Thursday, March 19, 2009
Natural Cures for Diabetes and Weight Loss
I was watching an TV recently and heard somebody talking natural cures for obesity and diabetes and I got to thinking about what these natural cures could be, beyond what I already know to be true.
It's a fact that there are some dietary supplements (like chromium and magnesium for example) which can help stabilize blood sugar in some people. But, as for weight loss, dietary supplements are not the answer. I'm not a doctor or a dietitian. Rather, I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer who has spent over 10 years investigating dietary supplements. I delve in to what the clinical research says about what they do and don’t do.
There are some great supplements out there to be sure but when it comes to helping people lose weight, I am very disappointed in the lack of research and what the research really says. Most supplements have either no proof that they work or evidence that they do not work.
This post however is not about supplements but about the REAL natural cure for obesity, weight loss, diabetes and several other conditions. It’s called exercise. I'm not kidding, if you doubt what I say, go search the facts on the National Library of Medicine and look at the evidence for exercise. It’s amazing! When doctors look at the people who are most likely to lose weight and keep it off, most of them exercise (up to 90 minutes a day).
When people talk about curing diabetes, they are really talking about type II diabetes which is the most likely form of the disease. Type II diabetes results from eating too many calories (which causes us to gain weight) and not moving (exercising) enough. Studies show that as little as 20 minutes of exercise can lower blood sugar levels. Even better than this, exercise has been shown to lower hemoglobin A1C (Hb A1C) which tells about what the blood sugar has been for the last 3 months. I have personally seen as little as 20 minutes of aerobic exercise twice a week significantly lower Hb A1C levels. This is evidence that diabetes is getting better!
I can go on about the benefits of exercise but I will stop for now and just say this: You already have at your disposal the best natural cure for obesity and diabetes: Exercise. Trust me when I say, exercise far surpasses anything else out there. The evidence proves it. Now, step away from the computer and go take a walk!
Monday, March 02, 2009
Overweight, Diabetes and Sleep
Lack of Sleep and Gaining Weight
Joe Cannon, MS
www.Joe-Cannon.com
By now, just about everybody has heard that not getting enough sleep might cause us to gain weight. This, in turn, might result in more health problems. A few facts about lack of sleep and health:
• Americans today sleep about 80 fewer minutes per night than they did in 1950.
• Research suggests that people who sleep less than 5 hours a night are more prone to getting diabetes.
• People who sleep less than 7 hours a night tend to have higher BMI’s (Body Mass Index) which generally is associated with more health problems like heart disease, diabetes and the complications from these disorders.
The reasons for the apparent connection between lack of sleep and health problems are springing up all over the place and some gurus have even written books touting to have the answer. Some of these answers are quite complicated and include altered sugar metabolism and issues having to do with how the brain works. No need to go into those issues here.
I have often wondered however if there might be an easier explanation as to why lack of sleep causes weight gain and its associated health problems. A recent study may have supported my easy answer to this problem.
The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2009, vol 89 p 126) went like this:
• 11 men and women were kept in a lab for a month.
• For two weeks they could eat anything they wanted and were allowed to sleep for 8 ½ hrs a night.
• The other two weeks of the study was the same as before except that the people could now only sleep 5 ½ hours a night.
The Result: People ate an average of 220 more calories a day when they could only sleep 5 ½ hrs a night. Many of these calories were eaten after 7PM.
Bottom Line: For me, the take home message of this study is that people who sleep less, gain more weight simply because they are awake more and eating more calories. We can’t eat when we are sleeping (unless you sleepwalk!).
One of the basic rules of science goes like this: if you are faced with two answers to a problem, when in doubt, the simple answer is usually the correct answer. I could be completely wrong, but I have thought that eating more calories because we were awake longer was the answer all the time. It’s nice to have a little vindication.
Joe Cannon, MS
www.Joe-Cannon.com
By now, just about everybody has heard that not getting enough sleep might cause us to gain weight. This, in turn, might result in more health problems. A few facts about lack of sleep and health:
• Americans today sleep about 80 fewer minutes per night than they did in 1950.
• Research suggests that people who sleep less than 5 hours a night are more prone to getting diabetes.
• People who sleep less than 7 hours a night tend to have higher BMI’s (Body Mass Index) which generally is associated with more health problems like heart disease, diabetes and the complications from these disorders.
The reasons for the apparent connection between lack of sleep and health problems are springing up all over the place and some gurus have even written books touting to have the answer. Some of these answers are quite complicated and include altered sugar metabolism and issues having to do with how the brain works. No need to go into those issues here.
I have often wondered however if there might be an easier explanation as to why lack of sleep causes weight gain and its associated health problems. A recent study may have supported my easy answer to this problem.
The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2009, vol 89 p 126) went like this:
• 11 men and women were kept in a lab for a month.
• For two weeks they could eat anything they wanted and were allowed to sleep for 8 ½ hrs a night.
• The other two weeks of the study was the same as before except that the people could now only sleep 5 ½ hours a night.
The Result: People ate an average of 220 more calories a day when they could only sleep 5 ½ hrs a night. Many of these calories were eaten after 7PM.
Bottom Line: For me, the take home message of this study is that people who sleep less, gain more weight simply because they are awake more and eating more calories. We can’t eat when we are sleeping (unless you sleepwalk!).
One of the basic rules of science goes like this: if you are faced with two answers to a problem, when in doubt, the simple answer is usually the correct answer. I could be completely wrong, but I have thought that eating more calories because we were awake longer was the answer all the time. It’s nice to have a little vindication.
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