Health News

Diabetes is a complex disorder involving many aspects of body function. One of the most striking and important features of diabetes is an impaired ability of the body to use glucose as a source of energy. It is a very common disorder in the community but it is unusual for it to start in childhood. We do not yet know the full explanation for diabetes or why it develops, and much of what is known is exceedingly complicated. The explanation that follows is naturally very much simplified, and provides only an outline of present knowledge of diabetes. Enormous research is going on and leading to new knowledge.

Carbohydrate foods are digested to form glucose

Food, when it is eaten, is digested in the stomach and intestines, and absorbed into the body. Much of the food, the carbohydrate, is digested and absorbed into the bloodstream as a simple sugar called glucose. Other common sugars in food are ordinary cane sugar (sucrose), and sugar of milk (lactose). Glucose is one of our main sources of fuel; it circulates in the bloodstream to all parts of the body, entering the body tissue cells, to be used there as energy for body functions, for activity and to provide warmth. Some body tissues can store energy if it is not immediately needed. This is the particular role of fat tissues, but the liver is also important as a store for glucose.

To be used properly glucose needs insulin

Although glucose circulates readily in the bloodstream, it cannot easily enter all cells without active assistance. This assistance is provided by a vital chemical substance. This substance, which is made in the body, is called insulin.

Insulin is therefore an essential part of the chemical system which allows the body to work efficiently. Without it, the sugar cannot properly enter cells, and be used as fuel. Without insulin, glucose builds up in the bloodstream and rises to excessive levels there. Most of the body cells can use fat as an alternative form of fuel, but excessive burning up of fat in the absence of adequate usable glucose can itself be harmful.

Insulin is made in the pancreas

Insulin is produced by a gland in the body called the pancreas. When food is eaten, and glucose starts to enter the bloodstream, the pancreas manufactures sufficient insulin to circulate with this sugar, to enable it to enter cells and be used at once or stored until required.

The pancreas is situated in the abdomen, and in animals it is called the ’sweetbread’.

In diabetes, the pancreas makes insufficient insulin

In diabetes in young people, the pancreas gradually fails to produce enough insulin to meet the needs of the body.

This happens because the cells in the pancreas that make insulin are being damaged, and gradually, as more and more insulin cells are damaged and lost, the pancreas loses its ability to make enough insulin. The result is that glucose produced from food and released from body stores builds up in the bloodstream and cannot be used.

Unused glucose is excreted in the urine

This excess of glucose in the blood ‘overflows’ into the urine, because the kidneys have the function of excreting any substance that is in excess in the body. To wash out this excess sugar, more and more urine must be produced; so the diabetic, before he is treated, passes large amounts of urine. Some children at this stage may wet the bed at night because of this excessive production of urine.

*5/54/5*

read comments (0)

There are many ways of testing nutritional status – using samples of blood or sweat, for instance. But one of the most cost-effective and convenient ways is through a hair sample. Hair has been shown to reflect a good long-term record of our mineral and nutritional experience.

Eventually hair samples could be used to screen for potential diabetes or breast cancer. Work is being undertaken in Australia by Professor Veronica James at the University of New South Wales where hair is being analyzed with a technique called X-ray diffraction. As X-rays are fired through the hair they form a pattern on photographic film. From this pattern the researchers are able to pick up different information. For instance, with hair from a diabetic patient, sugar binds onto the hair filaments. It will therefore look different from a strand of hair taken from a person without diabetes.

Hair samples can also be used to test for drug use, such as cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis. This is helpful in forensic medicine and pathology, for example to determine whether somebody was under the influence of drugs in an accident.

Because your hair cells are some of the fastest-growing cells in your body, they can ‘lock in’ information about your exposure to certain nutrients as they grow. In this way, your hair forms a permanent record of your exposure to beneficial and toxic elements. Analyzing hair is therefore also an excellent way to test for heavy toxic metals and is used in many medical studies to assess exposure to metals like mercury.

Other ways of testing, with blood or urine for instance, can be less reliable, because the results are influenced by what you may have eaten. Also your body tries to keep everything in balance. To do this, it tops up the levels of nutrients in your blood by taking them from elsewhere. For instance, if your blood calcium levels fall your body will pinch calcium from your bones to keep the level constant. A blood test may then suggest that your calcium levels are fine. But a hair analysis showing high levels of calcium would help identify the leeching of calcium from your bones.

However, like any testing method, hair analysis has its limitations. For instance, when testing for nutrients it is important that your hair is not contaminated by tints, highlights or perms. Certain minerals (iron, for instance) are best tested by blood samples. But levels of trace elements can be higher in hair, which make them easier to analyze. Also, because hair doesn’t need specialized sampling equipment or storage, this form of testing is accessible for couples who don’t live near a qualified practitioner.

Hair can be used to analyze your levels of calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium and also the toxic metals mercury, aluminum and cadmium.

The minerals are usually analyzed, together with a detailed questionnaire.

Then a personalized programme of supplements is recommended for you and your partner. This programme should be followed for a minimum of four months and then the hair should be re-tested.

Once your mineral and toxic levels are back to normal, you will be given a maintenance programme to follow until you become pregnant.

In the twelfth week of pregnancy, you will be tested again. Your nutrient needs during pregnancy are different and your programme will be adjusted accordingly. You should then continue with the amended programme until you have your baby.

If your starting levels of nutrients were very deficient or your toxic metal levels extremely high, then you should stay on the programme for longer.

If you are planning to have fertility treatment, you should follow the programme for four months beforehand. This will ensure that the egg and sperm are as healthy as they can be before treatment starts, to give the procedure the best possible chance of working.

Mineral analysis can also identify substances that reduce your and your partner’s fertility. For example, if you have used the pill or an IUD (coil) you may have high levels of copper. This can also be due to fertility treatment, where the drugs used increase copper levels. High levels of copper are a concern, as they are often matched by low zinc levels which can dramatically affect levels of fertility and may also give an increased rate of miscarriage.

You and your partner may turn out to have high levels of copper and other toxic metals and this may well explain your fertility problems.

*59/73/5*

read comments (0)

•     Gross obesity.

•     Smoking, drinking and hard drugs all reduce sperm counts.

•     Stress can inhibit ovulation in a woman and sperm formation in a man.

•     Ovulation problems are the most common cause of infertility in women. Usually the cause is unknown but the post-Pill syndrome has been mentioned above.

•     Endometriosis is a common cause of female infertility. Some of the lining tissue of the womb finds its way into the pelvic cavity and embeds there to produce pain and bleeding every month with a period.

•     Varicocele is the name given to a vein that supplies a testis (usually the left one) when that vein is varicose. About 30 per cent of male infertility is thought to be caused by this.

•     Zinc deficiency. Zinc is known to be necessary for many parts of the male genital system and is found in greater concentration in the male prostate gland than in any other part of the body. Zinc deficiency definitely reduces sperm quality.

•     Low sperm volume is an uncommon cause of male infertility.

•     Some women become allergic to their partner’s sperms and so never conceive.

•     Certain drug allergies cause a temporary shutdown of sperm production if the drug is taken.

•     Really poor nutrition undoubtedly reduces sperm production. Vitamins À, Â and Ñ have been found to be vital in human sperm formation and function and vitamin E is vital in rats at least.

•     Drugs can affect fertility in two ways. First, they may affect a man’s sex drive so that he wants to have sex only very infrequently (alcohol, sleeping tablets, tranquillizers, anti-depressants and some anti-blood-pressure drugs are examples). Second, several drugs actually affect sperm production. (Examples of these are sex hormones, anti-malarial drugs, certain anti-cancer drugs and Depo Provera.)

•     Impatience. Some couples are not really infertile but expect to conceive almost immediately and worry when they do not.

*182/72/5*

read comments (0)