Blood Sugar Levels: Your #1 Key to Weight, Mood and Vitality

BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS: Your #1 Key to Weight, Mood and Vitality – and the Prevention and Treatment of Diabetes, Cardiovascular and Hormone Related Problems ©

Your survival depends on cells receiving fuel in the form of just the right amount of glucose or blood sugar. It is the job of the hormone insulin to courier this into cells. The Brain is your most glucose hungry organ and the first to feel its lack. All carbohydrates – from vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains or legumes – eventually get broken down into glucose. What differs is the speed at which they do this.

Individual foods have been measured in this regard and placed on a scale called the Glycemic Index or GI. Carbohydrate foods that are slow to break down – such as Legumes (dried peas, beans and lentils; see TIPS), nuts, seeds, most vegetables and fruits, plus hearty, crunchy wholegrain products – are termed low GI. Those that digest rapidly into glucose such as Sugar, most white rice, and finely milled bread, baking and cereals (of one highly refined, uniform texture) are high GI.

Eating too many high GI carbs at a meal stimulates a surge of excessive glucose. The pancreas then produces and releases more insulin as extra courier vans. Over time though, high levels of insulin are life threatening and the cells start to refuse it entrance. But by becoming resistant to insulin they are also unable to access its critical glucose fuel. Read more

GLUTEN, WHEAT and BREAD: Nourishing or Nasty?

Unpleasant experiences can become fashionable. Being pale and tubercular in 19th century England was thought to signify an artistic and soulful nature. In Imperial China foot-binding presumably made women more delicate and desirable. Similarly, some people take on restricted diets out of narcissism and status hunger. “Look at me. I am different and therefore more worthy”. It can be no more evolved than insisting on a designer bag with a small dog inside.

YOUR GUT: All Physical and Mental Health May Start Or End Here

Your gut tends to be discreet. It may occasionally gain your attention with gurgling or gas, but it usually remains invisible and ignored.

Meanwhile foods are ever temptingly on display. They can trigger programmed visual, salivary and emotional responses. You select, swallow and forget. Though some people have the benefit of chronic discomfort to inspire recall and analysis (see TIPS: Pain).

MEDICATIONS: Do You Know What You Are Swallowing?

Medications: for Pain, Contraception, Digestion, Skin, Bones, Cholesterol and More. Do the Benefits Outweigh the Costs? Are There Alternatives?

If you or a loved one has been injured due to a car crash, fire, or similar health emergency we can thank the brilliant expertise and technology of the medical profession as they save lives and assist recovery.

Medications can be superb in crisis, but with long term use the side effects mount. Some – like suicidal depression with acne drugs – are worse than the original condition.

YOUR BRAIN: Free Medicine for Depression, Anxiety, Addictions, ADHD, Dyslexia and More

Sister Bernadette had a fine mind which she enjoyed putting to work with puzzles, debating social issues, and teaching the young. She kept lively until her death at 85. As part of an ongoing study by American epidemiologists, she was one of 600 nuns who donated their brains to science. Soon before her death she continued to score in the ninetieth percentile on cognitive tests. Yet when she was examined post mortem, massive destruction from Alzheimer’s was evident. Her brain was filled with the disease’s characteristic rigid plaques and messy tangles. From the inner hippocampus (the central train station for learning, stress and mood management pathways) to the outer cortex, there was the most extensive degree of damage. So why did she remain so sharp?

CHROMIUM: Your Fat-Busting, Vitality Mineral

If you want to promote lean muscle mass and prevent excess fat storage, if you want a steady fuel supply for buoyant mental health and an energetic body, then the mineral chromium can help achieve all this and more.

For an easy, tasty source try my Dynamite spread recipe as below.

Happy, Healthy Children – How Food and Exercise Affect Moods and Learning

Your child is an amazing creation whose every cell depends on the food you provide. What may be more difficult to imagine is how foods can affect their moods; perhaps their orientation toward particular substances, rewards or risks – even what you assume to be the essential nature of their personality.

SEX HORMONES: Menstrual, Menopausal, Prostate, Weight or Libido Problems?

If so, check your hormone balance.

Hormones are like food. Too much is as bad as too little. Men and women produce the same sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, but what differs is how much and the ratio of one to another. For everyone, if a hormonal imbalance is in the mix – due to inflammatory foods, drinks or other habits – this is most likely to be high estrogen in relation to progesterone and/or testosterone. Some of the complaints I hear most frequently from patients are about fatigue; weight, sleep, skin, bowel, fluid/urination problems; moods and mental function. Addressing hormonal triggers can prove transformative. Read more

MOODS and FOODS

“The body…is the subconscious mind”. From Molecules of Emotion by neuroscientist Candace Pert PhD.

The nutrients in food help create and sustain your flesh, blood and bone. What may be more of a challenge to imagine is how your food choices can affect and alter your moods, perhaps your cravings for substances, rewards and experiences – even what you assume to be the nature of your personality.