Diabetes – Physicians’ New Ideas – Dr. Vincent Marchione, MD – 3

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

This week, I am again highlighting the functional food protocols which Dr. Vincent Marchione, MD, a specialist in using food as medicine, espouses. Food is our natural medicine, when used appropriately, both to prevent disease and aid in the cure of disease, especially for diabetics. Of course, wrongly used, improper food choice also creates disease, especially when people eat nutrient-poor, manufactured “foods” rather than close to Nature foods.

EPICATECHIN:

A 2005 medical study found that a purer form of chocolate can significantly reduce blood pressure in just two weeks, and later, Italian researchers gave healthy people various types of chocolate and discovered the one type had a greater ability to reduce blood sugar as well as lower blood pressure.

This purer type of chocolate contains a full range of beneficial phytonutrients, after all it is a bean. These include antioxidants, flavonoids, phenols, epicatechin, and essential minerals. These nutrients make chocolate beneficial for your heart, and unfortunately, for many diabetics, they have coronary concerns, too.

Can you imagine a better way to impact these health issues? But make sure you use the right type of chocolate — which is 70% cacao — it will be touted on the label. These bars are much more expensive and are less sweet, but still enjoyable. At this level, you only need a few pieces, not the whole bar, so maybe it will not be overly expensive.

Typical chocolate in the average candy bar won’t do the job.

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SUPEROXIDE DISMUTASE:

The antioxidant enzyme called superoxide dismutase is a relatively new discovery from the last few decades, or so. Called S.O.D for short, this antioxidant scavenges in your body to eliminate harmful free radicals, before they can cause aging, heart disease or cancer.

Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) is considered to be a powerful antioxidant, and this protein is one of a class of enzymes which encourages the reduction and oxidation of superoxide into its basic components of oxygen and hydrogen peroxide.

This chemical break-down renders superoxide less harmful to our cells because when changed into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide there is no oxidation occurring, as these do not need to steal electrons in order to be stable (the chemical definition of “oxidation”).

There are three types of SOD namely SOD1, SOD2 and SOD3, each with a different mission.

___ SOD1 helps to protect each cell’s cytoplasm
___ SOD2 helps to protect the mitochondria cellular furnaces from free radical damage
___ SOD3 lies outside the cells, and seeks to protect from free radical damage.

There was a study that showed that mice lacking SOD2 died within several days after birth due to massive oxidative stress. Mice lacking SOD1 develop a wide range of problems including hepatocellular (liver) carcinoma, an acceleration of age-related muscle mass loss, an earlier incidence of cataracts as well as a reduced lifespan.

One of the best ways to get plenty of superoxide dismutase is also a delicious treat: real, organic maple syrup!

Never use the typical high-fructose table syrups, and use only tiny amounts of this real, organic maple syrup.

S.O.D. is also found in melons (which should always be eaten alone, 20 minutes before any other foods). Barley grass, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and broccoli are other sources.

Lotus Food, Ltd.’s immune booster Lotus BIO HARVEST is comprised of: soybean, green tea, sesame, wheat germ, rice bran, Yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit), Eucommia Chinese herb blend and ground matcha tea (the finest green tea).

In a traditional process, Lotus Food then releases the natural antioxidants in these plants and seeds. The biologic materials are stirred in a clay vessel using the ancient Japanese cooking method, which enables even heating and prevents damage from overheating.

After heating, the super-antioxidant mixture is brewed with Japanese Koji, a friendly fungus (traditionally used in inoculating rice to culture it into Amazake). The koji process releases proteases and amylase enzymes to help split the plants’ polymers into small, useful antioxidant units. The mixture is then immersed in sesame oil, for protection.

Steam treatment is also used to prepare the green tea leaves, the immature leaves of Japanese daikon white icicle radish and Yuzu oranges. This gentle processing destroys the unhelpful enzymes that can denature the natural vitamin C present, without destroying the vitamin itself.

Leaves from Aspalathus lineraris plant, which is especially rich in natural antioxidant flavonoids, are added at this stage to a final concentration of 20%. Using high-quality plants and adhering to this specific preparation method ensures that the body can effectively utilize the super-antioxidant properties of the plants used. Diet alone, may not give you enough S.O.D.

Read more at:
Superoxide Dismutase and Antioxidant Therapy
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More from Dr. Marchione next time. You can learn more at his site: Dr. Marchione’s homepage.

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Best to all — Em

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(c)2010 Em at https://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
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Diabetes – Physicians’ New Ideas – Dr. Vincent Marchione, MD – 2

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

Every diabetic needs to have intimate knowledge of the healing powers of food. Diabetes can be changed completely by eating the right foods, just as it can be disastrous to eat the wrong ones. Here are more healthy foods to change your Health for the better!

Many food compounds have multiple roles in our bodies. This set of food powerhouses may help save you from cancer as well as helping your diabetes.

Flavonoids are remarkable natural compounds which have a wide range of healing effects on your body. In the test tube, flavonoids show five times the antioxidant power of vitamin C. They hunt down and absorb free radicals before these vagrant molecules can cause aging and disease.

According to breakthrough research by the Linus Pauling Institute at the University of Oregon, flavonoids can actually change the way genes are expressed in the body e.g.  they cause the body to “switch on” in ways that can fight or prevent cancer.

Flavonoids actually force the body into making enzymes that destroy the substances that cause mutations and tumors.  Did you know that foods contain 4,000 of these miracle Healers!

Yes, scientists have already discovered more than 4,000 different flavonoids and fruits and vegetables are by far the best source of these little-known wonders.

Many of these remarkable nutrients in functional foods haven’t even been isolated yet. Many of us are familiar with beta-carotene (it’s the best known of the carotenoid family of nutrients — others include lutein, lycopene, and beta-cryptoxanthin). Each of these has miraculous healing powers.

But did you know that scientists have already discovered more than 500 different carotenoids in foods?

Do you understand why it critical it is to get a foundation of nutrients from foods? Foods give you all of the nutrients in the exact healing proportions designed by nature. Food is a targeted Healer!

Beta-Cryptoxanthin Foods, In Order:  red bell pepper, pumpkin, butternut squash, paprika, hot chilis without seeds, persimmons, tangerines, cayenne pepper, papaya, chili powder, cilantro, carrots, canned peaches, dill pickles, organic unsprayed rose hips, kumquats, dandelion greens, jalepeno peppers, collards, watermelon and oranges.

Humans in laboratories will never replace the complex healing qualities of food!

And, even making sure you chew your food well, counts, just like your Mom encouraged you to do. That story happens with another group of powerful nutrients called glucosinolates.

It turns out that an amazingly effective cancer-fighting agent is created when the vegetables are chewed and digested. Then glucosinolates turn into a far more potent cancer fighter called isothiocyanates. In a clinical study, isothiocyanates stopped even the most aggressive form of bladder cancer.

Whole foods can have quite different reactions in the body, than what happens when scientists start breaking up foods and isolating compounds.  Food is complex and just isolating and extracting selected nutrients in foods doesn’t always work for healing.  Yet this is the premise upon which all drug-based therapy is built. Drugs are fractionalized plants, foods, minerals etc., and so on.

But, whole foods, used as  functional foods, should be your first choice for healing. You can learn more at: Dr. Marchione’s homepage.

More next time.

Best to all — Em

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Diabetes – Physicians’ New Ideas – Dr. Vincent Marchione, MD

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

Healing with Functional Foods is a new specialty in western Medicine, finally! It’s a chance to let Nature’s superior knowledge guide you out of the labyrinth that man-made, processed foods and poor food-choice have created in you and in your family’s Health. Let’s learn more!

Dr. Marchione has been practicing for more than 20 years. He trained in Italy and has practiced as a pulmonologist and internal medicine physician. Now, he focuses on how foods heal us, in this new specialty, Nutritional Healing.

Foods can definitely heal you in ways drugs never can. Why? Because our bodies evolved over millions of years to thrive on the foods around us — the things we hunted, the foods we gathered.

Foods are Nature’s way to bring chemical resources to be used to: repair, restore and rejuvenate your cells. Best of all, they usually heal your body without dangerous side effects.

There’s a saying in Natural Medicine: “For every disease known to man, there’s a country where it virtually doesn’t exist.” It’s all about diet. The Japanese have lower rates of heart disease. East Indians rarely get Alzheimer’s. The Egyptians benefit from plentiful magnesium, from their rich Nile soils, with all the healthy nerve and tissue benefits that brings. What we know makes the difference is Diet!

Dr. Marchione, MD says: “One truth keeps sounding loud as a bell in my daily work with patients. In a nutshell, this is:

Food is the cause of the vast majority of our health problems, and food is also the solution.”

Americans are definitely overfed and undernourished.

According to the U.S. Surgeon General, “Two thirds of all deaths are directly affected by improper diet.” The numbers are not much different in any country in the developed world.

The dis-eases which have become the top killers — heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, even arthritis, asthma, and allergies — are all linked to our diets.

And these could be reversed and prevented by eating the right foods.

Dr. Marchione believes the root cause of many chronic diseases may actually be deficiencies in nutrients — many of which science hasn’t even discovered yet. And he says that if you’re eating the standard American diet (SAD), it’s very likely that you have critical deficiencies in phytonutrients — the miracle healers found in plants!

Drugs can relieve the symptoms of disease, but drugs rarely cure the underlying condition the way that foods can. The breakthroughs in knowing the effects of phytonutrients and functional foods is really exciting.

These functional foods help patients:

___   clean out clogged arteries
___   relieve stiff, painful joints
___   lower cholesterol as effectively as drugs
___   reduce blood pressure
___   boost energy
___   lose weight
___   prevent cancer
___   restore fading memories
___   defeat diabetes
___   and help virtually every disease or symptom.

Patients can often see results in even 14 days.

Here are a few examples.

BLUEBERRIES:

There’s a nutrient in Blueberries which lowers cholesterol just as well as the Prescription Drugs, without their liver harm!

Pterostilbene is a remarkable, powerful anti-oxidant phytonutrient that is making big news because scientists are buzzing about its amazing cancer-fighting and cholesterol-lowering ability.

Results from Research Study —

Researchers tried to see if pterostilbene could lower cholesterol and they tested it against ciprofibrate, a cholesterol-lowering drug. Their study explored how each ingredient helped cells metabolize cholesterol.

The results showed that Pterostilbene was just as effective as prescription drugs in reducing cholesterol!

Dr. Ray Sahelian, MD also notes that pterostilbene, an active constituent of blueberries, suppresses aberrant crypt foci formation. Regular readers know that Dr. Robert O. Young, PhD, one of my mentors, always says that disease begins in the crypts of the colon. So, if blueberries can create healthy intestinal crypts, that’s fantastic! And, this particular research was done with diabetic rats, so it is likely to help diabetic humans, too.

So, using them daily, in season, in your food would be a good idea. You can decide if you want to use them frozen, the rest of the year.

BETA-CRYPTOXANTHIN FOODS:

Certain types of fruits and vegetables are rich in a powerful, yet little-known nutrient called beta-cryptoxanthin which was shown (in a medical study of 25,000 people) to cut the risk of inflammatory arthritis in half. This nutrient also helps diabetics. Read on.

This study followed the diets of Americans between ages 45 and 74 found that those who ate fresh produce high in beta-cryptoxanthin had a 50% lower risk of arthritis.

Imagine — you might not need those potentially liver and heart damaging drugs for joint pain, because you won’t have the pain in the first place!

Food sources of beta-cryptoxanthin include: red bell peppers, papaya, cilantro, oranges, corn, watermelon, serrano pepper, avocados and grapefruit.

So, what is beta-cryptoxanthin?

It is classified chemically as a xanthophyll, and is one of the most abundant carotenoids in the North American diet. We would think of it as a “provitamin A”compound, one of approximately 50 carotenoids able to be converted in the body into retinol, an active form of vitamin A, if your body is good at that. (If you had acne or colon polyps, you may not do this conversion well.)

Beta-cryptoxanthin has approximately one-half of the vitamin A activity of beta-carotene, and it benefits by:

___   reducing risk of esophageal and lung cancer

___   potentially stimulating the  expression of RB gene, which is an anti-oncogene that functions to protect cells from becoming cancerous

___   protecting against chronic free-radical damage to heart and other tissues

___  it likely prevents heart disease and prostate cancer

Your absorption of beta-crptoxanthin is hampered by a low-fat or no-fat (!) diet. You MUST eat healthy fats daily!

If you have pancreatic enzyme deficiency, then you will also have trouble using beta-cryptoxanthin, so boost your enzymes at meals with fresh, raw produce and with supplements.

Crohn’s disease, celiac sprue, cystic fibrosis, surgical removal of part or all of the stomach, gall bladder disease and liver disease will also impact your ability to digest or absorb this powerful anti-oxidant.

Smokers and alcohol drinkers have chronically low levels of this vital nutrient.

Those people who have been stuck taking cholesterol-lowering medications referred to as bile acid sequestrants (Cholestyramine, Colestipol, and Colestid) have lower blood levels of carotenoids.

Additionally, margarines enriched with plant sterols (such as Benecol and Take Control), may decrease the absorption of carotenoids.

Olestra, a problematic fat substitute added to snack foods, may also decrease the absorption of carotenoids.

More on Dr. Marchione’s report next week. You can learn more at his site: Dr. Marchione’s homepage.

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Best to all —- Em

(c)2010 Em at https://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com

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Diabetes – Physicians’ New Ideas – Dr. Timothy Harlan, MD

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

Dr. Timothy Harlan, MD is a dedicated physician who worked as a chef and owned his own restaurant — both of which helped put him through medical school. Needless to say, Dr. Tim has very definite ideas about how Food affects Health and he’s known on the web as Dr. Gourmet. He includes diabetics in the group where food choice is critical. Yet, he knows healthy food can be a delight!

Dr. Tim just wrote about salmon this week in an email, and WILD salmon is a favorite food to suggest for diabetics, as it has high Omega-3 essential fatty acids, which diabetics (and children) especially need.

In response to a question about mercury toxicity in seafood, Dr. Tim replied emphasized the best Omega-3 sourced WILD fish as being healthy:

“Salmon is a safer choice as are mackerel and sardines. All three are higher in Omega-3 fatty acids and there’s less risk of contamination with mercury or other industrial pollutants than some other fish. A 3 1/2 ounce serving of each of these choices comes in at about 1,000 mg of Omega-3 fats, but not more than 0.5 parts per million of mercury.“

I regard 4 – 6 oz. of fish as a portion, as it is a less fatty protein than other animal sources, but as these are the “fattiest” fish, you can choose the lower end, if you desire or if you are keeping calories in the 1,500 – 1,800 range a day.

At Dr. Gourmet.com you can learn Dr. Tim’s opinions and recipes and he covers other health concerns and conditions which diabetics often have concerns about. He keeps up with the literature, too. You will become very well informed.

I like Dr. Tim because he truly understands the role of food in Health and understands that Food IS Medicine.

You will find delicious diabetic recipes at his site, flavored well, as a chef always would do.

Enjoy getting to know Dr. Tim.

Best to all — Em

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Diabetes – Physicians’ New Ideas – Dr. Rowen, MD

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

Diabetes and its attending satellite diseases and disruptions are an Opportunity to discover new ways of living and of treating imbalances with new tools — especially food and exercise. Dr. Robert Rowen, MD of Santa Rosa, California is a passionate holistic physician who has earned my respect.

You will often find me mentioning something which Dr. Rowen has brought to my attention and he always bases his opinion on scientific studies or experience with patients in his own clinical practice. He’s a fearless advocate for making Medicine accountable and open to new ideas and protocols that work!

He’ll probably come along several more times on my blog, but today I am sharing information from him about new ways to raise “good” cholestrol (HDL) and even impact a lessening of “bad” cholesterol.

If you subscribe to the idea that cholesterol is the culprit for “causing” the narrowing in arteries … I don’t. I think that cholesterol is a needed substance (especially for hormone production), and that it has been given a “new” job to become Nature’s Bandaid, when the arteries are damaged by Inflammation and high pH bioterrain.

But, if you are going to “treat” cholesterol, then I prefer to pay attention to the following article by Dr. Rowen, and reject statins as they are NOT benign and come from a very dubious source (fungii).

” Miracle food raises HDL, lowers LDL and triglycerides better than drugs” is what Dr. Rowen, MD reports — or as I say, “Eat 2 Kiwi and call me in the morning.”

Dr. Rowen says, ‘here’s another food that works better than drugs, especially for raising HDL cholesterol. In the current Western-medical thinking, if your HDL cholesterol is high, then you can handle higher cholesterol levels without damage to your heart. Increasing HDL is always important.’

If you ask your conventional doctor, he’ll tell you that it’s hard to increase HDL cholesterol except by artificially raising HDL, with statin treatments.

Now, a new study says you can raise HDL with a simple fruit.

A Taiwan study on 43 subjects with high lipid levels found that just 2 kiwis a day could significantly reverse lipid problems. HDL increased, and so did vitamin C and vitamin E levels. Their LDL dropped as well.

And, as is imperative in good Science, this study confirms a Norwegian study done in 2004.

In that Norwegian trial, 2 – 3  kiwis per day dropped triglyceride levels by 15%. They also reduced platelet aggregation (stickiness) by 15%. Platelet clumping places you at a higher risk of heart attacks and for blood clots.

Most doctors  push a daily baby aspirin to reduce sticky platelets, but this can result in stomach problems and other reactions. Why not try kiwis?! You get the same result without any risk! And, you get all the great Vitamin C and other nutrients for other health support.

The craziness of testimonial requirements and claims imposed by the FTC in America gags , so if the kiwi growers advertised this as a challenge to replace the toxic statins, they would, of course, go to jail thanks to today’s FDA standards.

But, as a physician, Dr. Rowen can carefully announce this, as can scientists in scientific journals. It’s up to us to learn the Truth from these sources and to circumnavigate the barrage of allowed daily and nightly commercials put out by Big Pharma. The Pharmaceutical industry wants the market. They don’t care what their pseudo-meds are doing or tell you about a more safe alternative.

Now, in my health store, organic kiwi are not inexpensive. They are often a dollar a piece, at some seasons. However, for much of the year, you can cut costs dramatically by growing your own. Get the “hardy” variety.

Kiwi (botanically: Chinese Gooseberry – Actinidia chinesis, I think, if I remember correctly) is very easy to grow. Unless you have a self-producing variety (I think they have hybridized these), you will need a male and a female plant.

They make very strong stems and can easily cover a shed roof or climb 2 stories. You need to keep them coralled. They produce prolifically and are tasty raw. They taste sort of pineapple-like with an undercurrent of strawberry. They are great in a fruit salad and are best eaten with at least one other fruit (no melons) as they are very active on your stomach, being lightly pH acidic.

The best way to eat them is to cut them in half, lengthwise, and then use a spoon to scoop out the whole hemisphere.

So, start eating 2 kiwi every day, and see if you can reduce your stain medication. Your liver will love you and maybe that will help this marvelous organ help you more with your diabetes instead of being wrecked by statins.

You can find out more about Dr. Robert Jay Rowen, MD Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Johns Hopkins University and University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine at Dr. Robert Jay Rowen, MD.

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Best to all — Em

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