By Patty Oh

Here's another reason to reduce the amount of sugar you eat. Researchers have determined that if you eat too much sugar, the gene that regulates your levels of estrogen and testosterone can be turned off. In a recent press release, the BC Children's Hospital Foundation said that this discovery would help physicians when they are diagnosing hormone disorders. Common hormone disorders include PCOS, and type 2 diabetes.

Prior to this discovery, doctors assumed that insulin contributed to the reduction of the gene that regulates our hormones, SHBG, in our bodies. Physicians had come to this conclusion because pre-diabetic, overweight people typically had both a low level of SHBG and a high level of insulin.

This groundbreaking study proves that how our liver metabolizes sugar is what affects SHBG, not our insulin level. Researchers said that physicians can now use the SHBG amounts in our blood to monitor how our liver is functioning.

Armed with this information, physicians can intervene long before problems become apparent.

How the liver is involved
Sugars are metabolized in the liver. When someone eats too much sugar, their liver changes the sugar from sugar into fat (a lipid). When our bodies have too many fats, SHBG gene shuts down.

About the SHBG gene
Our bodies have a gene referred to as the SHBG, or sex hormone binding globulin gene. This gene regulates the amount estrogen and testosterone that our bodies produce.

When the SHBG gene shuts down, our body senses that it does not have enough hormones, and produces more testosterone and estrogen, regardless of the current levels of testosterone and estrogen currently in our system.

Having an excessive amount of these hormones puts us at risk of infertility, uterine cancer, acne, and polycystic ovaries.

Abnormal amounts of SHBG genes are also implicated in several other diseases, including cardiovascular disease and a person's risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

"We discovered that low levels of SHBG in a person's blood means the liver's metabolic state is out of whack - because of inappropriate diet or something that's inherently wrong with the liver - long before there are any disease symptoms," said Dr. Geoffrey Hammond, the scientific director of the Child & Family Research Institute in Vancouver, Canada, and professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of British Columbia.

Sugars
Both fructose and glucose are sugars. Fructose and glucose are used to make table sugar. Fructose is also a common ingredient in hundreds of food products, including syrups, low-fat products, and sweetened beverages.

Sources:
Child & Family Research Institute (http://www.bcchildrens.ca/)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid

source:www.associatedcontent.com

by Diana Benzaia

If you have diabetes, now is the time to take steps to protect your heart.

"High blood glucose alters cell metabolism," says Richard Kahn, Ph.D., chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association (ADA). When the function of platelet cells changes, the likelihood of blood clots increases and the risk of heart attack rises. Cells that line the artery walls are also affected; the ability of blood vessels to dilate is impaired, which can lead to high blood pressure.

One pivotal phenomenon underlying these changes is inflammation, already known to promote heart disease. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, for example, found high blood glucose linked to chronic inflammation in the blood vessel walls of mice.

Prevention Works

The first step to protecting your heart? Control your glucose. In the groundbreaking Diabetes Control and Complications Trial to determine the effects of glucose on complications, type 1 patients underwent intensive glucose control. A later study found these participants were 57 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease over the next 16 years.

Although the findings haven't been confirmed in those with type 2, high blood glucose levels have been proven to increase the risk of heart disease in both kinds of diabetes. Says David Nathan, M.D., professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-chair of the type 1 study, "The major difference is that people with type 2 are generally older, heavier and more likely to have hypertension and abnormal cholesterol levels, all of which puts them at much higher risk for heart disease." For them, prevention is even more urgent.

Keep your heart healthy by following the ABCs of diabetes prevention: Aim for A1C levels below 7 percent, blood pressure below 130/80 mm Hg and LDL cholesterol below 100 mg/dl.

"Everyone with diabetes should know their numbers and goals, and get checked regularly," says John Buse, M.D., lead author of the ADA and American Heart Association's new joint statement on preventing cardiovascular diseases in people with diabetes. Start with a healthy lifestyle:

By: aron wallad

I am so zeroed in when it comes to carbohydrates. I read all labels of any food I have an interest in purchasing. Checking the carb gram count is part of my mission wherever I am when I purchase foods that bear labels on the package. To create an easier time for myself I now just by-pass the pasta and bakery aisles when I shop. We all know that those food groups usually encompass a whopping number of grams of carbohydrates. They are in another league.

What is it about these carbs anyway?

Carbohydrates, which the body breaks down to glucose (sugar) in the digestive system is the energy provider you and I need to run our lives. Without the fuel from carbohydrates our bodies will look for other foods to create energy. This may not be an effective way for you or I nutritionally.

So carbohydrates are needed. The difficulty I had was consuming too many carbohydrates. I loved the breads and pastas. The cookies and cakes were pretty good also.

The problem was that the unnecessary glucose my body created went into my blood sugar. Making me a diabetic. What I like to equate this to is if I were a car and had a 15 gallon gas tank. I would order 17 gallons of gas because I liked the gas, Two gallons would spill onto the ground and make the environment unhealthy. It is the same with me. Because I ate too many carbohydrates the sugar spilled into my blood raising my blood sugar amount. You could say I have a portions control problem.

What is a carbohydrate you ask?

Carbohydrates are a critical part of our diets. They consist of sugars, starches and fiber. Carbohydrates are broken down to glucose in the body which is an imperative fuel for the body.

Some foods will help you with your diabetes diet plan. Some will not. That is why I count carbohydrates. Some foods do not make up a good diabetes diet plan. Like soda, ice cream, most breads, and pastries. Limit yourself to these foods. Eating them once per week or once per month or maybe once every quarter, depending on the severity of your diabetes will help you control your diabetes. You cannot be too careful when it comes to the carbohydrates you ingest into your body. Other foods like non starch vegetables, chicken and fish will help with your diabetes diet plan.

Think of this. The level of sugar that gets into your blood depends on the amount of carbohydrates eaten. Depending on what type of food you eat will determine how quickly or slowly the carbohydrates are turned into sugar and how hastily or slowly that sugar enters into your blood if you are diabetic.

So as they say a carb is a carb. The determining influencer is the range of carbohydrates that are eaten. With all that being said the one exception is fiber. This type of carbohydrate does not get digested into the body like other foods. So it does not heighten blood sugar levels. It cleans the body. Fiber is the roughage needed to sweep out the waste created by the foods we digest.

Carbohydrate counting is one part of a responsible diabetes diet plan. I like to have fun when I carbohydrate count by finding at least on food in the store that has a huge amount of carbohydrates that I may have eaten in the past that I avoid now.

Grab your free e course. It will help you create a comprehensive diabetes natural solutions care program.

source:www.superfeature.com