Monday, January 05, 2015

Diabetes Care - Self Management

The tasks involved in self-management are relatively easy, once you have learned how to do it. There is more and more help available as the concern about increasing prevalence and cost of DB2 increases. The American Diabetes Association published revised Standards of Care for diabetes, emphasizing that high-quality diabetes care must be individualized to reflect the needs, interests, and abilities of each patient. The primary goal is to reduce blood glucose levels to normal. You self-monitor blood glucose levels at home and have HbA1c monitored very 3 months. The secondary goal is to monitor for and, if detected, promptly treat any developing complications.

Reducing caloric intake is a key to success

If you follow common arguments about diabetic diets, then all diabetics should eat a low carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diet. The only way you can achieve all three goals is to eat a low food diet. Indeed reducing caloric intake is the key to success. Another key to success is to increase your energy expenditure by leading a more active life.

The Alpha Nutrition Program is a standard method of diet revision that proceeds in a simple, logical manner. You eat more vegetables, less fat and balance your new diet according to the best nutritional ideas. The program leaves out foods and food products that are higher risk and includes foods that have protective and beneficial effects.

The Alpha Nutrition approach includes Alpha DMX a specially designed elemental nutrient formula. We invented Alpha DMX to solve the problem of nutrient deficiency when you reduce your caloric intake. With 25 grams of Alpha DMX per day, your nutrient intake reaches recommended daily intakes goals for all vitamins and minerals even if you eat no food.

The Cardinal Rules of DB2


Eat less, exercise more.

You adjust the food you eat and your activity level to bring glucose utilization into balance with intake.

You monitor blood glucose frequently at first until you understand what different foods do in your body.

You use exercise to lower blood glucose if the levels go too high.

If your blood glucose is too high, you can skip meals, take Alpha DMX twice a day and snack on low calorie foods such as celery, lettuce, apples and carrot sticks.

The basic problem with proposing diet revision, as therapy is that eating behaviors are deeply rooted in a psychosocial matrix and are not rationally determined. Diabetic food management requires rational determination of eating behaviors and food selection. The social basis of eating patterns often conflicts with individual needs and opposes the attempts made by an individual to modify diet as a means of restoring or maintaining health.

The idea of "a diabetic diet" as a fixed set of instructions and a restricted food list is stubborn and fits with a passive-dependent attitude - "fix me" A new attitude of approach to diet revision is required especially when you have a chronic illness. The new attitude is based on self-responsible, self-monitored and self-directed change. The Alpha Nutrition Program assumes that you are in charge and you make your own decisions. The professional role is to support your effort to self-manage and assist you in trouble-shooting when symptoms recur or when irrational eating behavior is dominant and you need help complying with the healthy path.

Diabetes Center at Alpha Online

Order Managing Diabetes

Diet Revision Improves Diabetes, a Food Disease.

People with diabetes 2 have a food-disease. They have the task of changing their food choices and managing their diet carefully. This is a difficult task. We develop a perspective on diabetic management and reveal issues that are not well understood. We will suggest intelligent strategies for self-management of diabetes 2. Renewed concerns about the safety of popular drugs that lower blood sugar should focus attention on non-drug strategies.

Understanding diabetes has become more difficult as more is learned. In all biology, increasing complexity is revealed by ongoing research. Since glucose is the principle source of energy for all life, complex systems of glucose regulation have evolved. Eating behavior is steered towards high sugar foods that, once eaten, require prompt metabolic responses to utilize and store glucose for later use. Diabetes 2 involves a complex of disorders that start with appetite dysregulation and continue through disordered metabolism of glucose, cholesterol and fatty acids. Diabetes 2 is a progressive disorder. Early corrective action is highly desirable.

The Supreme Importance of Diet Revision

When you are diagnosed with diabetes 2, do not try to hold on to old habits. They made you ill. You have to change your food choices. You need to lose weight and exercise; 20 minutes per day of walking and resistance exercises that makes muscles work will correct many metabolic abnormalities, reducing the risk and the negative consequences of diabetes.

Standard medical treatment protocols for Diabetes 2 always mention diet revision and then quickly proceed to drug options. While food control is always mentioned, the critical, decisive importance of diet revision and exercise is not emphasized. Diet revision is neglected in favor of drug treatments. Diet revision means changing your food choices and learning how to self regulate by adjusting food choices and food amounts.

The odd reasoning in medical practice is that even though eating the wrong food contributed to or even caused the disease, you can just go to the store and buy a drug that will excuse you from changing the cause. Although some of the chemicals for sale at the pharmacy may reduce some consequences of eating too much of the wrong food, a smart person will get busy and remove the cause of the disease.

If you follow common arguments about diabetic diets, then all diabetics should eat a low carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diet. The only way you can achieve all three goals is to eat a low food diet. Indeed, reducing caloric intake is the key to success. Another key to success is to increase your energy expenditure by enjoying a more active life. When you exercise more, your muscles grown in size and strength and become more metabolically active. No drug can compete with beneficial changes in metabolism that exercise creates. Exercise acts on all the key metabolic organs and all the signaling molecules that control metabolism.

A diabetic treatment plan in its simplest form:
  • Diet Revision: Follow the Alpha Nutrition Program
  • Reduce total caloric intake
  • Alpha DMX 12 grams, 2 times per day
  • Exercise everyday

  • See Managing Diabetes, a book by Stephen Gislason MD