Sugar Nation

How would you like to read a book that upends a lot of today’s standard advice about diabetes and prediabetes? Not another one! Well, here it is. Jeff O’Connell has written a book for American sugar eaters of today. He is a fitness writer and bodybuilder who tells about sugar and prediabetes and their impact on his life. The subtitle of the book Sugar Nation gets to the core of his memoir: The Hidden Truth Behind America’s Deadliest Habit and the Simple way to Beat it.

O’Connell tells his story about discovering that he has prediabetes. His father died of diabetes.  O’Connell didn’t just take medication or give up, but rather did research about this disease that showed him where many Americans eat the American diet, get minimal exercise and get sick. The culprit is the huge amount of sugars and carbohydrates that we are eating combined with sedentary lifestyles. He shows that diabetes brings with it complications including heart disease, kidney shutdown, nerve damage, and amputations.

He says that we have the tools at our disposal to prevent and reverse the disease, but many people aren’t using them. He says that many doctors know little about diet and nutrition and focus on treatment rather than prevention. He presents interviews with and data from many doctors who work with diabetics. He takes us into the lives of people with diabetes who follow the standard medical advice and see their disease advance. He sees his diabetic father suffering at the end of his life.

The tools are low carbohydrate diets and fats, and keeping physically fit. Diet and exercise. He weaves his own story through much of what he presents, which makes it readable and easy to understand. There was a lot that he says he didn’t know at the beginning of the story, particularly “I didn’t know that the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to do the exact opposite of what the majority of mainstream weight-loss experts recommend.” (p. 3.) He says also, “What I did know? That my limbs, heart, and kidneys were worth a hell of a lot more to me than hamburger buns, French fries, and glazed doughnuts. So I changed my ways with a vengeance.” (p. 3.)

O’Connell gives information about reactive hypoglycemia, a condition that happens to some people who are normal weight or thin but have prediabetes. He is one of them. He says there is not a lot of good data about it. But it occurs in a lot of diabetic patients.

A lot is packed into this book It’s worth reading.

O’Connell, Jeff, Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America’s Deadliest Habit and the Simple Way to Beat it. 1^st ed., Hyperion Books, 2010.

The Blood Sugar Solution

Here is an interview that got my attention. A half hour (actually 34 minutes) with Dr. Mark Hyman. I was fascinated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGeRIEyEoE

Dr. Hyman is well known. Among other things, he is he doctor who is said to have turned around Bill Clinton's heart disease. He is chair of the Institute for Functional Medicine. Functional medicine? Hmmm. I have seen him in short television interviews, and several times on the Doctor Oz Show, where Dr. Oz gives Hyman time to present some of his medical ideas, and then says he disagrees with everything he has to say. That's the thing. We see these important people interviewed for about a minute of sound bytes, rather than seeing them take time to actually get to the point. In this interview, Dr. Hyman gets to the point.

Dr. Hyman has written several books. I have not read any of them. He has a new book called The Blood Sugar Solution. I thought this interview would be about the book. It kind of sort of is, but mostly it is about Dr. Hyman's philosophy. He says he treats causes rather than symptoms. When asked if he is a holistic doctor, he answered that he has a "whole list" to treat, meaning that he treats not just each symptom separately, but the underlying causes of the presentations of symptoms. He says that his pharmacy is the grocery store; food is his medication. Not junk food. Real food.

Hyman had things to say about type 2 diabetes. After all, his new book is about diabetes. He listed a lot of conditions that go with diabetes, including heart disease. He pointed out that most heart attack patients have diabetes or pre-diabetes. He said that statin drugs are not helpful in preventing a first heart attack and have dangerous side effects. He said that heredity does not explain the current epidemic of diabetes, since it was much less prevalent thirty years ago; it has multiple causes. He also said that type 2 diabetes is completely preventable. He has had patients who have prevented or reversed it.

Well, if this is the big disease that leads to many other diseases, it must be time to read his book. He didn't give details on what foods will take the disease away, but he said they are in his book.

This interview was done three months ago by Randy Alvarez, on wellnesshour.com, and posted on YouTube.  Dr. Hyman has an interesting website, drhyman.com. His new book has a website, bloodsugarsolution.com.