Enriched Cocoa Improves Blood Flow in Diabetics

The Devine Ms. M must be ecstatic. Quit jumping up and down already and click the link…

Chocolate as a required supplement, for type II's at least...

And from the University of Michigan...

• What are the recommended servings [of Dark Chocolate] per week?
  Up to 7 ounces per week, average 1 ounce per day
  

From Yahoo news, hat tip to Instapundit.

And the Winner is...

Only a week to go until my appointment with the Doctor where he’ll reveal my various blood test results; I feel like there should be a drum roll and pretty girl standing in front of a curtain.

What I am doing is starting to get organized to make sure I know all the right questions to ask the Doc. And that is a problem. It seems that neither my readings nor the way I’ve been feeling match up with what any of the books say should be happening. It is, well, disconcerting for someone like me, who dealt with the emotional impact of the diagnoses by researching, testing and recording the results to see my BG results come in and make as little sense as they have.

I can eat a high carb meal and be in the one eighties, a low carb meal the next day and be in the mid two hundreds. Worse, the exact same meal will peak as much as a hundred points off of the prior reading. I exercise (and always have) and, on average, I find that I go up thirty points during the hour when I should be going down. I wake either low, or high, and either stay there or not. I’ve gone a week without a fasting reading under one hundred and twenty, and another without a reading over ninety. A week or so into my testing I ate a large plate of Pasta, just to see what would happen, and I dropped from the one seventies to the one fifties in less than an hour. A week later I switched to the low-carb (Dreamfields, and it is quite tasty) pasta, had a large portion, and did fine, the next day I ate a smaller portion of leftovers and took off like a moon rocket.

As much as they argue about target numbers, all the books and all the experts agree on the correlation between diet and blood sugar, but in my case it just doesn’t show in the numbers.

Last Friday, while getting more blood drawn, I went to the urgent care across the hall simply because I’d gone a week being utterly exhausted, unable to accomplish anything worthwhile at work, with a constant low grade headache, dizziness and numbness in my toes. Turned out I was dehydrated, they gave me some water in an I.V. and sent me home, feeling better, but it didn’t last.

Most disappointing is that my buddies are all heading to the track today for this month’s race, and I can’t get back in my race car until I pass a medical and that won’t happen, if at all, until I know what is happening to me.

When good logos go bad...

After a week where I couldn't get my fasting BG level back below a hundred, had to go to the Urgent Care after becoming dehydrated (and don't even ask where my post meal numbers went up too), I needed a chuckle. Especially since now they've taken away my coffee.

And that is probably the funniest logo I've ever seen.

The 10,000 names of vomit

One goal in life I could skip out on is to live in a world where projectile vomiting is a spectator sport. And just what would they be aiming at anyway… Turning on ESPN to catch the San Diego Hurlers vs. the Pittsburg Blue Chip Specials is not why I pay my cable bill each month. But just in case you were wondering, yes there is a webpage for everything, including VomitNames.com. My favorite; a tossup between “Anti-Poop” and “Pavement Pizza.”

Anyway, Diabetes Mine included a link to this page on gluten intolerance, which in turn pointed out some of symptoms and yes, I do have a rash (and not the kind that’s fun to get either) along with many of the other symptoms listed, including a tendency toward “involuntary personal protein spills.”

So it’s one more thing for the Doc to eliminate when I go back on the thirtieth. Considering how many foods I’ve just given up, to dump wheat completely is just cruel, so I really hope the symptoms are just a coincidence.

One for two, sort of...

I ordered a couple of new food items to try, stuff I couldn’t get at the store, via Amazon. First was the “Dreamfields” low-carb pasta, which is also a new sponsor for Diabetes Daily. While ordering it, Amazon recommended the “Dixie Carb Counters” country biscuit mix. I really miss biscuits, so I went ahead and got it as well.

The Pasta worked extremely well on taste. The only real difference between it and my old pasta was that it doesn’t stick together quite as much. But frankly it was delicious. It also had a lot lower post meal spike than normal pasta. Even with two slices of stone ground wheat, it topped in the one fifties. Once I dropped the fifty carbs the bread was adding it was fine and will become a staple for me.

The biscuit mix, on the other hand, was not so good. It calls itself, “Health food that tastes like junk food.” In reality, it was indescribable. But I’ll try anyway. Imagine going out onto a gravel driveway, during the winter, and scrapping up some gravel mixed with rock salt and dog urine. Liberally mix in some rancid lard. Bake until the smell would make a rat gag, and finally, if you are me, nibble one edge, vomit profusely and toss the remainder in the trash.

But the pasta was excellent…

Dumbbells

Survived GI Jessica’s M, T, Thursday beach drills and did a light workout on my own on Wednesday. Rest tomorrow and then, this Saturday, will be my first, “let’s go for lean muscle not longer endurance” workout with dumbbells. The book I spent a small chunk of my stimulus check on claims there are thousands of things to do with dumbbells. Here and I thought all you had to do was lift them up and put them back down again. Wrong again.

Well, kind of. It turns out that there are thousands of different combinations because the author likes exponents. To work on your arms, for example, you can do a regular curl. That is, lift the weight with your palms facing up. Or you can do a “hammer” curl which has your thumbs facing up, or finally a reverse curl where the back of your hands face up. So we have three ways to lift for the arms. But we can also repeat those same three ways while standing, sitting, leaning over, standing on one leg, tap dancing, peeing while standing (guy) or sitting (gal)… etc. So if we have ten body positions and three ways to lift, it’s ten to the third or, presto, three thousand completely different exercises.

Helpful, yes, and I’d recommend the book if you are looking at trying free weights. It’s the “Ultimate Dumbbell exercises” by Matt Murphy.

Coenzyme Q10

Here is another under researched supplement with occasional delusions of grandeur. My problem with this one is that it doesn’t have an underlying theory, or even anecdotal evidence of lower BG levels. Its main claim to fame is that it may be useful in preventing heart disease, but it hasn’t been tested. I see no reason to consider it to my routine.

Speaking of which, at the moment my daily supplements of choice are:

* Centrum multivitamin, to catch trace elements I might be overlooking.
* Baby aspirin, as a blood thinner to reduce chances of heart attack.
* Alpha-Lipoic Acid, 200 mg daily, to see if it will lower my pre-meal baseline numbers.
* L-Carnitine, 200 mg Daily, since when I stopped for a week I was less able to recover after a work-out. Seems to help me reduce soreness from over-exertion, but may just be in my head.
* Garlic, Liqua-caps, aged and more in my diet in general (powdered and cloves), for possible lipid lowering effect.
* Omega-3 capsules, to try to lower triglycerides.

This surely is enough with the pills. If I suddenly stop blogging you’ll know I choked to death on the damn things. As to whether they do any good at all? The jury is out on that one and will be for quite awhile.

Side effects, of Coenzyme Q10, by the way, include interaction with blood thinners, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite and heartburn.

Crackers to fight diabetes?

Huh?

From Bakery and snacks dot com, via the Wall Street Journal's Best of the web

This is worth a search...

...later...
Not much available on-line except for a whole lot of press releases, but this from Bio News is of interest

During pre-clinical studies all three bioactives recorded a significant
decrease in blood sugar levels in diabetic animal models and also recorded a
significant reduction in the level of glycated hemoglobin HbA1c in comparison to
the controls.

The claim is that it slows down the absorbtion of carbs, making high GI foods into low GI foods. Of serious interest to Type 2's if it really works.

Meanwhile, April 4th they announced phase III clincial trials, to see if humans react the same as in their animal trials, and a month later they are doing the product launch... no pressure....

Blackened Salmon Patties

Here is an easy way to get a bit more fish, and by serving it with my dirty eggs ‘n ham as the side the combination had very… very few carbs. While the fish can be a bit dull in flavor it has an excellent texture, and the dirty eggs ‘n ham makes up the flavor deficit, being a tad spicy. I'll post a how-to on those later...

Carbohydrates: 6-10
Fructose: None
Glycemic Index: NA

Ingredients:
1 (14.75 ounce) can canned salmon
1 egg
1/2 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
Light dusting of powdered garlic to suit

How:
Drain and reserve liquid from salmon. Mix egg, onion, bread crumbs and salmon together. Make into patties. Add reserve as needed to make sticky enough to form patty. In a frying pan, heat olive oil on high. Brown on each side, turning gently since they will try to fall apart until browned. Turn heat down to medium, let them cook thoroughly, blackening the sides to suit. It’ll make four or five patties, if you cook until browned you can save the extras for the next day (or two) in the fridge and reheat by taking from brown to blackened, back in the frying pan.

Results:
While I’ve never been a big fan of fish, these always work out well. The texture is good and if served with something spicy, like my dirty eggs ‘n ham, it works out as a real treat that doesn’t take much work. Plus it’s cheap.

Effects on BG Level:
As you can see from the chart, it’s a very low spike, due mostly to the lack of carbs (the breadcrumbs are about it.) It started to fall back at a reasonable rate as well making it back into the ninties by bedtime. Very high in protein, I’m making it a regular for nights before a heavier workout.

I did start out at a lower baseline than I have been recently. I don't know if its just a random thing, being back in the eighties, or if adding a Alpha-Lipoic Acid pill to my supplements dropped my baseline just a tad.

Got some stimulus in my pocket, Baby!

I thought I made too much money to qualify, but it turns out the ‘economic stimulus’ (i.e. the fed giving me back a small chunk ‘o change) is pro-rated. Make too much and they start lopping dollars off, but I don’t make enough to drop it all the way to zero. So I unexpectedly got $345.45 worth of economic stimulus on Friday and promptly did my patriotic duty by blowing that tiny wad on junk I don’t really need.

I got a new kitchen trash can from the container store, metal this time since I’m tired of the plastic breaking all the time, for $99.

I bought a book on dumbbells, the kind you lift not the kind that breathe, for $20 at Barnes & Noble, more on that later.

I spent another fifty bucks on dishware from Sears, since I’m cooking every night instead of every week.

And the other $175 and change I’m going to use for a down payment on my next tank of gas.

And its not even halloween

Big brother is coming for diabetics, hat tip Junk Food Science.

The five most important pieces of advice

Diabetes daily asked its readers, with blogs like yours truly, to list their five most helpful pieces of advice you won’t find in a book, then linking here to this Wikibetes entry where they will compile the results.

This one is more than a bit of trouble for me, since I really can’t exclude stuff from books without giving up many of my favorites. I became voracious researcher on the subject of Diabetes in the first place as my own form of coping mechanism when I got the call from Dr. Yang, so I did get a lot of this from books, research papers, and sundry. Rather than skip out on this challenge I decided to do what I do when I hate the rules. Cheat. So most of these are in a book somewhere... Go ahead Elizabeth, send the blog police after me, I dare you.

My favorites, for a new Type 2, in no particular order...

1. Test…Test...Test. Log the results and bring them to your next appointment. Don’t whine about your doctor not helping while denying him or her data that they need to do the job.

2. Do something about the test results. It does little good to test and then keep the same behaviors. If your BG level is outside your goal, then change your diet or exercise routine until it’s not.

3. Eat smaller meals more often, to lower the post-meal spikes.

4. Set a high bar. Your blood sugar levels may never reach the same levels as a non-diabetic but that’s no reason not to try.

5. Plan ahead. Know what you are going to eat and how it affects you as much as you can before you eat it. Minimize rules of thumb and guesswork.

My five favorite Diabetes related blogs…

I like the way the Divine Ms M writes, so check out Being M.
Diabetes Mine is done by a professional writer, and it shows.
Not technically a blog, but the NIH site on diabetes is very informative.
Also not a blog, and not about diabetes, but Karen’s Kitchen is useful when you need, as I did, to start cooking a bunch of new foods.
Finally, the most informative blog of all, Junk Food Science.

Better...

I'm feeling better about the numbers than I was when I got that oddball number Monday night.

I still went ahead and started on Alpha-Liptoic Acid in the hope that I could drive the ninties down into the eighties at least some of the time.

So I have to test more often... Big deal, go ahead life, and scare me with your little needle... Heh.

Course it'd be nice if I didn't have to prick myself five times before I started to bleed. It might also help if, once I started I didn't bleed all over everything in sight.

One text suggested back of the fingers, between the first knuckle and the fingernail. Great, not many nerves and so it didn't even sting, of course I didn't get any blood either... details...

An interesting way to cook an omelet

Omelet in a bag from allreciepes.com. I certianly wouldn't have thought of doing it this way...

INGREDIENTS
2 eggs
2 slices ham, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon chopped onion (optional)
1 tablespoon chopped green bell pepper (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tomato (optional)
1 tablespoon chunky salsa (optional)
2 fresh mushrooms, sliced (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Crack the eggs into a large resealable freezer bag. Press out most of the air, and seal. Shake or squeeze to beat the eggs. Open the bag, and add the ham, cheese, onion, green pepper, tomato, salsa, and mushrooms. Squeeze out as much of the air as you can, and seal the bag.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place up to 8 bags at a time into the boiling water. Cook for exactly 13 minutes. Open the bag, and let the omelet roll out onto a plate. The omelet should roll out easily.

Harder or softer?

Shaun, who posts to Diabetes Daily as Stump86, got me thinking with this excellent post, about hard vs. soft workouts and their more immediate effect on my Blood Glucose level.

My thinking was that, for the most part at least, using up the free glucose that is already floating around in my veins, through exercise, would lower my BG level. So I made sure I was aware of the symptoms of hypoglycemia (too low) and cranked up my longstanding (about five years) workout a bit. But it turns out to be more complicated than that.

Yes, the muscles want to soak up that sugar floating around in my blood. They are sending out their cries of pain telling my body, more please, more. The problem is that to use that glucose, my muscles need insulin, and if I’m not making enough insulin to keep up, then those cries are going to be unanswered. The result will be my liver dumping more and more glucose into my blood steam in a futile attempt to feed muscles that can’t use the high level of blood sugar already present due to a lack of insulin.

Therefore it is possible for my blood glucose reading to go up as I exercise.

The reason this is so important to me at the moment is that I’m trying to change my body composition for the first time in my life, rather than just increase endurance for a particular (automobile racing) activity. If I am insulin resistant, then it is important for me to lose what fat I have, especially the hard-to-lose-most-insulin-resistant belly fat, but since I don’t have that much to lose, I need to work on the other side of the ratio more than many other diabetics by trying to gain more muscle mass. The ratio of lean muscle to fat can heavily influence how effective my insulin is, and the more effective the more control I’ll have over my blood glucose level.

The problem is these two goals require two different types of exercise (aerobic vs. anaerobic) and have, as Stump86 points out, two different potential immediate effects on BG level and possibly two different intermediate effects on my pre-meal baseline as well. And just to make it even more complex, interval training, which is often built into Jessica’s beach workout, is a combination of the two types anyway.

Corona Del Mar, Site of Jessica's beach workout
For now then, my rules are that I shouldn’t do two anaerobic (muscle building) days in a row, while keeping Jessica’s beach work-out, three days a week.

So it’s Corona Del Mar on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The Y for a mixed (40 minute aerobic, twenty minute weight training) on Wednesdays, and one full hour a week of weight training on Saturdays.

Ouch.