One of the most scariest health threats facing people with diabetes is a heart attack. 75% of diabetics will die of a heart attack, even those who are taking their prescribed medication and following Doctors orders to a T.
Why? If you are following Doctors orders to the T, shouldn't that be enough? Unfortunately the answer is no.
I am going to show you that following the standard medical treatment is not the answer. But there is an answer, and it is simple, cheap, effective, and everyone can do it.
Elevated levels of glucose is dangerous causing damage to all the cells it comes in contact with, including your blood vessels and nerve cells. So we find that the major risk factors of diabetes are heart attack, blindness and numbness in feet and hands, sometimes resulting in amputation. These are all signs that you are rusting from the inside.
Blood sugar in our body is like oxygen to iron. It causes rust. In our cells it is called inflammation. So the sugar running around will cause the walls of your arteries to become inflamed and small cracks to appear.
This inflammatory response triggers the formation of plaque, which is the bodies attempt to patch up the damage. It is actually the body trying to heal itself, not the body going haywire. Unfortunately we often add anti-cholesterol medication to the mix, rather than looking at why we have what is seen as excess in our system.
The cholesterol finds its way to the damaged arteries and lays down plaque to try to patch up the damaged areas. In the process it narrows the arteries and this increases our chance of having a heart attack.
Two of the most common drugs to control blood sugar have been shown in a number of studies in both Australia and USA that they do not reduce the risk of heart attack. In fact they actually increase the number of deaths from heart disease and other causes
This finding was confirmed in 2008 by the ACCORD study of 10,000 type 2 diabetics. Those in the group using aggressive drug treatment had a 22% higher death rate than the control group
Statins used to reduce the level of cholesterol provide no protection and actually raised the risk of diabetes in the people taking them.
Taking cholesterol medication is like taking away the bandages that a bleeding person is using. Yes it save on all the mess of bandages, but the sore is still there and it is still damaged, but now it has no covering to protect it. And so with Cholesterol. It is the bandage trying to cover the wounds in our blood vessels. Taking Statin drugs, takes away this bandage, but leaves the damage.
So what can you do?
Believe it or not the main answer is exercise. I know, I seem to always be on about exercise but it really is the best medicine that you can buy, or in this case get for free. If it could be bottled it would be marketed as a cure all, and make its manufacturers super rich, and actually work for the patient too.
Unfortunately, there is no drug. The answer is in you. You can completely reverse all signs of diabetes. It is within your power.
Shirley was a client of mine about 10 years ago. She was 65 years old and had a history of high blood sugar level. She had been controlling it with diet and had been able to maintain reasonable blood sugar levels. In the past year it had been going up, and her Doctor wanted her to go on medication. She was well aware of the dangers of diabetes, having a brother who was in a wheel chair with both feet amputated, and a parent who had died early of heart attack caused by diabetes. She had seen an article about exercise helping diabetes and she asked the Doctor if she could give that a go.
So we meet and start training. She was an ideal client, working hard and doing all her homework. She was very motivated. Within 6 months she had her levels checked again and they had come down. Within a year she had normal blood sugar readings and they stayed normal for the next three years while we trained together. Unfortunately for me, she then moved away. She kept up the work at home and was doing well last time I talked with her. While training together she lost 6kgs in weight, improved her posture, improved her bone density score, her arthritic knees improved to the point where she was skipping rope, and her sore hip, that had been caused by a very nasty fall about 20 years earlier was gone. But best of all her blood sugar levels were normal. She had reversed her diabetes. She was getting younger and healthier, while her younger brother became sicker, and died of complications of diabetes just three years later.
Shirley went on to perform in the local U3A musical theatre performances and her friends were constantly amazed at her energy and fitness
So are there some exercises better than other?
Yes. The best form of exercise is weight bearing exercise. The same exercises that are essential for osteoporosis prevention, and have also been shown to be be beneficial in many forms of cancer.
Walking is a wonderful exercise and if you enjoy it, then do not stop. It is great for our cardiovascular system. In other words it exercises your heart, but it is not really weight bearing.
Weight bearing is when you put your muscles under a work load. You have to push the muscles to become stronger. This uses up the sugar that is in the muscles, and in the blood, reducing the amount of sugar that is floating around your system.
What we need is to stabilise the level of blood sugar in our system, therefore reducing the damage to our blood vessels, and allowing this magnificent body to heal itself.
Unfortunately I can not be your trainer in person but if you come and be a part of our membership site you will learn more about the right type of exercises to do, the right way to do them and you to can reverse your diabetes.
