The Low-Starch Diabetes Solution: Six Steps to Optimal Control of Your Adult-Onset (Type 2) Diabetes

257 Pages·2009·1.38 MB·English

by  Rob Thompson

The
Low-Starch
Diabetes Solution
Six Steps to Optimal Control of Your Adult-Onset (Type 2)
Diabetes with the Science of Insulin Resistance
and the Glycemic Load
ROB THOMPSON, M.D.
RECIPES BY
DANA CARPENDER
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Copyright © 2010 by Robert Thompson, M.D. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the
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ISBN: 978-0-07-162160-1
MHID: 0-07-162160-1
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Contents
Introduction 1
Part 1 The Toxin
1 A Gift from the Fertile Crescent 5
2 Lowering Blood Sugar the Old-Fashioned Way 9
3 Glycemic Load: The New Old-Fashioned Way 17
4 The Culprit, Revealed 37
5 The Highly Peculiar Effects of Dietary Starch 55
6 Sugar-Containing Beverages: Starch’s
Slippery Mimic 65
7 The Starch-Vulnerable Individual: How Insulin
Resistance Works 75
8 Things That Get Better When You
Eliminate Starch 85
9 Kicking the Addiction 95
iii
iv Contents
Part 2 Six Steps to Optimal Control
of Your Diabetes
10 Step 1: Purging Starch from Your Diet 111
11 Step 2: Inhibiting Starch Absorption 121
12 Step 3: Sensitizing Your Muscles to Insulin 129
13 Step 4: Getting Your Liver to Cooperate 143
14 Step 5: Making Up Any Insulin Defi cit with Insulin 153
15 Step 6: Optimizing Your Cholesterol and
Blood Pressure 163
Part 3 Low-Starch Cuisine:
Discovering a Tastier Way to Eat
16 Starch Substitutes That Taste Better than Starch,
by Dana Carpender 173
17 The Art of Baking with Starch-Free Flours,
by Dana Carpender 201
18 A Seven-Day Low-Starch Meal Plan 227
Appendix A: Metric Conversion Factors 235
Appendix B: References 237
Appendix C: Websites and Suggested Reading 243
Index 245
Introduction
U
ntil recently, doctors thought adult-onset diabetes was the
same as childhood diabetes—that both were caused by
lack of insulin. In the 1980s, scientists made the remark-
able discovery that they’re entirely different diseases. Whereas kids
with diabetes lack insulin, most adult-onset diabetics make plenty
of insulin—often more than normal. The problem is that their bod-
ies lose sensitivity to it. Now doctors refer to the disease that young
people get as type 1 diabetes and to the kind that middle-aged adults
get as type 2-diabetes. This book is for people with adult-onset, or
type 2, diabetes.
In times past, the diagnosis of diabetes had tragic implications.
Children and young adults with type 1 diabetes often wasted away
and died from it. Insulin, when it came along in the 1920s, was the
miracle drug for these patients. It allowed them to live normal lives.
In those days, the troubles of middle-aged and older folks with
type 2 diabetes seemed minor compared with young people with
type 1 diabetes. Adult-onset diabetics could live for years with
hardly any treatment at all. They could usually get their blood sugar
down to reasonable levels by just taking some pills and watching
their diet. Doctors rarely prescribed insulin for these patients; they
fi gured it wasn’t worth the trouble.
In the 1990s, new research showed that while patients with
type 2 diabetes rarely died as a direct result of their diabetes, their
1
2 Introduction
mildly elevated blood sugar levels—if these went on long enough—
could result in damage to their eyes, kidneys, and blood vessels,
and the attendant increase in heart attack rate was alarming. As a
result, doctors started taking adult-onset diabetes more seriously,
treating it as they would type 1 diabetes, using stronger pills and
insulin when necessary to get blood sugar levels as close to normal
as possible.
In 2008, researchers released the results of two large studies on
the effects of this more vigorous approach to treating adult-onset
diabetes. The results were disappointing. Heavier doses of insulin
helped patients avoid eye and kidney damage but did little to reduce
the rate of heart attacks. What worked for patients with juvenile
diabetes didn’t work as well for people with adult-onset diabetes.
Those results are not really surprising, considering that type 2
diabetes is a completely different disease from type 1. It has differ-
ent causes, results in different complications, and requires a differ-
ent approach to treatment. The goal of treating type 1 diabetes is
simple: replace the missing insulin. Type 2 diabetes is more compli-
cated. The body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin, which
not only raises blood sugar but brings on cholesterol, blood pres-
sure, and weight problems that cause as much trouble as the high
blood sugar does. This often requires a multipronged approach to
treatment.
The good news is that you can live to a ripe old age without
suffering any health problems from your type 2 diabetes. When
the nineteenth-century sage George Bernard Shaw said the secret
to good health is to get a chronic disease and take good care of
it, he might as well have been talking about adult-onset diabetes.
When you do what you need to do to treat it, you reverse many of
our modern lifestyle’s harmful effects on your health and general
well-being. Indeed, you might fi nd yourself feeling better than you
have for years.
This book will give you six simple steps to follow that should
give you excellent control of your type 2 diabetes. First, however, it
is important to understand the logic behind its treatment. Once you
see what brought on your condition, you will know exactly what
you need to do to reverse it.
Part 1
The Toxin
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1
A Gift from
the Fertile Crescent
A
bout ten thousand years ago, something happened
near the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea that
changed the course of history. Like all prehistoric
people, the inhabitants of that region were hunter-gatherers. They
lived on wild game and vegetation. However, they had become
so effi cient at hunting animals and gathering vegetation that they
began to deplete their food supply. To thrive, they needed a new
source of calories. They found one in an area that encompassed
parts of modern Syria and Iraq known as the Fertile Crescent.
The Fertile Crescent had a unique climate. The summers were
so hot and dry that they were deadly for most vegetation, but the
winters were temperate and moist—ideal for plant growth. Those
conditions fostered the evolution of a particular kind of plant,
one that could mature fast enough during short growing seasons
to drop its seeds before being killed by the scorching summers.
The wild ancestors of wheat and barley fl ourished in the Fertile
Crescent. The secret of their success was their seeds.
5