Diabetes
Will Natural Approaches Control Your Blood Sugar…
Type 2 diabetes has become very common. Consequently, many people must pay close attention to their blood sugar. What influences blood glucose levels? There are, of course, medications that may be nec…
Is Wine Bad or Good for People with Diabetes?
People with diabetes are often cautioned to avoid alcohol altogether. Doctors reason that a drink can make it much harder to control blood sugar. On the other hand, wine has a reputation as a healthfu…
Natural Blood Sugar Control to Benefit Sex Life
Doctors are taught that erectile dysfunction (ED) is a red flag. It should encourage them to look for other health problems, such as heart disease or diabetes. Patients, too, are becoming aware that p…
What’s the Story on Metformin for Diabetes?
Metformin has become the go-to drug for type 2 diabetes. It's easy to understand why. The drug works to control blood sugar and it is incredibly inexpensive compared to many of the newer diabetes drug…
Will Pomegranate Juice Help Lower Blood Sugar?
Having blood sugar and insulin rise rapidly after a meal has been linked to a number of metabolic problems. Products, like crackers, cookies or bread, that cause such a rapid increase are termed high-…
Can You Avert Diabetes with Cinnamon?
Type 2 diabetes is increasingly common. According to the American Diabetes Association, 9.4 percent of Americans have diabetes. Most of those individuals have type 2 diabetes, in which the cells stop …
Can You Lower Blood Sugar Safely with Cinnamon?
Many people would prefer to use natural approaches to healing as much as possible. When they do so, they should evaluate both the benefits and the risks of the herb, spice or supplement they plan to u…
Will You Experience Drug Shortages Because of Hu…
There is an epidemic of drug shortages in the U.S. It has been going on for years. The reasons are often hard to pin down. Drug company consolidation has contributed. The big fish swallow the smaller …
Which Drugs Mess with Vitamin B12?
Keeping track of the nutritional consequences of medications can be tricky. Doctors don't always ask about possible problems; nor do pharmacists necessarily take these into account. But there are some…
If Metformin Causes Diarrhea, Will Kefir Help?
One of the most useful-and widely used-medications for type 2 diabetes, metformin, is known to cause digestive distress for some of the people who take it. One reader found, however, that drinking the…
Doctor Disputes that HCTZ Can Raise Blood Sugar
One of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the world today is a diuretic called hydrochlorothiazide. That's a mouthful. Not surprisingly, health professionals abbreviate this medication. It sometime…
Supplements Are No Substitute for Good Diabetes …
Diabetes is reaching epidemic levels, not only in the US but around the world. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 30 million Americans have diabetes. By f…
The Pros and Cons of Metformin for Diabetes
Metformin is #7 on the doctors' hit parade of top 10 prescription drugs. Each year the number of prescriptions increases substantially. Last year there were 87 million metformin prescriptions dispense…
Risk of High-Carb Bedtime Snacks
Does munching refined carbohydrates contribute to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes? This hypothesis is plausible, since foods that make blood sugar rise rapidly (high-glycemic index foods) inter…
Does Metformin Save Lives?
Doctors have been prescribing drugs to people with type 2 diabetes for decades. The goal has been to lower blood sugar levels and prevent the complications of diabetes. Many of those meds helped cont…
The Unexpected Risks of French Fries
French fries may be tempting, but giving in to temptation could be deadly. Nutrition scientists from Italy, Great Britain and the US noted that potatoes have a high glycemic index. That is, they tend …
Will Grilled Meat Raise Your Risk for Diabetes?
People who want to avoid type 2 diabetes might want to limit use of the barbecue grill. There's new evidence that grilled meat can increase the chance of this disorder. What Is the Story on Grilled Me…
What Bread Is Best for Your Microbiome?
Previous research has identified bread, especially bread made from refined white flour, as a food that can raise blood sugar and insulin levels rapidly. This is considered a food with a high glycemic …
Can You Control Your Blood Sugar with Turmeric?
We are in the midst of a diabetes epidemic. Not only in the US, but around the world, type 2 diabetes has become frighteningly common. We know that obesity has contributed to this modern-day plague. W…
Generic Drugs Can Be Pricier in Canada
Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anyone else on earth. No wonder people are always looking for a way to save money on the medicines they need. But trying to combine two money-saving stra…
Do Simvastatin Side Effects Include Diabetes and…
Many physicians tell us that even if statins increase the risk for diabetes, the drug benefits far outweigh any increase in blood glucose. But diabetes is a challenging condition to treat. Then there …
Is Ceylon Cinnamon Better Than Cassia Cinnamon?
We get excited when we learn about natural products that have health benefits. Consequently, we were intrigued 13 years ago when we first heard that cinnamon might help control blood sugar (Diabetes …
Why Is a Magnesium-Rich Diet So Good for You?
If you have been looking for ways to help control your blood pressure with minimal medication, you might want to consider a magnesium-rich diet. Whole foods like vegetables, nuts and fish can make a d…
Could a Gluten-Free Diet Help Blood Sugar?
Controlling blood sugar is of utmost importance to people with diabetes. This can be a frustrating task. Some people, like this writer, find it exceedingly difficult to bring blood glucose into a hea…
How Do Drug Companies Spit in the Face of Capita…
The free market system is supposed to encourage competition. One of the key tenets of capitalism is that prices of products are determined primarily by a competitive marketplace. If company A sells a …
How Will Your Body Respond to Cutting Carbohydra…
Changing the balance of carbohydrates in your meals may help reduce your insulin resistance, according to a new study. The Study Compared Consumption of Carbohydrates and Insulin Response: Researchers…
How Can Orphan Drugs Be So Outrageously Expensiv…
Everybody knows what an orphan is. But what are "orphan drugs" and why should you care? How did pharmaceutical manufacturers take what was supposed to be a charitable concept and corrupt it to make bi…
Can Curry Spice Overcome Diabetic Nerve Pain?
The high blood sugar and inflammation associated with diabetes can damage many organs in the body. Diabetic nerve pain is a common complication of this condition. It can be quite difficult to treat, …
Are Your Vitamin D Levels Bad Because of BPA and…
A great deal of research suggests that low levels of vitamin D are associated with serious health problems, including osteoporosis, fractures, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, in…
Did Low Levels of Vitamin B12 Ruin A Life?
Most people rarely think about vitamin B12. It's not part of routine blood testing the way vitamin D is. We have been surprised that health professionals do not routinely request blood tests for vitam…
How to Control Blood Sugar by Sipping Vinegar
Almost 30 million Americans have diabetes, and another 86 million adults have prediabetes. Elevated blood sugar puts the individual at risk for developing frank diabetes unless something is done to c…
How to Prevent Retinopathy with a Mediterranean …
The Mediterranean diet can lower the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes, as the PREDIMED trial demonstrated (New England Journal of Medicine, April 4, 2013). People who follow such a diet rich in…
Staying Active Can Help Prevent Chronic Health P…
Exercise remains one of the most powerful interventions for promoting health and preventing disease. An article in the BMJ reviewed 174 studies published over 25 years. The scientists evaluated the am…
Can You Trust Your Multivitamin?
It can be challenging to get all the nutrients you need from food, especially if you are taking medications. That's because many medicines can interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption. Some, like…
Which Cinnamon Is Better for Blood Sugar?
In type 2 diabetes, blood sugar and insulin tend to spike after meals. Insulin is often present, sometimes even plentiful, in type 2 diabetes, but it isn't efficient. There is a bewildering array of p…
How to Lower Your Chance of Diabetes
Don't be afraid of fat! That's the message from a study that scrutinized the links between saturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat and carbohydrate consumption and the chance of dia…
Should Everyone Be Taking Metformin to Fight Can…
Metformin was created in the 1920s by chemists who were working with the French lilac plant. That's because healers had been using French lilac for centuries to control the symptoms of type 2 diabetes…
Is Butter Better? Why Butter is Back with a Bull…
For decades and decades we were told that we had to avoid saturated fat. Cream in our coffee, butter on our bread and cream cheese on our bagel were considered sinful because such foods were supposed …
How to Improve Blood Flow by Drinking Tea
People with insulin resistance have trouble getting sugar from the blood into tissue cells after meals. But a new study suggests that a cup of black tea might help with that problem partly by finding…
How to Get Blood Sugar Control Without Sore Join…
Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which blood sugar rises even though the body is still making its own insulin. The problem is that cells become resistant to the insulin that is available and are una…