Participants: Don Miller, Agatha Thrash
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000149
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00:01 Diabetes is probably the physician's favorite, easiest
00:05 disease to treat when it is type 2 diabetes. 00:10 Very difficult to treat in type 1 in some patients. 00:14 But type 2 diabetes responds with some very simple things 00:18 often with a very profound response... 00:21 And at Uchee Pines Institute, where I am home-based, 00:25 the treatment of diabetics is one of my very favorite 00:29 patients, so I hope you will stay by during this next 00:33 half an hour while we talk about some of the ways that 00:37 we treat diabetics 00:39 at Uchee Pines Institute. 01:02 Welcome to "Help Yourself to Health" 01:03 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute. 01:06 And now, here's your host, Dr. Thrash. 01:11 There are many ways to treat the diabetic... 01:14 Most of them having to do with life style. 01:16 Even the very fine advice that we give to people 01:20 who have diabetes to be very careful about their 01:24 spiritual life. 01:25 Spiritual life is important for the diabetic because 01:28 of the lifestyle changes that are necessary. 01:31 And with lifestyle changes, we need to be able to lean 01:34 on the guidance of the Lord 01:36 to have the power that the Holy Spirit and the sacrifice 01:40 of our Divine Savior. 01:43 We need to have all of this power and this guidance 01:47 so that the lifestyle changes that we make can be effective 01:50 for us in our lives. 01:52 Now since food is one of the important things 01:55 having to do with the changes that a diabetic needs to make, 02:00 I have asked one of the very good cooks at Uchee Pines, 02:03 Valerie Schreiber, to help me 02:05 and I'm sure that you will see that she is a very good cook. 02:09 Valerie, what do you have here for us today. 02:12 Well, I have some fun things that we were working on 02:16 up there in the kitchen. 02:17 Are you sure these things can be used by a diabetic? 02:19 They look like they are very forbidden foods... I know. 02:22 That's what's so nice about it, is they look forbidden but 02:24 they actually are very healthy for you and rich in fiber... 02:29 especially this one right here I want to show you. 02:31 This is just an apple pie... fresh apple pie. 02:36 This has not been cooked at all. 02:38 And it's very, very easy to make. 02:40 You just put her apples, you wash them real good, 02:45 you don't have to peel the skin off, 02:46 you core them and you just put it through a food processor 02:49 and that will chop them up real good. 02:51 And then you just put 2 cups of apple juice concentrate, 02:55 About 3-1/2 tablespoons of tapioca 02:58 Whiz that all up together 03:00 Put your apples in it 03:02 Make a pie crust and this is a real simple pie crust. 03:05 Just grind up oats and coconut... 03:07 And if you want, you can put a little ground nuts in it 03:09 Just press it right into your pie shell 03:12 Pour this in and, of course, I decorated it a little bit here 03:15 but you don't have to do that 03:17 But it's kind of fun to do, where you can just take an apple 03:19 and you can cut it and just lay pieces around just like this 03:24 and then cut another apple. 03:25 It makes it kind of very appetizing and appealing for 03:27 your family for the first time if they have an 03:29 unbaked apple pie. 03:30 But I'm here to tell you, this is SO delicious... 03:33 And you can eat it for breakfast! 03:35 That's what's so nice about it... 03:37 This isn't one of these illegal pies that, you know, 03:39 you have to be careful. 03:40 You can eat this as a food for breakfast... it's full of fiber! 03:43 A main dish? A main dish! 03:46 I tell you, when I first learned that, I said... 03:48 "This is the way to go... I can have PIE for breakfast. " 03:51 I thought that was the greatest thing I ever heard about! 03:53 It convinced me to change my lifestyle completely just 03:58 from that point. 03:59 Okay, now this one here... 04:01 Ooh... this one is beautiful! 04:03 It's kiwi and we have some walnuts 04:08 and we did a Jell-O mold. 04:10 Now this is a very simple Jell-O mold... 04:13 And, all you have to do is get a can of this Juicy Juice, 04:17 you see here and you just put a cup of boiling water 04:23 and you put some of this Emes gelatin... 04:26 about 3 tablespoonsful in it, 04:28 a can of this... 04:30 another 1-1/2 cups of water 04:34 just blend it up, put it in a mold 04:36 and that's it! 04:37 And you can, if you want, you can chop up some fruit 04:40 and put some fruit in there. 04:41 But it makes an absolutely delicious dessert 04:46 and real easy to make... 04:48 And then you can do, like you've seen me here, 04:50 you can add some fruits to it if you want. 04:52 And if, you're eating at a main meal, 04:54 then you wouldn't have your fruits, 04:56 but you could have the plain Jell-O without fruits 04:58 and it would be an okay dessert to have. 05:01 That sounds good! 05:03 And I believe that I can do that myself. 05:05 Can I find these recipes in an ordinary cookbook? 05:09 Well, maybe not in an ordinary cookbook, Dr. Agatha... 05:12 But in your local health food store, 05:13 you'll find wonderful cookbooks that are out there today, 05:16 that have all of these excellent recipes that you've seen me 05:19 cooking here on the show, or the fresh recipes. 05:23 But one other thing I wanted to tell you about is... 05:25 There is a new product out, 05:26 we don't know a whole lot about it but it's from 05:28 the herb family and that is "Stevia. " 05:30 Now, Stevia is 300 times stronger than sugar... 05:34 sweeter than sugar, I should say. 05:36 And, so you have to be very careful, use very small amounts 05:40 and this is perfectly good for a diabetic to use. 05:43 And there is a cookbook out that is on Stevia. 05:46 In fact, there's a couple of them. 05:47 I don't agree with everything that's in all the recipes but 05:50 you can learn to improvise... 05:51 If they were to say, use milk, you'd use soymilk... 05:54 that type of a thing. 05:55 But they will show you how to use Stevia, 05:58 not just in desserts but in various other dishes 06:01 that you will cook and can sweeten them quite well. 06:05 And does not affect you as a diabetic. 06:07 Hmm.. sounds very good and it's hopeful that diabetics 06:11 can broaden the whole scope of what they can eat. 06:15 And that is a help, because often a diabetic 06:19 feels that there are so few things that they can eat 06:22 and especially, they can't have anything sweet 06:24 and they shouldn't eat anything fat... 06:26 But if they learn just a few things, 06:28 then that helps them to know that they can have a good 06:31 dietary without having to circumscribe everything that 06:36 they eat. 06:37 Now the course of a diabetic through his lifetime 06:41 often goes something like this... 06:43 The baby, who is going to become a type 2 diabetic, 06:47 is born of a mother who has type 2 diabetes in her family 06:52 or the father has type 2 diabetes in his family, 06:55 and often it's both. 06:57 And then what happens is that the baby goes a little bit 07:01 post maturely before being born... 07:04 So that the baby is born weighing more than 8 pounds, 07:07 or even more than 9 pounds... 07:09 sometimes even more than 10 pounds. 07:11 Such a baby has to be very careful all of the life 07:16 making certain that weight gain is not a feature 07:19 of their life style... 07:21 Because weight gain is probably the most important 07:24 single factor having to do with bringing on diabetes type 2 07:28 Now diabetes type 1, is an altogether different disease. 07:33 It has to do with a reduction in the amount of insulin 07:38 produced by the pancreas; 07:40 whereas type 2 diabetes has plenty of insulin on board. 07:44 In fact, it has a very high insulin level. 07:48 Maybe 2, 3, 4 times the normal level of insulin. 07:53 Then... what is the problem? 07:55 Well, the problem is... that through the lifetime 07:58 of the person, they gain more and more weight, 08:02 ...they overeat more and more times 08:05 ...they eat more and more sugar 08:07 ...more and more fat 08:09 Until finally the poor pancreas says, although it is producing 08:13 more and more insulin all the time and the insulin 08:16 levels in the blood are constantly going up... 08:18 Even though all of this is happening, 08:20 the pancreas finally says... 08:22 "I have made my best effort, I can't face tomorrow. " 08:28 So, the pancreas produces a little less insulin. 08:33 Then, the blood sugar goes up. 08:35 Before that, the blood sugar had stayed steady 08:38 in the normal range, 08:40 although the insulin level was high, in the high range, 08:44 above the high normal. 08:46 And then when the insulin level cannot continue to go up, 08:50 as the weight continues to go up, 08:53 then the blood sugar goes up. 08:56 And at that point, we begin to see the signs of diabetes. 09:01 As the blood sugar rises when the insulin level fails, 09:05 at that point, we can make the diagnosis of diabetes. 09:10 Now this is the natural course of diabetes 09:13 and Don Miller is going to discuss a feature of 09:16 diabetes with you now... 09:18 that feature of diabetes being the way that we can treat 09:24 diabetes with lifestyle. 09:26 Don Miller. 09:27 Lifestyle is what God has given us to treat our bodies 09:30 right in the first place. 09:32 And the old saying and it's a new saying too is that 09:35 "I'd rather prevent a disease, than to try to treat a disease" 09:41 And basically type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle-related illness. 09:45 It's not something that we're going to get because 09:48 of some unknown thing... 09:50 it's the way we live our lives. 09:52 There are a few things that predispose to type 2 diabetes 09:57 and some of those major things are being overweight, 10:00 and living the wrong type of a lifestyle. 10:03 And so, the same thing that's going to keep us 10:06 from getting diabetes, 10:08 many times will help us to treat the diabetes. 10:12 Now you're not going to basically get over the 10:14 diabetes once you have it 10:15 But you can find ways to maintain yourself 10:19 in a proper way. 10:21 I've known juvenile diabetics, type 1's, who seemed to be 10:27 in perfect health... well into their 30s. 10:30 No neuropathy, no eye problems, 10:33 everything is going fine because they had learned how 10:36 to control themselves. 10:37 They knew ALL about lifestyle 10:40 and they kept themselves under control. 10:42 Well, the type 2 diabetic has the same options. 10:46 He or she can practice good lifestyle, 10:49 or she can let it go and he can let it go 10:52 and really have some major problems because 10:54 there are a lot of problems associated with diabetes. 10:57 So let's just mention some of the simple things we can do 11:00 as far as our lifestyle to allow ourselves 11:04 to handle our type 2 diabetes a little bit better. 11:08 One, is regularity. 11:09 We need to be regular in all that we do 11:11 and I'll tell you why... 11:12 When you have something like diabetes, 11:15 your body is working hard to try to maintain you. 11:19 And when you are not on a regular basis, 11:21 your body really works a lot harder. 11:23 We work on the thing called "a circadian rhythm" 11:27 and, at mealtime, your body gets ready for meals. 11:31 Right now, my salivary glands are not full of saliva because 11:35 I've already eaten and it's going to be a while 11:37 before I eat again. 11:39 And so, everything has been concentrated... 11:42 it's sitting there in a very concentrated form. 11:44 But it knows when it's time for me to eat 11:47 because I eat on a pretty regular basis 11:49 and about an hour away from mealtime, 11:53 I start getting a reconstitution of the salivary juices 11:58 and by the time it's time to eat, 12:01 I have a full complement of salivary amylase 12:05 and all these digestive juices, 12:07 not only in my salivary glands but in my stomach 12:10 ...everything is ready to receive that meal. 12:12 If I eat off schedule, 12:14 I go through all that energy of producing these things 12:18 ...it looks around, sees no food, 12:20 puts it all away... 12:21 Then all of a sudden I start eating again, 12:23 and now I don't have good saliva 12:25 I'm going to have incomplete digestion 12:27 and I'm going to have some real problems down the line. 12:30 Also, we have to have a rest period between our meals. 12:35 It's best to have... the very BEST program is a 12:38 2- meal-a-day plan. 12:39 Some people eat one meal a day... 12:41 they start before breakfast and they end 12:43 just before they go to bed. 12:44 But we need a 2-meal-a-day plan. 12:47 And it's the time just in between those 2 meals 12:50 we call the "interdigestive phase" 12:53 And what happens during that time 12:55 is our body is able to clean itself. 12:58 Everything has gone through... and then we sort of have a 13:00 reverse motion in our intestinal tract 13:03 and it sort of cleans the walls of our intestinal tract 13:06 It allows the juices to rest there... 13:09 everything is resting for a period time because, 13:11 quite frankly, an overworked pancreas, 13:13 which is what's being overworked in type 2 diabetes, 13:16 needs a longer rest... 13:18 And we find that a type 2 diabetic does much better 13:22 on a 2-meal plan. 13:24 EXERCISE... an excellent way to regulate your blood sugar. 13:28 We find that exercise uses your blood sugar nicely... 13:33 If you have too much blood sugar in, 13:35 it's going to use it up... it's going to store it away 13:37 But especially exercise out in the sunshine... 13:40 Now sunshine has an insulin-like effect on the body. 13:45 And as the sun strikes the body, 13:47 it has an enzymatic effect on the body... 13:50 and what happens is your glucose 13:52 is stored as... it's turned into glucagon 13:56 which is the stored form of sugar 13:59 and it goes into the liver... goes into the muscles 14:01 for when we need it down the line. 14:04 We need to make sure we're not drinking a lot with our meals. 14:06 Meals are not the time to drink. 14:08 Meals are the time to eat. 14:10 We should be eating at our meals and 14:12 drinking BETWEEN our meals. 14:13 The reason why people drink with their meals is 14:16 because they are dehydrated. 14:17 And what we are drinking between the meals should be just water 14:21 or an herbal tea which has no nutrients put into it... 14:26 just a straight herbal tea. 14:27 Basically, we should be drinking water and eating 14:31 fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds. 14:34 And as we do these simple things, 14:36 we're going to find that our type 2 diabetes 14:40 is much easier to be controlled 14:42 and we'll live a much more abundant and healthful life 14:46 with these simple things, Dr. Thrash. 14:47 Yes... simple things, that's the key to diabetes. 14:51 Just the very simple things of nature and type 2 diabetes will 14:55 be helped greatly by these simple things. 14:58 Now it's of interest that our understanding of diabetes 15:02 has greatly changed in the last few years. 15:06 I remember, it hasn't been too many years ago, 15:09 that we said the upper limit of a good blood sugar 15:13 level was 120... 15:15 then it dropped down to 115.. 15:17 and then down to 110... 15:19 and it's on the way down. 15:21 We believe that it will continue to go down until it is below 100 15:25 as the fasting level. 15:27 We consider 85 to be the upper limit of ideal 15:33 for the fasting blood sugar level. 15:36 Now the type 2 diabetic produces plenty of insulin 15:41 and I will show you on the white board a little diagram 15:45 that will help you to understand how insulin and the receptor 15:51 for insulin meet together on the cell. 15:56 So, let's go to the board and I will show you these things 16:01 as a very interesting feature of chemistry. 16:05 You don't have to be a Harvard graduate in chemistry 16:10 to be able to understand these things. 16:13 Let us say that this is a cell... 16:17 Every cell in the body that's going to take in sugar 16:21 will have an insulin receptor on it... such as this. 16:26 And insulin... let us diagram that to look like this, 16:33 that's insulin... 16:37 and this is a receptor, 16:41 or, we could say this is a port or a mouth 16:46 to receive insulin. 16:48 But insulin does not do us any good to give us energy or heat. 16:54 It only acts as a vehicle to help us to get the sugar 17:01 into the cell that will give us the energy and the heat 17:05 and the strength that we need from it. 17:07 So, let us draw a diagram of sugar here. 17:12 So let us say that this is sugar... 17:14 and it is THIS, that we need to get into the cell. 17:18 So we must combine sugar with insulin 17:22 and this is very schematic and very simplistic but 17:26 as we understand this, I think you will see how it works. 17:30 Sugar must be worked on by insulin... 17:33 which can then be taken into an insulin receptor 17:36 into the cell. 17:37 These unite together in this way 17:39 Now these float around in the blood stream 17:42 and this is stationary, 17:44 but as these are floating around in the bloodstream 17:46 and they come to one of the receptors, 17:49 then, the sugar can be taken into the cell in this way. 17:54 So, a very simple schema that I can show you on the board 17:59 but I can assure you that it is very complicated in the body. 18:04 Now what is it that makes a person need more receptors 18:11 or need more insulin than they are ordinarily producing? 18:15 Well there are a number of things that will do this... 18:18 and basically they are dangers and difficulties 18:23 in our life style. 18:25 Dangers that are going to make us have some kind of disease. 18:28 Now the disease that we get is NOT just diabetes. 18:34 But the disease that we are going to get is going to be 18:38 also what we call "syndrome X" 18:41 Syndrome X is hypertension, as well as diabetes, 18:45 and heart disease with a high blood cholesterol 18:49 with a low HDL and a high triglyceride level... 18:54 which spells a high risk for heart disease. 18:59 And then cancer and overweight... 19:02 these are all things that are a part of the syndrome X. 19:07 Cancer is not so clearly defined as the others 19:10 being associated here in this quadrangle 19:15 but probably cancer is also there 19:18 and we can say this is a quintuplet instead of a 19:21 quadruplet. 19:24 Now syndrome X, the initial lesion is the insulin problem 19:31 the high insulin levels and the low sensitivity to insulin. 19:37 Now there are ways that we can increase the insulin sensitivity 19:41 And Don Miller is going to tell you some of those ways 19:44 that you can increase your sensitivity to insulin. 19:48 Don Miller 19:50 We have, on our cells, receptor sites... 19:53 and the more of a hormone, or the more of a thing like insulin 19:59 or glucose in the body, 20:01 the more receptor sites we might have. 20:03 But if it goes too high, the body has an automatic way 20:07 of reducing some of those receptor sites 20:09 so you're not receiving too many. 20:10 On the same token... 20:13 Let's say you're not getting enough insulin 20:18 into your bloodstream to take the glucose into your cells 20:21 and so you need to get some more receptors on your cells 20:26 that need to get the glucose... 20:27 What you do, is you go through a fasting period of time 20:30 which means your glucose is going to go down 20:33 and your insulin, because your glucose IS down, 20:37 it goes down and the cell says, "look we need some more glucose 20:41 in here and so it starts producing more receptor sites 20:46 on the cell surface saying, "we need to get some more 20:49 flags out here... some more mailboxes. " 20:50 Like, I've only got one mailbox and I only get so much mail 20:53 but maybe if I had 10 mailboxes, 20:55 I'd get 10 times as much junk mail. 20:57 Well, we're not talking about junk mail here... 20:59 we're talking about some very special things 21:01 that your cell has to have and that is the glucose. 21:04 And so, as the person fasts, 21:07 glucose goes down... 21:09 the cells say, "we really need some more glucose" 21:13 And so the receptor cells grow up... 21:16 and then when we get back to eating again, 21:18 the insulin goes by, sees those receptor sites, 21:22 takes the glucose and says, "we found it" 21:25 Docks with those receptor sites, takes the glucose 21:29 inside of the cell and we've got the energy that we need. 21:32 And to me, that is the very best way that I know of 21:35 to increase the sensitivity to insulin in the body is by 21:41 sort of starving it for a little while of the glucose 21:44 is telling the body, "we really need to get a few more 21:47 mailboxes out there. Dr. Thrash. 21:49 Yes... and fasting is our standard way of treating the 21:53 type 2 diabetic to get the insulin sensitivity up. 21:58 Now, we can start this process much earlier 22:03 than the person who already has a crippling disease 22:08 like diabetes. 22:10 We can start with exercise with regularity in one's program 22:16 with avoiding various traumatic events in one's life... 22:21 All of these kinds of things can help the person to have 22:25 a greater sensitivity to insulin 22:29 Now some of the problems that we get with diabetes 22:35 some of the complications... 22:36 can begin with diabetic neuropathy. 22:40 Or, we can start with diabetic retinopathy. 22:44 Or, we can start with diabetic nephropathy. 22:47 These are all complications that a person can get with diabetes. 22:53 The blood vessel changes that we get with diabetes 22:56 this is another possibility. 22:58 But let us say that we are considering the eye changes 23:03 that occur. 23:04 The eye changes include such things as little balloons, 23:08 on the capillaries that are so important to the retina. 23:14 These little balloons then can rupture 23:18 and can cause a retinal detachment 23:22 Or, there can be an enlargement of a capillary 23:27 Or there can be a squeezing down of the size of the 23:31 capillary so that it can no longer carry red blood cells. 23:36 We can also have what is called, "neovascularization" 23:40 of the retina. 23:41 That means that little inoperative capillaries 23:47 make a meshwork in the retina. 23:50 They don't carry red blood cells, 23:53 but they do tend to cut down on light 23:55 and make the vision of the diabetic less sharp. 23:59 Then, of course, macular degeneration is more likely 24:02 to occur in the person who has diabetes. 24:06 All of these are problems that the person has who has diabetes. 24:11 And that says nothing about glaucoma and cataracts 24:15 that are also more common in diabetics. 24:18 We must call diabetes... "acceleration of the 24:22 aging process" 24:23 and when the blood sugar starts going up, 24:26 in the level with the annual physical, 24:29 at that point, we can say that the person is in a process 24:34 of accelerated aging. 24:36 Now the neuropathy that a person has... 24:39 can be most distressing and Don Miller is going to talk 24:43 with you about diabetic neuropathy... Don 24:47 Okay... neuropathy gives you the clue that it has to do 24:50 with the nerves. 24:52 And the nerves, because of the diabetes, 24:56 are becoming degenerated... 24:58 And some of the things that will cause that is the lack of 25:03 myoinositol in the body. 25:05 Now, there are things that make us lack myoinositol... 25:08 basically things like coffee and the other brown drinks... 25:11 tea, colas and chocolate... all will make the myoinositol 25:15 go down in the body. 25:16 And basically, the standard American diet is very low 25:20 in myoinositol. 25:22 Now myoinositol is a muscle sugar... something like glucose 25:27 which helps supply the energy that it needs and help nurture 25:33 those nerves that are being atrophied by the 25:38 diabetic neuropathy. 25:39 And what happens when we take in the myoinositol foods 25:45 It will also help release some lecithin which is part of the 25:49 nerve makeup. 25:50 And so as we take in the myoinositol foods, 25:53 we're building up the nerves, 25:55 we are protecting them from the neuropathy... 25:58 the pathology of that particular nerve, 26:01 and it's going to help us feel a whole lot better. 26:03 Now there are foods that are very popular or very high 26:06 in myoinositol. 26:08 Basically... fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds! 26:11 But even within those, there are some foods that are very high... 26:15 they sort of SHINE in this area. 26:17 Things like cantaloupe... things like peanuts... 26:20 things like grapefruit and ALL citrus fruits 26:24 are very high in myoinositol. 26:26 Whole grains, beans and legumes... 26:29 As a matter of fact, we will prescribe for our diabetic 26:32 patients at Uchee Pines, basically beans at every meal... 26:36 ...a very nice source of myoinositol. 26:39 Blackstrap molasses and nuts, all of these things 26:43 high in myoinositol which is going to be feeding the body 26:47 the very nutrients that it needs 26:49 to fight this problem with diabetic neuropathy.. Dr. Thrash 26:54 Now "myoinositol," when do you suppose the Lord put 26:58 myoinositol in cantaloupes and peanuts... 27:01 was it back when He created it, or was it 27:04 when diabetes began to be so prevalent in the United States? 27:09 Well, we don't know the answer to that, 27:10 but this we do know for certain, 27:12 and that is that our loving Divine Designer has loved us 27:16 so much, that He wanted to give us every preparation 27:19 possible to make it so that we could live in health. 27:23 The Bible says... "Beloved I wish above ALL things 27:27 that thou mayest prosper and be in HEALTH." 27:30 Healthfulness is the theme of heaven with vibrant life 27:37 with an understanding of our Savior's great love for us 27:42 ALL the time, being surrounded by His Holy Spirit... 27:46 and loving one another and loving Him, 27:50 and being loving 27:51 and lovable Christians. |
Revised 2014-12-17