Digestive Wellness: Strengthen the Immune System and Prevent Disease Through Healthy Digestion, Fourth Edition (99 page)

Exercise regularly.
Regular exercise helps to lower blood glucose levels, reduce medication needs, and balance mood and behavior. It is essential that you find some type of exercise you enjoy and can do nearly daily. In type 2, exercise can often make oral medications unneeded.

Get psychological support.
Seek support to help manage the times when you just can’t cope. Managing a chronic disease can be difficult. Having a sick family member puts a strain on everyone in the family; you all may need individual and/or family counseling from time to time.

Decrease inflammation.
Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds. These contain anti-inflammatory antioxidants and polyphenols. Monitor first morning pH to ensure that you are getting as much as your body needs. You cannot put out a forest fire with a bucket.

Find the diet that works best for you.
Most people with diabetes will find that a low-glycemic diet works best. Vegetarian diets, which are richer in fiber, antioxidants, and minerals than meat-based diets are, can help reduce the incidence of type 2 in children and adults. Yet Loren Cordain, Ph.D., professor at Colorado State University and researcher and author on Paleolithic diets, and James
Anderson, M.D., from the University of Kentucky, have both demonstrated extraordinary benefits from diets that are high in fiber, high in legumes, and rich in complex carbohydrates. If you monitor your glucose levels carefully, you will discover the best type of diet for you.

Implement a high-fiber diet.
Use fiber to regulate blood glucose levels. Research shows that eating a high-fiber diet slows the release of glucose into the bloodstream over time. Peas and beans, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and especially high-fiber cereals containing 9 or more grams of fiber per serving, can be extremely useful.

Add insulin- and glucose-modulating foods to your diet.
Cinnamon, oat bran, fibers, ginger, rosemary, green tea, cranberries, blueberries, lemon balm, fenugreek, holy basil, and bitter melon are all beneficial. So add some cinnamon to that oat bran!

Discover your food sensitivities.
Figure out if you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or other food sensitivities. I have seen people whose glucose levels spiked with a single bite of carrot or papaya. Monitoring your glucose levels carefully can help you figure this out. Arthur F. Coca also developed the pulse test. Often your resting pulse will rise more than 16 beats per minute 30 minutes after a meal in response to a food that bothers you.

Take a multivitamin and mineral supplement.
Take these supplements to counteract inadequacies in basic nutrients.

Take an antioxidant supplement.
Use antioxidants to reduce inflammation and help prevent damage throughout the body. An antioxidant supplement will most probably contain carotenoids, vitamin E, selenium, and glutathione or n-acetyl cysteine, and may also contain lipoic acid and additional nutrients. Find a good antioxidant supplement and use as directed. In addition, take lipoic acid, 100 to 600 mg daily.

Try magnesium.
Take this to counteract probable deficiency and insulin resistance. Along with supplements, eat magnesium-rich foods such as green leafy vegetables (like kale, broccoli, spinach, chard, and collards) and whole grains. Magnesium glycinate, malate, succinate, orotate, ascorbate, and fumarate are best absorbed. Start with 100 mg daily; increase the dose by 100 to 200 mg until you get diarrhea, and then reduce it 100 to 200 mg until your bowels are normal.
Note:
If the necessary magnesium dosage is higher than 1,000 mg daily, 1 or 2 teaspoons of choline citrate daily can help with absorption and allow the dosage to be reduced.

Try chromium.
This nutrient will help reduce insulin resistance, improve blood sugar regulation, decrease visceral fat, and increase lean body mass. Take 800 to 1,000 mcg daily whether from nutritional yeast or a chromium supplement.
Note:
Increase dosage slowly, especially if you are taking medication or insulin, because blood sugar levels can drop suddenly.