People with a higher dietary intake of vitamin K are significantly less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, according to a study conducted by researchers from University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and published in the journal Diabetes Care.

Vitamin K, known to play a critical role in blood coagulation, comes in two forms: K1 and K2. Vitamin K1 is found primarily in green leafy vegetables, as well as certain fruits such as kiwifruit and avocado. Vitamin K2 is found in meat, eggs and dairy products, and is also synthesized by the human body. Because the vitamin can be produced by the body and is needed only in small quantities, deficiencies are rare except in those with underlying medical conditions.

In the new study, researchers followed more than 38,000 Dutch adults for more than 10 years, tracking their diet and lifestyle habits and overall health data. At the end of 10 years, they found that participants with the highest vitamin K1 intake were 19 percent less likely to have developed Type 2 diabetes than those with the lowest intake. Likewise, those with the highest vitamin K2 intake were 20 percent less likely to develop the disease than those with the lowest intake.

The U.S. government recommends a daily vitamin K intake (all forms combined) of 12 micrograms for men and 90 micrograms for women. Study participants with the highest intake were consuming between 250 and 360 micrograms per day.

Vitamin K1 appeared to be associated with decreased diabetes risk only at very high doses. In contrast, every 10 microgram increase in vitamin K2 intake led to a decrease in diabetes risk.

The researchers noted that since the study was correlational, they could not show whether vitamin K plays an active role in diabetes prevention or not. They did separate the effects seen from those of age, body weight, exercise and intake of fat, fiber, vitamin C and vitamin E, however.

Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS….

Back in February, I wrote an article about how a Senate Finance Committee report revealed that GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of the diabetes drug Avandia, knew that its drug was dangerous and caused heart attacks; yet GSK went out of its way to hide this important information from the public and kept on selling Avandia. Now, GSK has now decided to launch a global clinical trial of this dangerous drug that could potentially harm thousands of people.

Both FDA and GSK scientists have found that Avandia is dangerous and significantly increases the risk of heart attacks, but the drug remains on the market to this day. FDA officials have rejected sound scientific evidence demonstrating the dangers of the drug, including evidence from the FDA’s own scientists. (Read all about the Avandia scandal in my previous article on the subject.)

Meanwhile, GSK is moving forward with a global clinical trial that it says will compare the safety of Avandia with other diabetes drugs in its class. In other words, according to press reports, GSK knows Avandia is dangerous, but it’s choosing to go ahead with a trial anyway… a trial that could put the lives of thousands of people at risk.

Real scientists say Avandia drug trial is unethical and dangerous

Dr. David Juurlink, chief of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, and Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of health research for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, have petitioned the FDA to stop the GSK drug trial. Citing concerns that the trial is “unethical” and “dangerous”, the two are doing what the FDA itself should be doing – assessing the evidence and coming to a rational conclusion about risk versus benefit.

After all, it was Dr. Juurlink’s 2009 study which already found that Avandia increases the risk of heart failure and death by 30 percent more than another diabetes drug in the same class. Not only has Avandia been proven to be dangerous, it’s been proven to be even more dangerous than the competition.

And numerous studies years before found that Avandia increases the risk of heart problems and death, prompting the FDA to issue two black-box warnings for the drug back in 2007.

But at this point, it doesn’t seem to matter how many people suffer and die from Avandia because the FDA somehow doesn’t believe there is “conclusive evidence” that Avandia is dangerous, so pharmacies everywhere continue to sell it. And even though GSK knows that Avandia is statistically responsible for an increase in deaths, it continues to push this drug on the masses.

GSK guilty of negligent deaths?

If you really think about it, what GSK is doing amounts to negligent homicide. The company is knowingly and willfully selling a dangerous drug that’s killing people, and now it wants to subject even more people to unnecessary risk of death through a medically unnecessary clinical trial that’s global in scope.

I say “medically unnecessary” because there have already been a number of studies verifying that Avandia is dangerous. Why create another trial with 16,000 participants to reveal what we already know? How many more people need to suffer or die before the FDA pulls the drug from the market?

The sheer lunacy of what’s taking place here in the name of “medicine” and “science” is shocking — even to those of us who follow the crimes and corruption of Big Pharma on a regular basis. Real scientists and doctors know this behavior by GSK is appalling, and apparently so does much of the public who, according to new reports, are refusing to even participate in the trial.

GSK can’t even get Americans to participate in the trial, so it’s moving to third-world countries

Typically when drug companies conduct clinical trials, they pay people a sum of money to act as guinea pigs for a new drug. (Sadly, many people are willing to ingest experimental substances for a couple hundred bucks). However according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, GSK can’t even get Americans to sign up!

You see, the average joe has more common sense than the FDA, and a lot of people know that Avandia is dangerous. The Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, for example, which is one of GSK’s study sites, has “not succeed[ed] in recruiting anybody” in over a year. And this is during a time when a lot of Americans are out of jobs and desperately need the cash.

So what does GSK do in response? It opens dozens of new sites in third-world countries where it can prey on innocent poor people who are less informed about the dangers of Avandia.

In fact, this is part of the reason why Dr. Juurlink and Dr. Wolfe are urging the FDA to stop the trial. They recognize how evil it is for GSK to exploit ill-informed people from other countries when things aren’t going so well for Avandia back at home. In targeting low-income third-world study subjects, GSK is demonstrating itself to be a ruthless, money-hungry organization that has no qualms about exploiting human lives to achieve its profit goals.

The inhumanity of the medical-industrial complex

The whole Avandia fiasco is truly indicative of the way the medical-industrial complex operates. You would think that after all the studies and trials proving its dangers, the countless lawsuits and the official government report, that GSK would at least back down from this drug. Not only has GSK continued to deny the obvious truth about Avandia’s risks, but now it is shamelessly pressing forward to expand the market for Avandia around the world. (Remind you of anything? How about Big Tobacco?)

It seems obvious that Avandia should be pulled from the market and GSK investigated for its role in pushing a knowingly harmful drug. At the very least, there should be a moratorium on the sale of the drug until GSK can prove the safety of Avandia. But in the real world, this dangerous drug is being treated as safe and its producer is allowed to continue using it on human guinea pigs around the world.

If GSK was a person, that person might be classified as a serial killer (and the FDA would be considered its accomplice). Both GSK and the FDA, if they were people, would be pursued for their crimes against society. But because they are two of the key organizational players in the global medical-industrial complex, they continue to perpetrate their crimes without consequence.

This may be changing, though, as people wake up to the truth. The fact that GSK can’t get U.S. participants to sign up for its Avandia clinical trials says to me that people are really starting to recognize “the emperor has no clothes.” Big Pharma’s lies can only continue for so long before the truth is exposed.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/029552_GSK_Avandia.html

New Welcomes For Diabetes Destiny

Before today’s kindergartners reach their college years, the number of people with diabetes is expected to at least double and the cost of diabetes care to at least triple in the U.S.—that is if we are to believe the conservative estimates of a recent study and consequent media reports (see here and here).

As long as overweight or obese trends continue, then, according to the study, “between 2009 and 2034, the number of people with diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes will increase from 23.7 million to 44.1 million” and “diabetes-related spending is expected to increase from $113 billion to $336 billion.”   

These numbers are a tragedy at our doorstep. A rise in diabetes ultimately means more suffering and more early deaths. The disease has already been recognized as one of the top 10 killers in the U.S. for more than half a century. It’s also responsible for bringing about blindness, kidney failure, birth defects and foot and leg amputations for thousands annually.

A broadened perspective paints an ever-grimmer picture of the future.  It would be naïve to focus solely on diabetes when the metabolic condition characterized by elevated blood sugar has been consistently linked as a risk factor to other diseases.

Each individual, for example, who is counted among the study’s reported diabetes doubling effect will also double his or her risk of developing coronary artery disease and peripheral vascular disease. Further adding to the tally, as reported previously, a combination of obesity and diabetes leads to a four-fold increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. If the rise in diabetes cases alone is believed to be serious and costly, then it’s difficult to imagine the damage resulting from a parallel increase of these other devastating diseases.

A forecast of epidemics that lie ahead, once again, must turn our attention to the area of preventive health. The effort to avoid this situation must begin now if it is to happen at all, especially when it can be accomplished through low-cost measures that can be applied by anyone.

Three Steps to Beat Diabetes Epidemic

Step 1: Getting Diagnosed

Beating diabetes starts with a short visit to the doctor’s office. Regrettably, many fail in achieving this step. An approximate 30 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are undiagnosed, according to the most recent data from National Health and Examination Surveys.

Diabetes diagnosis is simply a matter of recognizing classic signs and symptoms—such as frequent urination or heavy thirst—and measuring for persistent elevated blood glucose. The diagnosis is often made via an oral glucose tolerance test. The test involves a fasting patient drinking a sugar (glucose) solution as blood sugar is monitored periodically. If, after two hours, blood sugar continues to be above 140 mg/dL, then impaired glucose tolerance is diagnosed; if the levels exceed 200 mg/dL, then diabetes is diagnosed.

Once diagnosed, a patient can start to take action to maintain or improve his or her health. Making lifestyle changes are the most effective way to manage diabetes, one being glycemic control.

Step 2: Glycemic Control

Glycemic control is the practice of keeping blood glucose levels within a healthy range. For a person with diabetes, tight glycemic control is vital for preventing further complications. The self-monitoring of blood glucose is not a difficult task. It can be performed easily enough with a portable, battery-operated glucose meter. A close eye on blood sugar helps a person assess the effects of diet, exercise and medication.

Glycemic control isn’t just useful to people with diabetes, however. It is good advice for everyone. Since glycemic control can be helpful in managing weight, it can also help guard against insulin resistance, which leads  to reduced risk of diabetes. 

At its core, getting off the blood sugar roller coaster involves exercise, losing weight, eating balanced meals that are lower in carbohydrates, keeping to low-glycemic index foods (think whole wheat bread and sweet potatoes versus white bread and Russet potatoes), and consuming plenty of dietary fiber daily.    

Step 3: Diabetes and Obesity Awareness

To make a dent in the end-figures of diabetes, a strong and continued message of awareness must resonate across the entire U.S. All that’s necessary is another look at the number above: 44.1 million people.

As much as possible, the primary call to action must be to lose weight. Being overweight or obese is the major risk factor in type 2 diabetes. As a matter of interest, earlier this year European researchers discovered a new molecule called CXCL5 that may be the cause of insulin resistance. It is theorized that the molecule is produced in overabundance only in cases of overweight or obesity.

Losing weight is no simple task. Our modern conveniences make it all too easy to live a sedentary lifestyle with calorie-rich foods like potato chips always within reach. Most people who attempt dieting often fail and, in addition, make the situation worse by not receiving adequate nutrition. 

Adopting a healthy weight management system is a matter of finding a disciplined, nutrition-focused program and a community of support. Isagenix is a company with the right approach.

For original article click here.

(NaturalNews) There’s yet another reason why eating the Mediterranean way is not only delicious but extraordinarily healthy. In addition to helping prevent and even treat type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, dementia and obesity, the Mediterranean diet, which consists of lots of fruits, nuts, whole grains and fish, also helps keep depression at bay. That’s the conclusion of new research just published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

According to background information in the study, the rate of mental disorders over the course of a lifetime is lower in the Mediterranean region than in Northern European countries. That observation suggested to researchers that the way people eat in Mediterranean countries could play a role in better mental health. In fact, earlier research has indicated monounsaturated fatty acids in olive oil, which are used abundantly in the Mediterranean diet, could lower the risk of clinical depression.

Almudena Sanchez-Villegas, B.Pharm., Ph.D., of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Clinic of the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, and colleagues investigated 10,094 healthy Spanish participants who completed an initial questionnaire between 1999 and 2005. The research subjects kept track of what they ate daily by using a food frequency list. The scientists then calculated adherence to the Mediterranean diet based on these nine measurements: a high ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids, moderate intake of alcohol, moderate consumption of dairy products, low intake of meat and a high consumption of legumes, fruit, nuts, cereals, vegetables and fish.

After approximately 4.4 years of follow-up, 480 research subjects were diagnosed with depression, including 156 men and 324 women. However, the people who had followed the Mediterranean diet most closely had a greater than 30 percent reduction in the risk of depression than whose who had the lowest Mediterranean diet scores.

“The specific mechanisms by which a better adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern could help to prevent the occurrence of depression are not well known,” the authors wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry research paper. “Components of the diet may improve blood vessel function, fight inflammation, reduce risk for heart disease and repair oxygen-related cell damage, all of which may decrease the chances of developing depression.”

“However, the role of the overall dietary pattern may be more important than the effect of single components. It is plausible that the synergistic combination of a sufficient provision of omega-three fatty acids together with other natural unsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants from olive oil and nuts, flavonoids and other phytochemicals from fruit and other plant foods and large amounts of natural folates and other B vitamins in the overall Mediterranean dietary pattern may exert a fair degree of protection against depression,” the scientists concluded.

Although antidepressant drugs such as Prozac and Paxil are now the most commonly prescribed medications in the U.S.(http://www.naturalnews.com/027054_d…), there are numerous natural alternatives to these risky, mind altering chemicals. As NaturalNews has reported previously, a host of natural strategies are known to help fight depression including

For original article click here.

How to change the future

In a recent post I did on John Anderson’s advise on cleansing with diabetes, I did for a friend who is a diabetic and is preparing to do his first 9 day cleanse.  We will be giving updates throught the cleanse, as well as his before and after pictures.  This information below from Dr. Dennis Harper also gives great tips for those cleansing with diabetes.

If you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, then there are a few things of which you should be aware if deciding to use the Cleansing and Fat Burning System.

Type 1 diabetes

It’s common to have lower levels of glucose while on the products. Be careful with your use of insulin. I recommend to my patients that they cut their insulin in half while they do this program and adjust it accordingly. I also recommend my patients use short-acting insulin. Please consult your doctor before adjusting medication. You cannot expect to get off of insulin, of course, but you can expect to feel better and lower the levels of insulin required.

During the Shake Days you may find that the glucose levels increase. This is expected, but if the rise is too high then you can consider switching to diluting the shake with our unflavored whey protein, IsaPro, or having ½ a shake 4 times a day or ½ a shake 2 times day. Watch your glucose levels to guide you.

Type 2 diabetes

Monitor your glucose levels closely since it’s easy to have low levels while on the program. I personally recommend to my diabetics that they cut their medications in half if they are going to start on the 9-Day Program and if they are using insulin to only use the shorter-acting insulins. Please consult your doctor before adjusting medication.

A temporary glucose rise would be OK since it’s better than you falling into a hypoglycemic state, which is more dangerous than a hyperglycemic state. What we generally see is a reduction of both medication and glucose levels with this program. The Shake Days may very well show an increase in the glucose levels but as your weight goes down this generally is self-correcting. If this rise is too great for you then you can switch to just the IsaPro or you can use ½ a shake 4 times a day or reduce the amount to just ½ a shake 2 times a day.

I have also seen my patients no longer require any type of medication for diabetes, but individual differences doesn’t make this the case for everyone.* At the very least you should see a reduction in your weight and a reduction in the amount of medication that you are using.

Dennis Harper, DO
Isagenix Scientific Advisory Board Chair

This information on this Web site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient and her or his physician or other health-care professional.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

If you want more information on Isagenix and Diabetes I can put you in touch with my fried Rob who has MS and diabetes and can tell you all the good benefits he has received as a result of cleansing with Isagenix.  Just fill out the contact me form and I’ll get your information over to him.

I have a friend who has diabetes and who has some of these same issues John Anderson shares in the article below.  If you have diabetes, there is some great advise here for you.

From John Anderson, Founder and Formulator of Isagenix:

A member reported that her friend has diabetes and can not sleep,  at night. Lack of sleep can be a major cause of high blood sugar in the morning, sounds like she may be kicking and tossing. High levels cause leg aching and just add to restless nights. Sleep apnea is very devastating to diabetics. There is a morning high sugar problem called twilight, this is when a diabetic wakes up every morning with high blood sugar for no reason. The cause, “Lack of Sleep”.

The liver does produce glucose and adds to the problem if insulin medication is not taken.

Your friend needs an evaluation from a qualified specialist now!
There is no way to know the history without record keeping and monitoring levels, food/carbohydrate consumption, medications, collectively. This is the responsibility of both the diabetic and the Doctor.

Nutrition;
All Diabetics are not created equal!
Because blood levels and treatment are subject to each individual, there is no way to set one program up to work for every diabetics needs.

There are ways to win the battle and using “nutrition” is one of them. A diabetic need to become aware of controlling their blood sugar levels and how to use their medications first.
Then it’s very easy to make the necessary adjustments to live healthy and control and minimize the damaging affect of Diabetes.

The IsaLean Shakes, Cleanse, and system can be used with great results and control weight. Be aware and know your body, follow the sliding scale your Doctor recommends, and you will feel better than ever.

John will be coming out with some more information that will be useful for diabetics soon.  I’ll keep you posted!