“Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.”
Buddha
This could not be a more appropriate quote for a doctor to his patients. We only have one body on Earth. It is your job to care of your body. It is my Good Orderly Direction profession to assist you in any way I can to make your job much easier.
It is important to take care of this ‘vehicle of awakening’ considering both body,. mind and spirit. If your physician does not cover emotional and spiritual issues, and only physical, then it is your job to find other health care practitioner to meet your needs. I always feel it is important for the patient to be well versed and well read in their disease process. If a patient wants another opinion, it is their right to seek more knowledge from another type of health practitioner. If you, the patient do not understand the language of the medical discussion, ask the physician to stop and tell you again. It is difficult for a physician to meet a patient’s needs with changing health care reform and insurance companies. If your meets are not met during the first meeting, you can always schedule a follow-up with one of his team or with him/her in the near future. I know physicians do not spend a lot of time with patients, but until new health care reform exists I do not have another option. Oh yes, the other option is for YOU to be informed. Write down your list of questions (no more than 4 to 5) that you would like answered during your visit. Think of it like this: You are on the cover of the NY Times. What are the 3 most important issues relating to you that should be printed on the first page of the paper? I believe that if the patient and the doctor are a team, more can be solved.
The strategy in the battle against elevated sugar (glucose) is simply to limit the amount of sugar (glucose) the body has to process. This means, “ Eat less sugar” Think of sugar no in the ‘white form’ but what foods have a high glycemic index. The simple approach is to lecture you on the consumption of simple carbohydrates. What if we were able to give you a substance that blunted or decreased the conversion of starches into sugar. This means you would take an enzyme inhibitor for this conversion. Do you know of any substance that can blunt this conversion? There are two such enzymes in the body that exert this effect. They are alpha amylase and alpha glucosidase. A study published in Food Chemistry ( 11/10) suggested that phenolic rich extracts from four species of edible SEAWEED may possess the capacity to inhibit digestive enzymes. These seaweeds may then have anti-sugar or anti-diabetic effects to inhibit those two enzymes: alpha amylase and alpha glucosidase.
It states,
“This paper outlines potential biological activities of polyphenols from edible seaweeds and, in particular, suggests that phlorotannin components of Ascophyllum nodosum have potential anti-diabetic effects through the inhibition of both alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase ”
It is well known that the Far Eastern countries ingest more seaweed than in the United States. I have encountered some patients with a history of cancer ingesting more seaweed. I also feel those that eat sushi ingest more seaweed. How much of the seaweed wrapped around raw fish are actually real algae? A fact is that seaweed can be used as thickeners in certain industries. Seaweed has also been used in cosmetics for the last ten years.
There are many other health benefits of seaweed since they contain a wide variety of components. It is a great source of dietary fibre, especially soluble fibre such as alginates. These alginates can influence the glucose uptake from foods. The extra added benefit is that these fibres can act as a prebioitcs. You may be thinking it is a typo- NOT probiotics but prebiotics which stimulate the growth of the beneficial bacteria in the colon.
Once again it comes back to the plants. In this case, algae or seaweed.
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