Perhaps the nutritional factor that diabetics really need to limit is fat. When fat enters the bloodstream after fatty foods, it inhibits the action of insulin, preventing it from lowering blood sugar levels. Thus, the blood sugar level begins to rise, and then trouble begins. On the other hand, carbohydrates, especially complex ones, help insulin function normally.
J. Shirley Sweeney demonstrated this as early as 1927. Dr. Sweeney gave healthy volunteers a high-fat diet for two days and then tested their response to blood sugar. In all cases, the blood sugar level was significantly elevated. When Dr. Sweeney put these same volunteers on a high carbohydrate diet, their blood sugar levels dropped (Internal Medicine Archive). Since then, other studies have confirmed the same positive effects as high in complex carbohydrates, low in fat for the prevention and treatment of diabetes.
Other researchers have found that some patients with diabetes, even type 1 diabetes, can drastically reduce their need for insulin when they eat a diet, mostly containing raw food. Diabetics (who consumed 50 to 80 percent of their food raw materials) consumed foods such as vegetables, seeds, nuts, berries, melons and other fruits, honey, butter and goat milk. Researchers have suggested that the diet works because of "inactivated enzymes that are present in raw items" or because of the "fast transit that is inherent in the raw diet" (Annals of Internal Medicine).
“Transit Time” is the time when food passes through the digestive tract. A diet of raw foods rich in fiber, passes through 18-24 hours; A diet of mainly cooked food, which is not particularly high in fiber, takes between 80 and 100 hours.
One Indonesian doctor gets, down to the specifics, when he “prescribes” food for diabetics: eating large amounts of green beans and raw onions can help lower blood sugar levels, says Askandar Tkroprovariro. In separate studies, 20 diabetic outpatients consumed the equivalent of 11/2 Ib of green beans daily during the week, and another 20 eat the equivalent of 21/2 ounces of raw, chopped onion during the same time period. After seven days, the blood sugar level of the patients was compared with what was before the start of the diet, and the doctor found a “statistically significant” decrease. The use of these vegetables can have therapeutic implications for the victims of diabetes mellitus (the medical name for this condition), Dr. Tjokroprawiro concluded in a presentation at the 15th International Congress of Internal Medicine.
If your mother said you eat slowly and chews every bite, she probably knew what she was talking about. In a study of 22 patients with the mild form of type 2 diabetes, scientists evaluated each patient about how quickly he or she ate food: less than 6 minutes was considered hasty; From 6.1 minutes to 9 minutes was average; and 9.1 minutes or more was slow.
The results showed that the level of sugar in the blood of hasty eaters fluctuates more widely than the average and slow: eaters. In addition, hasty feeders had wider fluctuations in body weight during treatment. Scientists said: "Proper instructions on the behavior of food should be included in the management of the diabetic patient."
