Celiac Disease and Reactive Hypoglycemia

As part of my journey with discovering what exactly was causing my reactive hypoglycemia, I received a comment from Erica Douglas who suggested that my symptoms might be caused by celiac disease. Celiac disease is a fairly common autoimmune disease where the small intestine’s lining is damaged from gluten and other proteins in wheat, barley, and rye.
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The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle Diet

I purchased the The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle Cookbook
and thought I’d try it out for a month to see if it helps with reactive hypoglycemia.  I thought I’d give the book a 30-day trial. You can find last week’s post here:  30-Day Diabetes Miracle Week 1. Phew. What a week this has been!
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Why Vegan Works for a Reactive Hypoglycemic Diet

I’ve had a couple of emails asking me why a vegetarian diet works for reactive hypoglycemia. I realized that although I’ve got a good idea (a diet rich in fruits and vegetables wards of a host of diseases),  I didn’t actually know the ins and outs of why eating nuts and beans is so good compared to chicken or fish.  I turned to PubMed–the site sponsored by the National Institutes for Health–to find my answers. After spending a few weeks reading the research, I have decided to no longer be a vegetarian, but instead…

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Does The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle Diet Work For Reactive Hypoglycemia?

I picked up a book last night at Barnes and Noble. I sometimes hang out and browse for an evening for entertainment (I love books but on an adjunct professor’s salary I can’t afford to buy them on a regular basis). The book I purchased was The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle Cookbook: Stop Diabetes with an Easy-to-Follow Plant-Based, Carb-Counting Diet.
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And Another Day of a Reactive Hypoglycemia Diet

I’ve received a couple of emails asking me to post more of what I eat to combat my hypoglycemia. A brief piece of background info if you’ve just found the site: I haven’t had a reactive hypoglycemic spell in months, and I feel great! Before I switched my diet to vegetarian, my life was often miserable for many hours a week. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Case for a Reactive Hypoglycemic Diet That Includes Saturated Fats

I came across an odd article this week. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic devised a diet for 23 heart patients that was high in saturated fat. Patients (eight of whom were reactive hypoglycemic) ate “forbidden” saturated fats for a year and lost 20% of their body weight. The interesting point about this article for reactive hypoglycemics is that we typically have trouble losing weight (because of the excess availability of carbs in our bodies), and yet the reactive hypoglycemics in this study–all of whom were obese–had no trouble dropping the weight!
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A Typical Day’s Diet for Reactive Hypoglycemia

Daniel, over at the Yahoo Group for Reactive Hypoglycemia, sent me an email last week, asking me to post a sample menu.

“Since you seems to be so good at keeping Leo’s and yours hypoglycemia at bay (unfortunately as you can read in forums and groups: most have failed and still struggle) I was wondering if you could post about few typical menus that would prevent reactive hypoglycemia episodes in predisposed people.”

Absolutely! It’s currently 10:20 a.m. and I have finished my Arrowhead Mills Kamut Flakes with Soy Milk. Kamut Flakes are one of the few cereals I can tolerate: it’s whole grain, high fiber, and sweetened with fruit juice instead of sugar.

Here’s what I ate yesterday (Leo had a sleepover at a friend’s house, so I’m not sure what he ate–but you can track his lunches at LeosLunchbox.wordpress.com).

• 8 a.m. 1 cup half-caffeinated coffee with 2T Silk Vanilla creamer. 1 slice of Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain toast with 1T peanut butter.
• 10 a.m. 1 cup Arrowhead Mills Kamut Flakes with 1 cup (unsweetened) soy milk.
• 12 noon. 1 cup Amy’s Organic Lentil Vegetable Soup
  , 1/2 sandwich: whole grain bread, vegenaise, lettuce, tomato, tofurkey, vegan cheese.
• 2 p.m. banana, 12 peanuts.
• 4 p.m. 15 wholegrain, baked tortilla chips with 1/4 cup fresh salsa.
• 6 p.m. stuffed green pepper (lentils, brown rice) with a garden salad (home grown tomatoes!) and curried chickpeas. (Note, I make a big batch of the peppers and garbanzos so all I have to do is remove it from the freezer and microwave).
• 8 p.m. 8 mini sourdough crackers, 2 slices cheese, mustard pickle relish.
• 10 p.m. handful (1/8 cup) of mixed nuts.

The hardest thing for me when I started this diet was to try and remember to eat exactly every two hours. The first few weeks I forgot, but then it became a habit. I’ll post the recipes for chickpeas and stuffed peppers soon.

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Blood Sugar Support Supplements Part Two

Which Blood Sugar Supplements are the Best For Reactive Hypoglycemia?

There’s a whole lot of supplements out there, ranging from the cheap ($10 a bottle) to the expensive (over $100 a bottle). I spent days researching yesterday’s article, Blood Sugar Support Supplements Part One, in which I reviewed the benefits (or lack of benefits) of many common ingredients. Today, I’m going to take a look at several popular brands.
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Blood Sugar Support Supplements Part One

The first time I saw a Blood Sugar Support Supplement was in Wal Mart. It was a mixture of cinnamon and ginseng with a few fruity extracts thrown in. I took them for a few days, and didn’t notice any difference in my overall health. They are sitting in my medicine cabinet barely touched, and this blog post is a reminder to myself that I need to throw that bottle out.

The promise of an all-natural blood sugar support supplement continues to be an alluring thought. The FDA does not control the supplements industry, meaning they can claim anything they like and do not need any proof of safety (unlike prescriptions). There’s no way of telling by their advertisements if their claims are true or false, and often the manufacturers “forget” to mention flawed studies (they’ll only tell you about the good ones).

I decided to do some research and find out exactly what the ingredients do in these supplements. Does the research bear out some of these manufacturers claims with regards to blood sugar control? How do these supplements pertain to reactive hypoglycemia?
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Guar Gum – a Natural Hypoglycemia Treatment?

I wrote a couple of days ago on the role of cinnamon and vinegar in a hypoglycemic diet. The results from my research on vinegar were encouraging, but sprinkling vinegar on everything isn’t a real option (vinegar on corn flakes? ugh!).

Guar Gum and Reactive Hypoglycemia Glucose Levels

I decided to hunt for some more natural ways to stabilize blood sugar, and came across this article on the effects of guar gum on postprandial (post meal) blood sugar levels (guar gum is a natural source of fiber extracted from the guar bean). The researchers reported that guar gum seemed to reduce blood sugar levels by slowing the gastric emptying rate (and therefore leads to a more steady blood sugar rise): the more guar gum given, the better the effect on blood sugar levels.

This isn’t the only piece of research on the effectiveness of guar gum. It’s effects have been heavily studied for decades. You can read about a study on guar flour and pectin here and a more recent article here, although I could cite dozens of others.

The studies suggest adding between 2.5g and 10g a day of guar or pectin to meals (or another simple fiber such as gum tragacanth, methylcellulose, wheat bran, or cholestyramine). More than 10g a day isn’t a good idea and could lead to adverse side effects, which drugs.com lists as including GI obstruction and flatulence; I did find a study here that said healthy adults consuming a “crispy bar” containing approximately 6g of guar gum suffered from no ill gastrointestinal effects, but it’s worth noting that large amounts of any dietary supplement can lead to adverse effects–not just guar gum.

Despite the apparent good news, guar gum isn’t for me personally. As a vegetarian, I probably eat enough fiber (I regularly consume oat bran, barley, kidney beans, and black-eyed peas which contain high values of soluble fiber). But for those of you out there who aren’t vegetarian? I’d recommend that you Go Veg! but if you don’t, guar gum could be worth a try .

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