THE CINNAMON DRUG The USDA's Dr. Anderson discovered that various spices help stimulate insulin activity, which means the body can process sugar more efficiently and therefore needs less insulin. Dr. Anderson did some test-tube experiments in which he measured insulin activity in the presence of certain foods. Although most showed no effect, three spices and one herb triples insulin activity: cinnamon, cloves, turmeric and bay leaves. Cinnamon was the most potent. Only a little cinnamon, such as the the small amounts sprinkled on toast, can stimulate insulin activity, he says. A dash of cinnamon on any number of appropiate foods may help keep blood sugar in check.

Date:   3/21/2005 4:05:22 PM ( 19 y ago)

THE CINNAMON DRUG
Add spices to boost insulin activity. It may be more than our taste buds that inspire us to frequently use cinnamon and cloves to spice up sweet foods, such as pumpkin pie. Such spices actually have drug-like properties that help us handle the sugar in such sweets.

The USDA's Dr. Anderson discovered that various spices help stimulate insulin activity, which means the body can process sugar more efficiently and therefore needs less insulin. Dr. Anderson did some test-tube experiments in which he measured insulin activity in the presence of certain foods. Although most showed no effect, three spices and one herb triples insulin activity: cinnamon, cloves, turmeric and bay leaves. Cinnamon was the most potent.

Only a little cinnamon, such as the the small amounts sprinkled on toast, can stimulate insulin activity, he says. A dash of cinnamon on any number of appropiate foods may help keep blood sugar in check.

Other Foods For Type II Diabetes:

THE ALLIUM MEDICINE
Eat onions. They have an ancient and respected place in medicine as a treatment for diabetes. And modern studies show that onions do have powers to lower blood sugar, and at levels found in the diet. For example, Indian researchers fed subjects onion juice and whole onions (in doses of 25 to 200 grams) and found that the greater the dose, the more the blood sugar was depressed. And it made no difference whether the onion was raw or boiled. The investigators postulate that the onions affect the liver's metabolism of glucose, or release insulin, and / or prevent insulin's destruction.

The probable active hypoglycemic agents are allyl propyl disulfide and allicin. Indeed, as early as 1923, scientists detected blood sugar depressors in onions, and in the 1960s, investigators isolated anti-diabetic compounds from onions that are simular to the common antidiabetic pharmaceutical known as tolbutamide (orinase) that stimulates insulin synthesis and release. In rabbits, the onion extract was 77 percent as effective as a standard dose of tolbutamide.

BROCCOLI -- THE BLOOD SUGAR WONDER
Eat broccoli; it is a super source of chromium, a trace mineral that seems to work wonders on blood sugar. If you have Type II diabetes, chromium can help regulate blood sugar, often reducing medion and insulin needs. If you are on the verge of diabetes, chromium may save you from the plunge into full-fledged disease (diabetes).

Indeed, if your glucose tolerence is borderline, as it is in about one-forth of ordinary Americans, chromium can fix it. Even if your blood sugar is low instead of high, chromium can yank it back up to normal. Whatever the blood sugar problem, chromium tends to normalize it, says Richard A. Anderson, Ph.D., at the US Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland. Dr. Anderson blames soaring rates of Type II diabetes partly on deficiency of chromium in the diet and cites some fourteen studies done during the 1980s, showing that chromium improved glucose tolerance.

Chromium seems to increase insulin's efficiency so you need less to do the job. How is a mystery, but Dr. Anderson notes that in test-tube experiments, biologically active chromium attaches tightly to insulin, enhancing by up to one hundred times the hormone's main mission of oxidizing glucose into carbon dioxide.

Yet, about 90 percent of Americans get less chromium than the recommended 50 to 200 micrograms a day. Some high chromium foods are nuts, oysters, mushrooms, whole grains, wheat cerials, beer, wine, rhubarb, brewer's yeast -- and broccoli! One analysis found that one cup of broccoli contained 22 micrograms of chromium, ten times more than any other food. Barley is also rich in chromium, perhaps helping explain the grain's longtime use in Iraq as a diabetes remedy. In animal experiments, barley helps suppress insulin surges.

THE POWER OF CURRY SPICE
Don't overlook the power of fenugreek seeds, long used in the Middle East and India to treat several diseases, including diabets. Now there's evidence the seeds may indeed help control diabetes.

Scientists at India's National Institute of Nutrition recently ground up fenugreek seeds and gave the power to Type I diabetics. Their fasting blood sugar fell, their glucose tolerance improved, and their blood cholesterol went down. This caused the researchers to conclude that ground up fenugreek seeds could be a useful antidiabetic agent.

Israeli scientists at Hebrew University of Jerulsalem also have shown that fenugreek seeds can lower blood sugar and cholesterol in both diabetics and healthy people. Additionally, they have identified an active ingredient of fenugreek seeds. It is a gel-like soluble fiber called galactomannan. In animal studies, the fenugreek gel binds up bile acids, lowering cholesterol, much the way common drugs do.

BRING ON THE BEANS
Eat high carbohydrate, high fiber foods, like legumes, to keep diabetes away and under control. That's mainstay advice for anyone concerned about diabetes, according to experts such as James Anderson, M.D., at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He insists that the same foods that lower cholesterol and fight heart diseases are excellent fare for diabetics, who are at high risk heart disease. that especially means foods high in soluble fiber.
(For a list of such foods, see page 56*.) Dr. Anderson says more than 50 studies show that such high fiber foods significantly hold down blood sugar along with triglycerides and cholesterol.

High fiber diets work so well that many patients on such diets have decreased or eliminated their need for supplemental insulin and other antidiabetic medions.



 

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