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...