Diabetes: Can We Find a Cure?

Diabetes is a big deal, sure it's always been a big deal but today (at least in the USA), it seems to have become quite the problem a lot of us will have to deal with.

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In response to @Ecotrain's Medicinal Gourmet Cooking Collective and @Eco-Alex's Diets For Ailments & Disease, let's talk Diabetes.

I'm not going to give you a whole bunch of facts or statistics on the rate at which diabetes is spreading accross this nation. I don't even truely know if it should be classified as a disease or a disorder. I do know however that there are two types of diabetes being talked about.

Basically, type 1 is when the pancreas
is no longer able to produce insulin, which is necessary to regulate blood sugar levels.

It is usually inherited, it may skip a generation or two but it's origin remains unknown.

The body needs sugar, the mind needs sugar but too much sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes

With an overweight problem, a really bad diet and a society's lack of preventive healthcare (it really seems like most doctors aren't tought to prevent sickness, they're tought to heal or mostly just mask it), people are doomed to eat their fair share of carbohydrates and refined sugars!

What I hear from all different nutritionalists in this sphere of liberty and freedom is that through a paleo diet you can actually revers type 2 diabetes.

I want to remind everyone, I have no proof of this, but from the benefits I've seen happen to friends who do follow a cleaner more natural, wild and ancestral diet, you may want to look into it. Eating what we were designed to eat really does wonders on the human body.

When I was a teenager, my father was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He's had to deal with a change of lifestyle for the last 35 years and it wasn't always an easy ride. Even though nutritional health is part the culture in France, he did have to change his diet. As he had to learn to take the role of his pancreas into his own hands, he had to stop eating some of the best French delicacies!

I grew up watching him prick his fingers, five times a day, to draw a drop of blood onto a test strip to calculate his sugar levels. The result of these strips dictaded what and when he could eat, sleep and play. He also had two types of insulin he would have to mix. For a long time, he had to make an educated guess on how much slow insulin to mix with a fast acting insulin. The technology for these calculations were primitive, so only experience of personalized diet, timing, trial and error stabalized his condition.

Today he is a pro and it is extremely rare for him to fall prey of hypoglycemia! No more test strips that only had 5 different shades of pink to match a drop of blood with... you could never get a very accurate reading. And then came the special pens with microscopic needles, able to painlessly deliver a very specific amount of slow and fast insulin, life for him has been much easier!

Diet, Dedication and Perseverance...

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First he had to stop smoking. Everyone should stop that death trap regardless of diabetes!

Than a good coniac had to be something for very special occasions only, alcohol is a big corporate for delivering a lot of sugar into the blood stream....

So many litle pleasures of life in France had to come to a sudden stop. Long dinners (I mean really long... the French like to sit at the table for multiple hours when in good company, eating, drinking and smoking) were interupted to check sugar levels and shooting up with insulin. But he would make the best of it and learned to eat only what he knew he could.

Life had to be a little more scheduled, a routine had to be put in place.

Waking up in the morning hungry.

Depending on how accurate his guess was on his insulin mixture before bed and how active the body was durring the night, he may have to wait for his sugar levels to drop to eat.

• Coffee is without sugar unless he needs a little sweetness, in which case he ads a little bit of that fake sugar. I'm personally not a big fan of that stuff!

• Plain yogurt is almost always on the table, with one slice of bread and margerine (if he's allowed a litle carbohydrates).

Breafast more or less dictates the time for lunch and consequently, dinner. After he checks his glucose levels, he can eat (maybe).

• Carrots, green beens, courgettes, spinach and cauliflower are his main veggies everyday. Not all at once but he does mix and match two or three of them. A lean ratatouille is also a favorite.

• A small piece of meat, chicken or fish with a small portion of rice, potatoes or pasta (depending on the sugar levels in his blood) and always a green salad with lots of garlic.

• Finishing it off with a couple excellent stinky cheeses!!!

The two French habbits he's not been able to kick are the bread, though he is carefull, there is always a baguette at the table (how else can one eat cheese!) and at least one glass of red wine but no more than three!

Dinner runs basically the same way. After eating, he must wait until his blood levels have settled, so he can shoot himself one more time with insulin. Only then, can he go to bed...

Going about town, he has with him something reminiscent of a small bug out bag, he caries with him all his needles and prickers and digital testers. It's a diabetic's med kit charged with a few cubes of sugar, raisins and some cookies... just in case he needs a quick fix.

At his age, he doesn't care anymore and will pull up his shirt in the middle of a restaurant to shoot himself in the belly. And you know what? People, today don't seem to question what's going on like they used to 30 years ago. If that doesn't say something about diabetes becoming somewhat of an epidemic, I don't know what does!

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I really hope someone out there can find my father's journey inspiring, being forced to change your lifestyle can be very intimidating, please remember we are Humans, we can adapt to anything and endure so much!

AS ALWAYS... THANK YOU FOR LOOKING, YOUR SUPPORT IS GREATLY APPRECIATED

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