Fitness And Health

Posts Tagged ‘lose weight’

This post explores the health benefits of cinnamon, which is significant, on the bodies blood sugar.  How your health, whether you are diabetic or not, can be improved by adding common cinnamon to your diet.  26 million people in the US are full diabetics.  Up to 50 million are in pre-diabetic conditions.  Millions more have sugar intolerance and their bodies are in an acid PH imbalance.  Adding cinnamon capsules (which you can get at the local pharmacy) will help you level things out.

Cinnamon can help you re balance your bodies chemistry.  Cinnamon has been called the most significant discovery to control blood sugar.  Taking cinnamon for 40 days can yield significant benefit.  Cinnamon and weight loss have been shown to go together.

Perhaps most interesting is that the health benefits of cinnamon and the affect on blood sugar has been known for thousands of years.  Adding cinnamon to help regulate sugar even in normal people can help you lose weight.  When the sugar level is elevated even for short periods it is a trigger for extra insulin: this is the bodies signal to store fat and so cinnamon and weight loss can go hand-in-hand.

The Effect Of Cinnamon On Blood Sugar (Glucose) Levels And Its Ability To Help Control Diabetes

Author: John Bradstreet

What is the Cause of Diabetes?

In type 2 diabetes, high blood sugar levels occur when glucose is prevented, to a significant degree, from entering cells of the body, notably liver, muscle, and fat cells. This is caused by a “short circuit” in the insulin signaling pathway, a cascade of highly specific chemical reactions that allow insulin to fulfill its role as the facilitator of glucose transport through the cell walls. Insulin is produced by the pancreas in response to elevated blood glucose levels; once it enters the blood, it signals the body’s cells to take up the excess glucose until normal levels are restored.

When insulin molecules bind to the insulin receptors on cell walls, tiny molecular “gates” open up and allow glucose molecules to pass through. If this system is impaired, the gates don’t respond adequately to the insulin signal, thus preventing the glucose from entering the cell. This condition, which is a common consequence of obesity, is called insulin resistance, and it’s both a harbinger and a symptom of diabetes. With insulin resistance, glucose levels in the blood remain high, a very dangerous condition in the long run. The pancreas tries to compensate by making more insulin, but this works only for so long. Eventually, the pancreas becomes overburdened and starts making less insulin. That’s when things go from bad to worse.

Cinnamon and diabetes

One of the most exciting recent discoveries in health is cinnamon and its effects on blood sugar (glucose) levels. The positive effect of cinnamon on blood sugar were discovered by accident at the USDA testing center in Maryland where scientists were testing the effects of various foods on blood sugar (glucose) levels. They were surprised when good ol’ apple pie actually helped lower glucose levels.

Although cinnamon bark and cinnamon flowers are used medicinally, Chinese cinnamon, or Cinnamomum aromaticum, is the form used for diabetes.

Specifically, hydroxychalcone may work on insulin receptors to increase insulin sensitivity and help promote glucose uptake into cells and tissues and promote glycogen (the storage form of glucose) synthesis.

Several Studies Confirm the Positive Effects of Cinnamon

In a December 2003 Diabetes Care study, cinnamon was found to improve glucose and lipids in people with diabetes. Sixty patients with type 2 who were taking a sulfonylurea (glyburide) were given one of three doses of cinnamon (1, 3 or 6 grams per day) or a placebo for 40 days.

Fasting blood glucose declined by 18 to 29 percent after 40 days in all three cinnamon treated groups. Specifically, 1 gram per day decreased glucose from 209 to 157 mg/dl, 3 grams per day decreased glucose from 205 to 169 mg/dl and 6 grams per day decreased glucose from 234 to 166 mg/dl.

Patients then went without any cinnamon for 20 additional days, but their fasting glucose was still lower than at baseline for the previously cinnamon-treated groups, indicating that cinnamon had a sustained benefit. Furthermore, total cholesterol decreased by 12 to 26 percent, triglycerides decreased by 23 to 30 percent, and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol also declined from 7 to 27 percent.

Another study was done by the University of Hannover in Hannover, Germany and published in a recent issue of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation. This was the first study evaluating the effect of a water-soluble cinnamon extract on glycemic control and the lipid profile of Western patients with type 2 diabetes. The results further add to a growing body of clinical evidence demonstrating supplementation with a water-soluble cinnamon extract may play an important role in managing blood sugar levels and improving insulin function.

Cinnamon is not Advised

Benefitting from this discovery may not be as simple as increasing cinnamon intake in your diet. Cinnamon contains volatile oils and when taken consistently in high doses may be toxic. This is why high quality supplements are recommended.

In conclusion, cinnamon reduced serum glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol, and LDL-cholesterol levels in people with type 2 diabetes. Because cinnamon would not contribute to caloric intake, those who have type 2 diabetes or those who have elevated glucose, triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol, or total cholesterol levels may benefit from the regular inclusion of cinnamon in their daily diet. In addition, cinnamon may be beneficial for the remainder of the population to prevent and control elevated glucose and blood lipid levels.

About the Author:

World Vitamins Online provides it’s readers with pertinent information on vitamins and health supplements, how they work, and why. We feel that a well informed consumer will be one that benefits from this knowledge and will be able to make better decisions about their health and the health of their families. To learn more on this subject and for additional links on this topic at bottom of page please visit us at http://worldvitaminsonline.com/cinnamoncinnulinpf60capules.aspx Or subscribe to our blog for our latest post at http://worldvitaminsonline.blogspot.com/

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – The Effect Of Cinnamon On Blood Sugar (Glucose) Levels And Its Ability To Help Control Diabetes

More About Diabetes

• Consequences of Diabetes: Complications and Costs (oup.com)
• Mediterranean Diet May Let Diabetics Dial Back Drugs (abcnews.go.com)
• Eight Ways to Keep Your Blood Sugar Lower (losethattyre.co.uk)
• Double Diabetes – Placing Your Kids at Even More Risk (battlediabetes.com)
• The Difference Between Type 1 And Type 2 Diabetes (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• Exercise alone shown to improve insulin sensitivity in obese sedentary adolescents (scienceblog.com)

Myth #1: Dieting Will Help You Lose Weight and Make You Healthy

By Tim Reynolds, MD

Every day we are bombarded with medical garbage. It comes from all sources — maybe even your doctor. There are also medical myths that have been passed on from one generation to the next — unfortunately, no one has looked carefully at where the information started and whether it is in fact valid or not.

I hate budgets and I hate diets. I think I hate them for the same reason — they make me want all the things I can’t have even more. Have you ever noticed that the word DIET is a four letter word and that the first three letters are DIE?! That’s how I feel about dieting. So many times we go to the doctor and he/she says “Well you are overweight and you need to start on a diet”. Unfortunately, many health professionals do not know exactly what this means — it is also the wrong approach to take to lose weight.

Instead of going on a diet, why not change the way you look at food and the way you approach your health? Why not change your reality and realize that food is nutrition that is good for the body as long as it’s the right kind and eaten in moderation? Food is not the enemy — choosing the wrong foods and overeating is the enemy.

A major problem started with flawed research that was then capitalized upon by food manufacturers. In the 1970s and 80s, it was erroneously determined that our high fat diet was making us all fat.¹ Food manufacturers quickly caught on and soon every product had a label that said “low fat”. Unfortunately, we replaced the fat with sugar. As we all ate our low fat diets, the entire country got fatter.

A variation on the theme is being seen now with carbs. Everyone wants to be on a low carb diet. So now everything at the grocery store is advertised as “low carb”. Once again, most people have no idea what this means. There is more than one type of carbohydrate and not all carbs are bad.

Natural plant fiber is made from carbohydrates. Fruits are carbohydrates but should not be considered the same as carbohydrates from a doughnut. If we only look at the carb count, once again we will be led down the wrong path due to creative advertising.

So what are we to do? How can we figure all this out? I have two simple recommendations that will help. First get back to nature. I do not mean move to the mountains (although that does sound nice) — but start eating natural foods. Think of it this way — if you can’t catch it or pick it, don’t eat it. If you follow this rule, you can have all the fish, fresh meats, vegetables, and fruits you want.

In fact, if your diet consisted of just these foods, you would never be fat. As I write this, I am at a scuba diving resort in Borneo, Malaysia. This island does not have an overweight person on it. Why? Because they only eat what they can catch or pick. They have a natural high protein, low carb diet.

Second, if you are going to eat processed foods, always check the label. You will find protein content in grams, fat in grams, and carbohydrates in grams. Under carbohydrates it will list sugar in grams. If the grams of sugar are higher than 10 (8 if you want to be strict), put it back and choose something else.

You will be amazed at what does and does not have sugar once you start looking. Remember, it is not simply the fat or carbohydrates — as it turns out, the problem is the amount of sugar it contains.

Finally, I have an 85/15 rule. If you eat like I just showed you 85% of the time, you can eat what you like the other 15%. Food is energy — it is good for you. Choose the right foods and they will keep you healthy. Choose the wrong foods and they will make you ill. You are in fact what you eat.

Reference

1. http://weightoftheevidence.blogspot.com/2008/02/dr-jamie-bailes-fat-free-fallacy.html

[Ed. Note: Tim Reynolds, M.D., is a practicing physician and a health and lifestyle expert. For more information, click here.]

This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise’s Total Health Breakthroughs which offers alternative health solutions for mind, body and soul.