Exciting news on type 2 diabetes & obesity….

Today's Post: Monday, 7-27-2009

We’ve already posted that eating health harmful foods and not exercising produce very different effects than eating right and exercising and that this is particularly true for whether or not you get too fat or get type 2 diabetes. We’ve also posted that quite vigorous exercise for even as little as 30 seconds a time done a few times each week lowers insulin resistance!

But new research that was in today’s health news has some extremely promising information.

It seems that the health habits that cause being too fat as well as the fat cells themselves cause inflammation and harmful changes to your immune system.

And, if you normalize your immune system, particularly the mast cells that act up in allergies, and you lower inflammation, you can get extra leverage on losing the fat AND you may largely TURN OFF type 2 diabetes and do so even if you haven’t yet lost all the fat you should.

That is extremely important news. Many of the blood sugar lowering drugs for type 2 diabetes don’t work well and have unpleasant or dangerous side effects. They seem to work mostly on turning down the symptoms of type 2 rather than turning off the causes.

To be sure, much of this new research has been done in mice.

But, to me it looks quite likely to apply to people too.

A. The most exciting study was done on using either of two allergy drugs to treat the mast cell dysfunction that overfed and fattened mice who developed type 2 diabetes also got.

When the researchers fed the mice normally and stopped overfeeding them, the mice got somewhat better on being overfat and having type 2 diabetes.

When the researchers gave the mice either an allergy drug called Zaditor (ketotifen) or cromolyn sodium, an asthma drug, that reversed the mast cell abnormalities apparently caused by being or becoming overfat. The mice lost more fat and got even better on having type 2 diabetes than just feeding them better achieved. That was true for either drug.

And, if the mice were fed better AND got one of the drugs, they lost 100 % of the extra fat and the type 2 diabetes.

If that applies to people, it is HUGELY important.

1. Some low level or early stage type 2 diabetics can partially reverse the type 2 diabetes by simply stopping the health harmful foods and beginning to eat right instead. But often they only get a partial improvement.

Adding one of these drugs or a supplement with similar effects might well convert this to complete reversal of the type 2 diabetes.

Since the drugs are already FDA approved as allergy drugs, it may not be necessary to wait for research to try them since some doctors may well be willing to write what are called second use prescriptions.

Even better, an article recently came out that the reason that the supplement quercetin tended to turn off or turn down allergic reactions was because it had exactly this normalizing effect on the body’s mast cells. So, by taking 250 mg a day to 250 mg 3 times a day, you might well get similar effects.

Quercetin is also in foods. Quercetin is in apples, onions, and black tea. And every one of those are things that you can eat or drink that help you lose fat and eat right.

2. Many people eat better enough to lose about 5% of their bodyweight of their excess fat.

But, despite the massive health benefits of doing so, they don’t lose all their excess fat or look that different. So, in part because of that, many people then give up the effort and gain back the fat they lost.

But if by also taking one of the two drugs or the supplement quercetin, they lost close to all their excess fat with much the same effort, they might be so pleased they would maintain their eating right and keep the fat off.

And, by losing fat more quickly, more people would continue until they got results.

That’s also a huge potential benefit.

B. Other studies found that over eating (or drinking) health harmful foods and drinks also messed up the number of T-cells your body produces and sharply increased inflammation.

That in turn tended to bring on type 2 diabetes or make it worse. (Increased inflammation also magnifies pain and increases heart disease and heart attack risks!)

But that is also of interest.

1. If you stop eating meat from grain fed animals or farmed fish and eat other protein foods instead such as nonfat or very lowfat dairy foods, nuts, beans, or eggs &/or eat meat only from animals fed only grass or wild caught fish & or only eat small servings of the very leanest meat from grain fed animals, the amount of excess saturated fat and omega 6 oils you ingest will drop. If you also stop using other vegetable oils such as corn oil, canola oil, and soy oil and only use extra virgin olive oil, the amount of excess omega 6 oils will drop again. If you stop eating all refined grain foods; and only eat whole grain foods in moderation, that will cut your intake of excess omega 6 oils further.

If you eat wild caught fish and seafood high in omega 3 oils &/or take omega 3 supplements, that will also help restore a more desirable balance of omega 3 to omega 6 oils.

Each of these steps has been shown to reduce inflammation. By doing them all, you can reduce inflammation a lot.

2. Even better, regular exercise that isn’t overdone to the point of injury, reduces inflammation.

3. Lastly, in addition to normalizing your mast cells, the food component and supplement quercetin lowers inflammation.

So does turmeric.

So, if you take all these steps to lower inflammation, your fat loss will be better and your leverage on stopping type 2 diabetes will be better.

C. In addition, there are a number of foods and supplements and actions we now know tend to normalize your immune system. They not only make it stronger, they also tend to stop it from OVER-reacting with things like allergies, inflammation, autoimmune disease, and sepsis.

The number one most important item on that list is to be sure to get at least 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. Since many of us work indoors and don’t get outside that much on week-ends either, that means taking at least that much D3 from supplements.

D3 is so effective in this regard many now think that taking 5,000 iu a day of D3 may tend to prevent getting swine flu and other new flu variants AND to ensure surviving it if you do.

Taking probiotics also tends to strengthen your immune system and make getting flu and colds less likely.

Mushrooms, not just taking the exotic mushroom supplements but even eating button mushrooms a few times a week on your salad, boosts your immune system.

Taking at least 1,000 mg a day of vitamin C or more and up to 45 mg a day of zinc strengthens your immune system. Eating organic vegetables and whole organic fruits each day that are high in natural vitamin C also helps.

Lastly, regular socializing with people, NOT treating the people around you harshly when it’s not called for, and making special effort to notice what people do right and be kind to them, has massive benefits for your immune system.