Are you constantly struggling to maintain a healthy blood sugar level?
Confused about what to eat?
Do you need help relieving nerve pain, so you can sleep at night?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the questions above, then you must keep reading. Because I’m about to share with you the best option available for healthy blood sugar balance, and more.
Now, let me ask you a few more questions before we go further…
Are you trying to lower blood sugar naturally? Maybe you’re scared about going blind? Wouldn’t you love to save money at the pharmacy and need fewer test strips and medicine?
Well, I can help you with all of that.
Even if you’re worried about something really bad – like a heart attack or a stroke.
You see, I understand.
Because my own mom had those same fears as well, and today she’s okay. She’s actually 90 years old now and doesn’t have diabetes anymore, she hasn’t had it in years! Can you imagine getting older and being lucky enough to drop that diagnosis?
It’s kind of amazing, and I’m so proud of her.
In fact, I helped her do it. What happened was I moved into my mom and dad’s home years ago (along with Sam) while we were waiting for our new patio home to be built a few miles away. My mom and dad let us move in with them so my little family wouldn’t have to get an apartment.
Living with my parents turned out to be a blessing because over that year I got to see what was happening to their health. It scared me to death. Honestly, it did. My mom was taking several naps a day, forgetting little things here and there, and she got short of breath from doing not much of anything (like scooping a dead fish out of her fish tank).
And she had painful spasms come from out of nowhere…
…and worst of all? Her blood sugar was elevated and she was on four different medications.
Yep, you read that right – four!
One med was for high blood pressure, another med was for cholesterol, and the other two were for diabetes. How did I not know all this???!!! Well, she hid it from me – not wanting me to face the fact of her aging, her rapid health decline, and all that goes with these dreaded health conditions.
In other words, she was just looking out for my well-being.
She was too proud at the time to tell me that her doctor had discovered high cholesterol and put her on medicine for that a year before, but now she had high blood pressure and diabetes. Clearly, she was much worse AFTER starting the cholesterol medication and all the other medications she was taking diligently. After I got over my initial shock (for not being told or being involved), I knew in an instant that she was headed down a conventional path that would lead to more and more symptoms. I just knew her blood sugar was affecting her – making her sicker and sicker.
Wanna Know the Saddest Part About All of This Though?
Well, I knew looking at her and watching her sleep 4-6 hours each afternoon and then again at night, that she would be dead within a few years.
This is how it is with conventional medicine.
You’re treated for one disease with one medication and soon enough you’ll be guaranteed a new disease with MORE medications. In my mom’s case, she was first treated for high cholesterol, but then she had to begin treatment for diabetes.
She was told to eat more whole wheat grains (bad!) and to eat sweets that were made sugar-free – the ones made with artificial sweeteners – even more bad!!!
Now, let me ask you…
After you just read this, can you relate to any of it?
I figured you could.
See, you take all sorts of medications, and you restrict your diet until you’re eating nothing but tuna fish and water. And you’re putting artificial sweeteners into your system that act as anxiety-producing “excitoxins” – and you avoid parties where actual good food is served…
…because you’ve been told you simply can’t eat it.
Which sucks.
You might even be sticking yourself with injections that you don’t need, and hurting your fingers with all those needle-sticks. You might be going to your doctor month after month and praying that your blood tests are okay – but too often you need more medications and you’re going to the pharmacy even more often.
And yet, after doing everything “right,” you are still tired, still hungry, still hurting, and still confused.
It’s no fun.
Trust me, I know. I realized after seeing my mom’s list of diabetes medications that she really didn’t need them.
Despite all of that, do you want to know something truly interesting? Today my mom takes NOTHING, no medications at all, she hasn’t been on meds for cholesterol, blood pressure, or diabetes for years. And in her case, she’s better for it.
At 83, she’s free of drugs, and her biomarkers are currently all still normal.
Now, You’re Probably Wondering How This Miracle Happened
Let me explain…
First, it wasn’t a miracle. She was only taking a diabetes drug because she was already on another drug (which I’ll tell you about in a moment) and that FIRST drug was what was inducing her high blood sugar. And here she was, all messed up, sleeping all day, and not being the feisty, funny mom I had known all my life.
She used to have enough energy to drive her ice cream truck all over town for 12 hour days, and here she was only being able to work 3 hours per day, pretty much a zombie doing that.
What was worse, she was starving herself and restricting herself from delicious real foods so she was also tense and unhappy. I mean, we all want to eat, don’t we?!
Today, she is free of diabetes.
As a pharmacist, I know well how diabetes medications work.
And I am aware they can do a tremendous job at reducing blood sugar.
And to that I say – SO WHAT?
So what if your blood sugar is down if the fire inside your cells is still burning? Your capillaries are still clogged up preventing blood flow to your eyes (that can mean blindness) and to your brain (that can mean stroke) and to your heart (that can mean heart attack).
So what if your blood sugar is normal from the drug you’re taking? You’re still overweight and your nerves are still on fire (that’s called diabetic neuropathy). Now you have these horrible side effects and all you want to do is sleep all day like my mom, or you’re thirsty, or crampy, or starving yourself. That’s not a life. It really isn’t.
I know I can help you, either with my paperback book or my free articles archived on my website, with my newest PowerPoint presentation, or with this article that you’re reading right now.
But, If You Really Want to Get Well, Then Give Me A Minute and Read On
Now, let me ask you…
Have you fallen through the cracks?
In other words, have you been taking your health for granted (like countless others your age)?
It’s okay if you have. It’s very common. We take for granted that we will always have our eyesight, and our mobility, and that we’ll always be able to eat delicious food without any concern.
Most of us take our heart for granted until we feel chest pain or skipped beats. When there is too much sugar in your blood, you’re told you have diabetes. Then you become part of a multi-billion dollar business, one complete with shots, drugs, and scary complications, such as heart attack, stroke, amputations, blindness, and chronic fatigue.
Yikes!
But did you know that you could have developed diabetes years ago…
…and been incorrectly diagnosed as not having it?
I’m betting you wish you could eat chocolate chip cookies, or eat and drink regular foods again. Well, if that’s the case, I’m going to be generous. I’m going to give you the recipe right now for the very same chocolate chip cookies that I made for my mom all those years ago.
They are really good when they’re fresh and warm, plus they’re healthy and free of any allergy-causing ingredients.
My kids used to love these cookies too!
My Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
These cookies are free of gluten and wheat because the base is almond flour. They are sweetened with a little bit of natural turbinado sugar (not some fake lab-created sugar wanna-be that acts like an excitotoxin). Your body understands sugar, and it can break sugar down, and get sugar out of the body.
But some fake chemicals – your body might not be able to get rid of those so they never leave your body.
Instead, they stick to your cells forever. Now, and this is really important for you to remember, the problem with diabetes isn’t sugar, it’s the inflammatory chemicals and the way your genes ‘speak’ to each other.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup blanched almonds (the thicker kind of almond)
3/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 ripe banana, mashed
2 tablespoons cornstarch blended with 1/4 cup water (this is an egg replacer)
2.5 tablespoons grape seed (or almond oil)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract, preferably alcohol free
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons hulled hemp seeds
1/4 cup organic walnuts, chopped
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet. I use stoneware but you can use metal. In a large bowl, combine the flour with everything else. Just mix it with clean hands and form about 24 cookie balls in your hand. You might need to keep your hands a little moist. Flatten the cookie balls onto the greased pan. These cookies will not spread like traditional cookies, they’ll stay right where you put them, so you can put them close together. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the top edges turn lightly brown. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.
With that said, let’s get back to the topic at hand…
Now, If You’re Overweight, You Might Have Diabetes, Even If Your Tests Are “Normal”
There is no need to be ashamed, you’ve done nothing wrong to get to this point. I blame the health-care industry as a whole, for the failure. They put commercials on TV for disease-causing foods, and then a minute later, they air drug commercials to fix all your diseases.
It’s awful really.
I literally watched a pizza commercial, then a sub sandwich commercial, then one right after for an injectable diabetic drug – you know, the one linked to pancreatitis. I’m not naming it…
…but, honestly, who wants to wake up dead tomorrow?
The statistics are catastrophic, too.
29 million people have diabetes. That’s about nine percent of the entire U.S. population.
Yep, you read that right – nine percent of us.
What’s frightening is that only 21 million people KNOW they have it, leaving 8 million people with diabetes who are undiagnosed. While the condition rages inside you, your kidney function diminishes, your eyesight goes, you feel more and more tired, and you lose the opportunity to do something about it because you have not been diagnosed. Yet.
People who are overweight most likely have some blood sugar abnormalities, and, if they were tested correctly, they’d see this. But testing is a disaster.
It really is.
You see, your fasting blood sugar level is tested as the norm, instead of testing for insulin levels. And there’s a ratio you need to have in order to be considered well. This is all explained in Diabetes Without Drugs.
Diabetes and its complications like obesity, heart attack, and blindness have reached epidemic proportions. It’s time to take this disease seriously. I believe there are natural ways to help your body obtain balance and to make it process blood sugar normally again.
The Nightmare Few People Have Heard About
So, here’s the rest of the story about my sweet mom (who was born in Paris in 1933 by the way)…
She was given atorvastatin (Lipitor) in 2008 and then told months later she had suddenly developed diabetes. All of a sudden! Helping her regain her health, and figuring out what to cook, how to eat, and what to do to maintain healthy levels of both insulin and blood sugar took me years to figure out.
Just imagine how much time and effort went into figuring this out for someone I loved dearly
I did everything I could…
The whole situation kicked me into high gear because it prompted my research to better understand the metabolic pathways, the genetics, and how to naturally hack the body’s intricate system. It led to the publication of my second book Diabetes Without Drugs (Rodale, 2010).
Now, here’s how it could happen to you:
You are prescribed a statin drug by your physician and you go back six months later for routine blood work. They find that your cholesterol ratios have improved, but your blood sugar levels went up. Now you are diagnosed with “diabetes” or “pre-diabetes.”
But is it really?
It’s very likely that your doctor has mistakenly diagnosed you with diabetes when all you have is a side effect known as statin-induced hyperglycemia. If you were to find another way to control your cholesterol and get off the statin drug, then, lo and behold, the hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) would go away.
This is exactly what happened to my mom.
I enabled her to get off her statin medication and her diabetes magically went away. And you know what else went away? Her back spasms, her fatigue, and her leg cramps.
So, I ask you now, do you think you really have type 2 diabetes? If so, are you also taking a statin med? If so, you NEED to ask your doctor about getting off that. It’s possible that you are taking drug after drug for true diabetes when all you really have is statin-induced diabetes.
I was among the first to bring this to light many years ago…
…and today we have more than enough research to prove that I was right!
Please make sure you have diabetes (the real disorder), and not a man-made disease induced by a medication you took for high cholesterol.
The statins offset the cholesterol that you make, not the cholesterol you eat.
Why, you ask?
Because statins block your own endogenous cholesterol production in your liver. This means that statins force your liver to ‘spit out’ the glucose that comes from eating sugary, starchy foods.
Normally, your liver would turn that PB&J sandwich into cholesterol but instead, the glucose gets pushed back into your bloodstream. So, if you take a diabetic drug, then some of that glucose gets pushed into the cell by force. It’s not a natural process…
…it’s all by force, chemically speaking.
And It’s Not Even Just About Blood Sugar (Which Is a Big Misconception)
Sure, there are many medications that work quickly to bring those blood sugar numbers down.
This meets the expectation of your physician who is seeking to bring your blood sugar down as quickly as possible. But it doesn’t meet my expectations. Nope, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t.
Just because your blood sugar is “normal” doesn’t make you well.
It just means that your blood sugar was pushed into your cells BY FORCE, and it may be even exploded some cells, meaning it’s not really healing you. But, at least your lab work looks good, right?!
It’s super annoying to me that they’ve practically convinced the naive public that forcing blood sugar into the cells and popping them (because cells can’t survive with a ton of sugar in them) is actually good for us. The real way to help yourself…
…is to get your metabolic pathways and chemistry normalized!
The expectation is a big deal. What do you expect when you take an herbal formula to support your body if you have diabetes? I bet a lot of you expect that the herbal formula will take the place of your Actos or Metformin, but it won’t. Herbals don’t work like that.
In fact, dietary supplements should not be substituted for any medication (unless your doctor tells you to do that). You see, medications work well to reduce blood sugar. They force the sugar OUT of the blood and INTO the cell. So, when your blood is measured, your blood sugar levels look good.
But what happened inside the cells? It isn’t pretty. It gets so concentrated inside the cells, and uncomfortable, that some cells die from the oxidation.
The industry and current standard of care has made millions of people number junkies. You compulsively check numbers like your blood sugar, cholesterol and so forth. You take pills so that these biomarkers go into the normal range without ever thinking, “Is this good for me?”
You take pills and shots and everything so you can “normalize” your blood sugar.
As a number junkie, you might become obsessed with your blood sugar.
Prick your finger every morning like a robot and check that blood sugar. Check it every day, sometimes 3 times a day, sometimes more. But it’s just one number.
Your fasting blood sugar (FBS) could very well be normal, while your body remains inflamed and you remain sick. You’re short-changing yourself if you solely focus on blood sugar numbers.
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, become a number junkie!
It makes me feel bad when I see someone who has lost a limb, or become “legally blind” from the complications of diabetes. I feel like in some cases this could be prevented if blood sugar were not the sole focus, but this is the problem you’re up against today.
Some of You May Be Taking Drugs That Even Cause Diabetes
– Thiazide diuretics that treat high blood pressure
– Beta-blockers used for high blood pressure
– Statins used for cholesterol management
– Immuno-suppressant drugs used for autoimmune disorders
– Mood-altering medications, like anti-psychotics
– HIV medications
– Certain blood pressure drugs
Why hasn’t the condition been resolved? we all ask…
- Is it the way our foods have changed?
- Is it the use of medications that induces diabetes?
- Is it the stress level that we live with?
- Yes, yes, and yes.
- Is it because we take medications that only affect blood sugar, and never really address the inflammatory component that keeps the body “on fire”?
Again, my answer is yes – definitely.
Let’s Dive into the Problems You Have to Overcome
1) They’re testing you badly!
Physicians test for blood sugar…
…but this result will be normal for about 10 years, meanwhile diabetes is blowing up inside you. They should be measuring your insulin levels along with your blood glucose. This little tip could save your limbs!
PLEASE – please ask for this test (nag if you have to).
You may not have heard of measuring “serum insulin” because conventional doctors are hyper-focused on blood sugar, but insulin will keep your blood sugar normal for many years until it’s overpowered and worn out. That’s when your blood sugar starts to go up.
At that point, they are likely to tell you that you have diabetes, but trust me – it doesn’t happen overnight.
If anyone had just bothered to check your serum insulin…
…it would have been sky high for years prior to your “diabetes” diagnosis. If it is high, then that’s a sign your blood sugar is elevated and this test will tell you years before your blood sugar is high.
Your insulin level is a much better marker of the damage that is happening inside you. Your insulin should be about 5 (micro-units/ml). If it’s above 25, it’s likely you do have diabetes, so you have to act quickly to reverse the condition. It happens over years, and I’m telling you a big secret: YOUR INSULIN is high for many years before your blood sugar starts to rise.
Moving on…
2) Medication side effects are harmful
For example, over 5 or 10 years, some medications will increase your risk for bladder dysfunction or even bladder cancer. There’s an actual “black box” warning by the FDA on some of these, while other medications can raise the risk for pancreatitis. While rare, these side effects are still possible.
You deserve to know.
One of the most often prescribed medications can cause a depletion of vitamin B12, methylcobalamin, which is your nervous system’s favorite form of vitamin B12.
3) They’re not treating the real cause of diabetes
It’s inflammation, not high blood sugar. High blood sugar is the RESULT of inflammatory cytokines that have been left unchecked. They are out of control, and your cells are starving.
4) Most supplements don’t use natural forms of nutrients
The nutrients used in many supplement formulas are not present in their biologically active form, which means your body can’t use them until your body can convert them. As an example, the myelin-loving form of vitamin B12 that supports nerve health is “methylcobalamin” – not cyanocobalamin.
5) The medications used to treat diabetes lead to nerve pain
Crazy but true.
Many medications that regulate blood sugar can deplete you of the nutrients that form the wrapping around your nerves. More specifically, some drugs are “drug muggers” of vitamin B12, which you need to make the myelin that protects your nerves.
Deficiencies of vitamin B12 are associated with confusion, forgetfulness, trouble concentrating, diarrhea or constipation, nerve pain, anemia, swollen tongue, shortness of breath, and pale skin.
When demyelination occurs due to long-term use of certain diabetic medications, you begin to get peripheral neuropathy, which is characterized by “pins and needles,” numbness, or the feeling of bugs crawling on your skin. Neuropathies can affect your bladder, too.
Has anyone ever told you to take vitamin B12 whenever you take Metformin?
I sure hope so.
6) Because pancreatitis hurts!
Certain diabetes medications work by manipulating your pancreatic cells…
…in a very unnatural way. Over time, your pancreas gets inflamed, which causes left-sided abdominal pain, changes in stool color or texture (steatorrhea), and full-blown pancreatitis. Now that is just unbelievable, but it’s sadly true. There are many warnings all over the Internet about popular medications and how they might be implicated in pancreatitis.
Support Yourself Naturally
If you have the beginnings of diabetes, and you’re worried, be proactive.
Some of the first signs include nerve pain or itchiness, or having frequent UTIs. This is a sign of the inflammatory process that is occurring in your body. Many dietary supplements contain unproven or counterfeit extracts, with no clinical proof behind their use.
As a pharmacist for 25 years, I’m very aware of the dangers of medications, and how you need to constantly weigh the risks and benefits of medications. Then there’s dietary confusion.
Should you use artificial sweeteners or not? Should you skip breakfast or not? I’d say NO to both of those. And you should too.
It’s mentally confusing and exhausting. I know. And, to make matters worse, medications are expensive. The strips and blood glucose monitors are expensive.
These items cost money, and so does going to the doctor frequently. But, forget the financial cost, there’s a huge catastrophic cost to losing quality of life…
…from a surgery, amputation, or infected wound.
Continue to read my other articles to learn how to support yourself the way nature intended.
And if you aren’t already one of the 130,000+ that subscribe to my email newsletter to receive the latest health tips, JOIN HERE.
Suzy Cohen, has been a licensed pharmacist for over 30 years and believes the best approach to chronic illness is a combination of natural medicine and conventional. She founded her own dietary supplement company specializing in custom-formulas, some of which have patents. With a special focus on functional medicine, thyroid health and drug nutrient depletion, Suzy is the author of several related books including Thyroid Healthy, Drug Muggers, Diabetes Without Drugs, and a nationally syndicated column.
