| Answer: | A ordinarily insulin conveys glucose. or blood sugar, to where it can provide energy. But habitual stress and a diet centring on refined carbohydrates flood the blood regularly with glucose, which triggers the production of more insulin. The more insulin you produce, and the more often, the more your body becomes resistant to insulin - hence the condition of insulin resistance. This means that the blood sugar the insulin is carrying is ' turned away' , and stays in the bloodstream. Over time this can lead to Type II diabetes and other serious conditions.
The way to deal with insulin resistance is to stabilise both blood sugar and the stress response. The right diet can regulate blood sugar. Your sister should start by eating more fibre in wholefoods, particularly soluble fibre suchas that found in oats, beans and vegetables. She should also concentrate on foods that release their sugar content slowly, such as wholegrains (including brown rice, millet, rye, quinoa as cereal, wholewheat in moderation and maize), lentils, beans, apples and raw or lightly cooked vegetables. With every meal or snack she should eat some protein, so with brown rice, potatoes or pasta she needs to eat chicken, meat, fish or tofu; with fruit, she needs to add in a few nuts or seeds; with oatcakes, she should have hummus; and so on. Finally, she should supplement vitamin C (1,000mg), vitamin E (400mg/600iu), magnesium (400mg), chromium (200mcg with breakfast and 200mcg with lunch) and the essential fats, especially the omega-3 fatty acid EPA found in fish oil. You need at least 600mg of EPA to have any significant effect.
However, if your sister continues to take Metformin, it is very important that she lets her doctor know that she is taking chromium, as it may boost the effectiveness of the drug, hence necessitating a lower dose. After two months of following this diet, she might like to be re-tested. |
