Simple Health Cures

   Fasting affects the blood sugar levels in the body. As we eat three meals a day we get regular amounts of blood glucose released into the body to help us meet our energy needs. As a diabetic person you are advised to have smaller and more frequent meals in the day so that there is no sharp spike in the blood glucose levels after a large meal.

   While a spike in blood sugar is considered bad for those with diabetes, even a sudden drop is considered bad. This drop will occur if you go on a fast. Since there is no food coming into the body there is no glucose in the blood stream either.

   However if you have a spiritual reason to fast and are a diabetic you need to be careful. You can fast safely as long as you have no history of diabetic ketoacidosis and no current infections. You must also not fast if you are pregnant.

   Plus if your blood sugar is not in a well controlled state it may be wise to skip the fast. If you suffer from high blood pressure or angina it is not a good idea to fast. Take adequate preventive measures to avoid complications while fasting.

   Hyperbaric medicine is also called HBOT or Hyperbaric Oxygen Therpy. It involves the medical use of oxygen at high levels compared to the atmosphere. The patient is placed in an Oxygen Chamber where he is given 100 percent oxygen under pressure.

   This pushes up the oxygen content of the blood and plasma. The hemoglobin gets saturated and helps binding oxygen to the red blood cells and the blood plasma begins to carry more oxygen into the body tissues on a cellular level.

   A deep relaxing effect is felt by any patient who under goes the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. For those diabetic patients suffering from chronic foot ulcers HBOT is said to be effective as a non invasive alternative treatment to getting the surgical revascularization.

   So instead of going in for surgery for diabetic foot wounds you can use HBOT as an alternative healing method. The process was first used in a controlled trail over twenty years ago and indications have been positive.

   Since both patients and doctors would like to avoid amputation wherever possible, this is a good option to try out first. In fact it gaining increasing popularity in handling problematic diabetic wounds with more people around the world being such a non invasive treatment.

Here are some action you can take to help prevent diabetes:

Daily Physical Activity:

   You need to get out of the house and get some exercise on a daily basis. Going for a regular evening or morning walk or jog is a great way to do this. Exercise helps you to use insulin effectively, thereby reducing the chance of accumulation of blood glucose.

Maintain your ideal weight:

   If you are a healthy weight, you are less likely to develop diabetes. Find out the ideal weight you should be with the help of your doctor or health care assistant. Lose any excess weight that you have. Then make sure that you maintain that weight.

Eat a healthy and live diet:

   Your diet should be low in refined foods and high in fresh foods. Include fruits and vegetables in your diet on a daily basis. Add whole grains and monosaturated fats like those you get from olive oil in to your diet.

Get Regular Checkups:

   Your blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar levels need to be monitored if you are at risk of developing diabetes. The faster you catch a problem the easier it is to deal with it. So keep on monitoring your health to manage it better.

   There are a few natural medications for diabetes which can be termed home remedies. These are normal foods that have the ability to help you control the level of blood glucose in your body. Here are a few things that you can use.

   A single green chili can be soaked in drinking water and left overnight. The same water can be drunk the first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. The capsaicin which seeps out of the chili water will help keep your blood sugar under control.

   Do not eat or drink anything after you have drunk this water for at least half an hour so that the active ingredient gets a chance to influence the blood stream. If you are allergic to green chilles or feel that you find the water too hot to consume, don’t fret. Here is another natural medicine for diabetes that you can try out.

   Fenugreek seeds also are a proven remedy for reducing blood sugar and helping to control diabetes. Take about a teaspoon of the small yellow brown seeds and soak them in drinking water overnight. Like the previous remedy drink the water the next morning. In drinking water overnight. Like the previous remedy drink the water the next morning. You need to do this every day on a regular basis for at least a month for the result to show.

   There has been a lot of debate over the 30 days raw food challenge and how successful it was in helping the six participants in reversing their diabetes. In the same vein people are also interested in knowing just what they can do to include more raw foods into their diet.

   It is the live foods which help in reversing the onslaught of diabetes. So what are these live foods, let us consider this fact. Raw foods are not always alive. Live foods are different from raw food. These are the foods which have not been cooked or processed in any way.

   For example a can of fruit is still raw, but it is no longer live. As it was soaked and processed in sugar syrup to be preserved, it has lost the ability to grow, and therefore it is no longer alive.

   In the same way take a look at two almonds. One comes out of a pocket of roasted dry fruit flavored with salt. The other is fresh out of an overnight soaking and is developing a tiny white shoot. The difference here is very clear about which one of them is the live food. The soaked almond wins hands down.

   Kidney is the organ of the body which allows it to get rid of all the waste products and by products that it accumulates. It is a vital part of the digestive process which removes toxins that accumulates in the body. If it fails to function properly all kinds of complications may arise.

   However if a person has diabetes, there is a high chance of kidney damage occuring due to the high levels of blood glucose in such a person. In fact diabetes is one of the most common causes of renal failure. In case of kidney failure. In case of kidney failure 44% of the people tend to also suffer from diabetes.

   There has been evidence of Thiamine or Vitamin B1 reversing kidney damage. Over time it has the ability to restore the functionality of the kidney. The research conducted at Warwick University in the UK has proved that it could work as a low cost but highly effective treatment.

   Thiamine or Vitamin B1 reverses the damaged kidneys in diabetic person and restores the kidney’s ability to function without allowing proteins to be excreted in the urine. However doctors still feel that there is more research required to collaborate these findings and so they are not prescribing the vitamin as yet.

   As a diabetes people you have to closely monitor your blood sugar or blood glucose levels. Any sharp spike or drop can spell complications which may prove fatal if ignored. Ideally blood sugar tests at regular intervals can help you keep some control on the disease.

   Many people find going to a laboratory for a regular check up and blood test difficult. There is an easy solution to this problem. Just get a blood sugar test kit and use it at home. These blood glucose monitors are small, compact and easy to handle. Plus it allows you a great deal of convenience on how and when you conduct your blood tests.

   Read the full literature that accompanies the device so that you know exactly how to handle it. You can even ask the drugest to show you to use it the first time. Now you need to know how to read the blood sugar report given by the device to make sure that your vlues are as close to normal as possible.

   The normal preprandial reading or that taken before eating, in non diabetics is either 5-6 mmol/l or 90-110 mg/dl. With postprandial or after eating, the values for a normal non diabetic reading would be 8 mmol/l and upto 150 mg/dl.

   For those with diabetes, the values will naturally be higher, as there will be more blood glucose present in their bloodstream. A reading of 15 mmol/l or 270 mg/dl is considered high even for the diabetic persons.

   There are some people whose fear of needles can make it very difficult to handle having diabetes. Unfortunately these people avoid getting tested for high blood sugar because they are afraid of the needle prick the blood test would involve.

   This means that they test later than at a stage when the diabetes can be controlled with simple diet and exercise. As they begin insulin medication, it may rise to a level when they need to take insulin injections. Here again the fear may make them infrequent eith the medication.

   The irregular medication will again affect the level of blood sugar and cause complications to arise. These fears and phobias are a natural part of human nature, but it is possible to overcome them. It is possible to learn how to deal with the fear.

   In case you are a diabetic person you will need to address this issue of the fear of needles and get help from a professional to do so. The coping techniques that the professional will teach you may help you get rid of your fear for good. Even if you are still afraid  of the needles, at least you will be able to get your tests done regularly and will get proper treatment.

   A green smothies is a juice which has 60% dark greens and 40% fruit of your choice. It is a powerhouse of nutrition and energy. If you are hoping to fight cancer, treat diabetes or just plain lose some weight in a simple and healthy manner you need to give green smoothies a shot.

   The raw food pioneer and chef Victoria Boutenko is the developer and educator of gree smoothies. She is also the author of a book called “Green For Life”. It gives a number of great green smoothies recipes and explains just why they are so nutritional for you.

   Victoria Boutenko also explains in her book “12 Steps to Raw Foods” that using a high powered blender ruptures the cell walls of the greens and the fruits. Thus making the valuable nutrients easily assimilated by the body. The smaller bits of greens and fruit are easy to consume and also provide a lot of fiber.

   The fiber helps the colon cleansing and elimination of waste products from the body. The chlorophyll in the green smoothies resembles human blood. It also helps purify blood, and enhances immunity. It fights anemia and will help to rejuvenate your body! so try out a green smoothie today.

   The Prickly Pear Cactus has been used by anicient civilizations such as the Aztecs for medicinal purposes. They called it nohpalli and the mexican to date refer to the plant as nopal. The Chinese used the fleshy pad of the plant to dress abscesses.

   Indians use the fruit of the plant as food and even make a strup from it to treat whooping cough and asthma. In Italy the flowers of the plant are used as a diuretic. All over the world the prickly pear cactus has been used down the ages.

   Today the Prickly Pear Cactus or opuntia ficus-indics, is used for medical treatment of diabetes, cholesterol and the immune system. Recently a line of proprietary prickly pear extracts have been launched in America to support healthy blood glucose levels.

   These contain the extract of the pads and fruit of the cactus and are believed to reduce blood glucose levels by 50%. This is indeed exciting news for anyone who has diabetes and is struggling to get their blood sugar levels under control. Take conducted on 36 volunteers with type 2 diabetes have proved that the extracts do help lower the blood sugar levels after meals. However before you begin using the extracts consult your doctor.