apple cider vinegar, some favorable and some not. The study was carried out with a small number of only 10 participants, a fact that was also commented on in other articles including an MSN Health Topics website that I recommend reading to gain an alternative viewpoint, it can be found at this link: MSN Health.

Afterthought and Update
Without yet having time to read it, and therefore I can only comment on it later, I have just acquired a book by Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Alan Lotvin, a cardiologist and CEO of ICORE Healthcare, titled “Doctor Chopra Says”, published 2010 by St. Martin’s Press. There is a 4 page section in the book that seems to speak favorably of vinegar and its benefits in dealing with diabetic blood sugar levels and also weight gain. As soon as I have been able to mentally digest its content I will add an additional paragraph or two to summarize its conclusions and will probably make that Part 2 of this posting.

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The pecan, a nut native to the Americas, appears to be another worthwhile addition for the diabetic food list. Pecans provide vitamins, minerals and fiber and are good sources of the healthful omega fatty acids and the preferred types of fat, the unsaturated fats.

Fats, pecans and the diabetic food list
The body needs fat to maintain good health, performing many roles, from building cell membranes, to protecting vital organs — and a large portion of brain tissue is fat. But some forms of fat are more beneficial than others for the human body, the preferred dietary sources being the unsaturated fats obtained from fish and from plants, including seeds and nuts.

Like fish and other nuts, pecans provide mostly the better type of fat. The less preferred fats are the saturated fats obtained primarily from animal sources — such as beef and other meats and butter and dairy products. The saturated fats can be converted by the liver into cholesterol which is also essential to the body but elevated cholesterol levels in the blood are thought to increase the risk of developing heart disease. Diabetes is also a major risk factor for developing heart disease and heart disease is the leading cause of death among people who have diabetes, so it would be wise to avoid consuming too much saturated fat. The good fat of pecans would seem to warrant their inclusion in the diabetic food list.

From one source on the nutritional benefits of pecans, I read that an ounce of pecans, which is about 20 halves, the size they are usually available, provides about 20 grams of total fat of which a little less that 10% is saturated. That one ounce also provides 2.7 grams of fiber and 20 or more vitamins and minerals, including A, E, B1 (thiamine), folic acid, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium and zinc. And no sodium or cholesterol and little carbohydrate.

For more information on pecans than you would probably ever want to know, check out the National Pecan Sellers website here.

About vitamin E and heart disease
According to a research study carried out at Loma Linda University in California, published in the September 2001 issue of the Journal of Nutrition, nuts are rich in the gamma tocopherol form of vitamin E, an antioxidant that plays a positive role in reducing inflammation in arteries.

Inflammation is garnering an increased level of interest in the medical research community in recent years. Studies have been conducted during the past few years by cardiologist Dr. Paul Ridker, of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital that appear to reveal the important role of inflammation in triggering heart attacks.

This could account for the fact that many people have heart attacks even though they do not have abnormal cholesterol levels, once thought to be a major cause of heart disease.

Apparently, inflammation causes a sequence of events in the coronary artery such as, plaque rupture, blood clot formation and embolization in the blood vessels within the heart – all liable to lead to a heart attack.

Conclusion: Pecans, as well as other nut species, would seem to be a logical addition to the diabetic menu for those people who are not allergic to nuts. I know that some people are allergic to nuts, two of my own children are.

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