CHAPTER 10 
I get a lot of questions in my email. Some of them are so ludicrous that they make Paris Hilton look like a Nobel laureate. “I just vaccinated my child; is green tea safe for boosting immunity, too?” asked a doctor’s wife. “Will I have to stop drinking soda to lower my blood sugar?” asked a type 2 diabetic of ten years. And make sure you’re sitting down for this one. “My cat is overweight. I think he has diabetes, too. Can I put him on your eating plan?” asked an elementary school teacher.
But every now and then, I get a legit question: “How can I defy obesity and high blood sugar without resorting to prescription drugs?” asked Jeff. This question got my attention. Millions of people are suffering from high blood sugar but rarely think twice about taking serious action. Instead, they are focused on symptoms like obesity, high blood pressure, and cancer. Jeff was the exception, and I liked his question. He knew he had “bad blood” and wanted to do something about it.
Jeff was about to turn forty-five years old. His oldest daughter was graduating college in a month. An engineer from a top firm, he was getting a promotion in a week. He and his wife were planning for a Bahamian cruise for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Jeff had a lot to live for, but he was barely living.
A routine blood test revealed that Jeff’s blood sugar was 300mg/dL. Normal is 85 to 95mg/dL. Anything over 125mg/dL, and you’re labeled a type 2 diabetic or, more accurately, “insulin resistant.” The bad blood was putting Jeff into an early grave.
With his surging blood-sugar levels, Jeff’s blood pressure had shot to 190/100. He was depressed, lacked energy, lost his libido, and suffered from daily bouts of heart pain known as angina. That was just the beginning. Over time, high blood sugar can eat you alive.
If blood sugar goes unchecked, it can devastate the entire body. Everything from hearing and vision to sexual function, mental health, and sleep are affected. It’s the leading cause of blindness, amputations, and kidney failure. It can triple the risk for heart attack and stroke.129 This highly underrated, insidious, and deadly disorder affects an estimated 25 percent of the population and is growing in prevalence.
Jeff’s doctors attempted to save him by prescribing a truckload of prescription drugs. His medicine cabinet was filled with orange prescription bottles that were opened several times per day for “proper dosing.” Yet, his health continued to decline. In the past two years, he looked as though he had aged ten. That’s when he started taking matters into his own hands.
“I knew that drugs weren’t helping. I just kept hoping that in time they would. They didn’t, so I made a commitment to make changes, which meant looking for a way to get healthy outside of the drug model,” Jeff confessed.
“But, when I researched high blood sugar online, I only found an explosion of sales hype and conflicting health information. I was lost in a sea of confusion and frustration,” he explained, which is why he contacted me. “I didn’t know blood sugar from ice cream, and I had no idea what my drugs were attempting to do or how they might be hurting me. All I knew was that following doctor’s orders wasn’t working. I just wanted to know what was happening to my blood.”
“Yes, you can overcome blood sugar naturally and defy obesity and diabetes!” I responded enthusiastically. I was anxious to work with someone who knew he had to treat the cause of his illness rather than the many symptoms. “High blood sugar is a disorder of poor habits. Regardless of your family history, we can beat it and all of its complications!”
I emphasized that “if you treat a person’s habits, you can successfully treat his or her bad blood. You don’t need risky expensive drugs or fad diets and rigid exercise. You simply need to adhere to nutrient logic, as proven historically and with today’s state-of-the-art drug discovery technologies!”
After one week of following my advice, Jeff’s blood sugar dropped as fast as stock market indexes do when banks make predatory loans. His blood sugar was cut in half to 150mg/dL, far better than that achieved by any one of his drugs in two years. He still wasn’t out of the danger zone, but seeing quick results assured him he was on the right path. Over ninety days, his blood sugar steadily dropped. He eradicated his bad blood in three months. He also had to buy smaller pants. More surprising, he only had to change a few lifestyle habits while using a nutritional supplement that cost him less than five bucks at Wal-Mart!
Health professionals and popular media insist that “there is no cure for type 2 diabetes.” Such statements stem from misconceptions about health, prescription drugs, and type 2 diabetes (herein referred to as insulin resistance), not from science. This chapter aims to eradicate the confusion and the insulin-resistance epidemic.
Your newfound understanding of metabolism, blood sugar, commonly used prescription drugs, and supplements will equate to years of increased lifespan, bad blood or not. It will also keep you out of the Fat Gain Hall of Fame.
MY NOMINATION INTO THE FAT COW HALL OF FAME
I have been rail thin…and I have carried more fat than I like to admit. As a collegiate wrestler, I had 4 percent body fat. As time passed and I moved into my late twenties, I ballooned to a whopping 30 percent body fat. I felt weak, tired, edgy, and depressed, and I was haunted by a constant craving for food—usually anything that had sugar. My brain screamed, “Eat, eat, eat,” and my body said, “Store, store, store.” It was the beginning of a metabolic nightmare. My wife would hint that I was “getting round.” Later, I learned that she secretly felt I was becoming a candidate for the Fat Cow Hall of Fame.
Through graduate school and a career as a medicinal chemist, my weight was steadily climbing. After carrying 140 pounds in college, I was now schlepping around 205 pounds. Not cool. Unlike so many fat people today, I didn’t carry it proudly. I didn’t let my waist “muffin top” out of my jeans, and I knew instinctively that “tight wasn’t right.”
The best part about being fat was that I could invent a ton of excuses for letting myself go. I made the excuse that “my dad was fat. And so was his dad. Being fat runs in the family.” I made the excuse that “getting fat is an inevitable part of aging.” I made the excuse that “getting fat doesn’t matter; everyone else is.” Once I realized how ridiculous these excuses were, I wanted to get thin fast. My knee-jerk reaction was to look for a pill.
DIET PILL SECRETS
As an organic chemist trained in biochemistry and drug design, my first course of action was to consider the weight-loss drugs. I scrutinized every diet pill available. I mapped out the purported actions of Fen-Phen, Alli, Hoodia, SSRIs, Wellbutrin, chromium picolinate, and whatever else the nutritional supplement industry hailed as the latest and greatest diet pill.
FEN-PHEN
The first diet pill to hit the market was a combo of the psychostimulants fenfluramine and phentermine (marketed as Fen-Phen). Made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, its $52 million marketing plan began selling the pants off fat Americans in 1992 by promising appetite control—despite not having FDA approval for the so-called anorectic drug combo. Fen-Phen’s benefit hardly outweighed its risk. Users lost a mere 5.5 pounds of body weight, compared to the loss achieved by dieting alone.
Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that users of the combo faced a twenty-three-fold increase in the risk of developing pulmonary hypertension and cardiovascular complications.130 Marketing ceased in 1997 after rampant heart disease and death. Wyeth paid about $17 billion in damages but was never charged by the FDA for the illegal marketing of an unapproved drug.
ALLI
The over-the-counter diet pill Alli is proving to be worthless, too, just like its commercial predecessor Xenical. Both trade names represent the same drug: orlistat. Once ingested, it blocks the absorption of dietary fat intake—both good and bad fats. The activity of the drug only achieves about 5 percent loss of total body weight. Simultaneously, it puts users at risk for decreased absorption of essential, fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K and beta-carotene. But there’s an icky side effect that most aren’t aware of until it’s too late.
Alli may go down in history as the most embarrassing—or at least the most revolting—diet pill in history. While leaching essential vitamins from the body, it also causes users to…shall we say…"poop their pants.” Seriously. Its maker, GlaxoSmithkline, suggests that users “wear dark pants or bring a change of clothes to work.” Skipping one soda per day, or maybe even just looking at a gym, would prove more effective and less risky than using Alli—and you wouldn’t have to carry a diaper to work.
Attempting to lose weight by blocking or avoiding fat is futile—as proven by Alli. Eating fat in general does not make you fat. Eating unhealthy fat does. Healthy fats (from seeds, nuts, grass-fed beef, avocados, fish, and coconut oil) are essential for proper growth, development, and maintenance of good health. These vital fat sources provide your body with energy without causing you to gain weight. In sharp contrast to trans fats, carbohydrates, and even protein, healthy fat tells your body to burn fat (via lypolysis and thermogenesis) while making you feel fuller quicker—preventing you from eating yourself into the Fat Cow Hall of Fame.
HOODIA
Hoodia gordonii seems to be “all the craze” in diet pills. It garners millions and suckers even more. Discovered in 1937, it’s used by the San Bushmen of Africa to curb appetite during long stints in the desert. It was never used for fat loss. But that didn’t stop drug giant Pfizer from investing over $20 million to research its active ingredients. Apparently, researchers intuitively thought that appetite control would lead to fat loss—and that Americans would benefit from curbing their hunger during the arduous, hunger-inducing stints at the grocery store. Wrong.
Hoodia only slightly curbs hunger among obese Americans—probably due to their severe sugar addiction. Still though, hoodia hucksters call this the “miracle effect.” In reality, it’s the “pointless effect.” Hoodia’s slight anorectic ability has never translated into significant weight loss. There are no large-scale clinical trials to prove otherwise. Lesson learned, Pfizer abandoned hoodia and its active ingredients—a steroidal glycoside—as a diet pill. They unleashed it to the supplement industry. Ignoring the science, which they seem to do very well, the industry uses the cactuslike plant to scam dietary supplement users daily.
SSRIS
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, are being used to capitalize on America’s expanding waistline. None are FDA-approved as diet pills. But in a frantic scramble to get a piece of the diet pill action, the drug industry is touting and prescribing these antidepressants as such.
Experts thought that SSRIs would increase the amount of active serotonin in the brain and control appetite to elicit perfect weight. The SSRI known as Wellbutrin (bupropion hydrochloride) refutes the flawed hypothesis.
Wellbutrin fails to shrink the ever-expanding belly. People who used it for a year lost a clinically insignificant 7.5 percent to 8.6 percent of body weight, according to a study funded by its maker. And users faced ghastly side effects.131
Wellbutrin was withdrawn in 1986 because of an unacceptable incidence of seizures. It was released later that year for unknown reasons. Clinical trials show that 6.1 percent of users suffer from seizures. Reallife data suggest much higher rates. Wellbutrin is the third-leading cause of drug-related seizures, with cocaine being number one.
Wellbutrin isn’t the only failed SSRI being pushed as a diet pill. The drug industry is ravenous for the fat profit that comes from fat Americans. Therefore, they’re eager to push Prozac (fluoxetine) or the biological wild card known as Meridia (sibutramine) as the next billion dollar diet pill. All have failed miserably—causing every one of them to be prescribed with “proper diet and exercise.”
CHROMIUM PICOLINATE
Capitalizing on the overt failures of the pharmaceutical industry, supplement companies continue to amass billions by peddling what they say are safe and natural diet pills. Like its pharmaceutical counterpart, the supplement industry uses a slew of herbal products in an attempt to confer perfect weight. Chromium picolinate is among the most well known.
Chromium picolinate continues to garner attention from the obese who hope to lose fat with a single pill. Chromium is a trace metal that works in our body to activate insulin. Without it, insulin would be unable to escort toxic glucose out of the bloodstream and into the muscle cells for energy metabolism.
Recognizing this, supplement hucksters erroneously promote chromium picolinate as an insulin-lowering agent. The theory is that by potentiating the fat-storing hormone insulin with chromium picolinate, our bodies would produce less of it. And less insulin means less fat storage. This theory has not held up to the rigors of the scientific method.
Looking closer at clinical trials, researchers at Harvard University found that supplementing with the co-factor chromium picolinate failed to elicit any significant weight loss—a meager two to four pounds over six to fourteen weeks, a loss that could be achieved in seven days among the obese with proper exercise. The big fat failure of chromium picolinate to induce weight loss probably results from the fact that the obese are not deficient in this metal.
Biologically, active chromium is readily available in common foods such as whole grains, processed meats, coffee, nuts, and even wine and beer. And because it is a “co-factor,” the body requires very little of it to properly use insulin. Thus, every one of these sources can provide the required amount.
BETA-AGONISTS
The supplement industry is hell-bent on discovering the hot, new, billion-dollar diet pill. To this end, scientists have discovered some promising herbs. Many of them work on a family of receptors within the sympathetic nervous system known as beta-receptors. Termed beta-agonists, select natural products can work to activate two metabolic processes known as thermogenesis and lypolysis. This simply helps convert stored fat into heat and energy, respectively.
Either directly or indirectly, citrus aurantium, green tea, and yohimbe bark serve as beta-agonists. But, despite their ability to activate thermogenesis and lypolysis, they fail to stick to their promise of being effective diet pills. Using them individually to achieve the perfect metabolism has yet to outperform diet and exercise, and many of their metabolic benefits are negated by poor lifestyle habits.
Unable or unwilling to understand the difference between a betaagonist and a stimulant like caffeine, most nutritional supplement companies design diet pills that simply stimulate the hell out of you—probably due to the inexpensive and addictive nature of stimulants. This explains the added marketing trickery of promising “energy.” Users are ultimately left feeling shaky, dehydrated, and usually edgy.
Pull any top brand off your grocery shelf, and you’ll find that it is loaded with high doses of caffeine, caffeine-containing herbs, or stimulants like white tea, oolong tea, yerba mate, and guarana. Users feel energized and alert, but they rarely lose fat—unless they are channeling their energy into exercise.
You can’t swallow a pill to achieve what companies are selling: effortless fat loss. There are simply too many lifestyle factors that control weight gain or loss. The only sure-fire way to control weight is to see if you are suffering from the silent killer known as high blood sugar. I had to get really fat and lethargic to learn this.
SUGAR ADDICTION (OR HOW I GOT SO FAT)
As adults, most of us have ignored the warning not to eat sugar. We usually pay more attention to how many calories or grams of fat we put into our body. This was my deadly mistake.
Most low-calorie and low-fat foods are loaded with sugar or “sugar mimics.” These include sucrose, fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed proteins, trans fat, and milk sugars such as lactose and maltose—what I call grocery-store fat traps.
Looking at my own eating habits, I was shocked to learn that I was consuming sugar every time I put something into my mouth. Whether I was drinking a “sports drink,” eating a “health food” bar, enjoying a bagel, or even lunching on Campbell’s soup, I was consuming some type of detrimental sugar that was causing my body to hold fat rather than burn it. This was the obesity link I was looking for. My fat gain had nothing to do with excess calories or too many grams of bad fat. Instead, it had everything to do with grocery-store fat traps and their detrimental effect on my blood sugar and insulin levels.
Insulin is the nutrient taxi. When you consume sugar, carbohydrates, and protein, your pancreas releases the hormone into your bloodstream to escort blood sugar (AKA blood glucose) and other nutrients into the muscle cells to be used for fuel and revitalization. This keeps us alive and energized. Too much insulin, however, can be detrimental.
Grocery-store fat traps and processed foods that contain massive amounts of simple carbohydrates (anything served out of a window, package, or box) elicit the drastic release of insulin. This sets a metabolic nightmare into motion.
Surging insulin levels tell the body to store fat and instead use glucose (blood sugar) for fuel. That process cripples fat metabolism by shutting off our God-given rights to be thin—lypolysis and thermogenesis.
Lypolysis is the conversion of fat to work. Thermogenesis is the conversion of fat to heat. Both processes ensure that you walk, not waddle, through life. Without them, fat is stored—typically in the abdomen—and is unable to be used for energy. The fat-promoting phenomena of insulin explain why attempts to lose fat via exercise and trendy diets are usually only successful short term. Fat loss is simply being “blocked” by excess insulin. But that’s not all. The metabolic nightmare also causes hormonal systems that regulate muscle growth, sex drive, appetite, mood, energy, and even fertility to be thrown out of whack.
This metabolic nightmare is usually secured long-term by a sugar addiction that accompanies excess insulin. This explains why many people who are obese or suffer from type 2 diabetes feel helpless when it comes to fat gain. They are being driven by a sugar addiction that is conducive to fat gain day in and day out.
Since the body is burning glucose for energy and storing fat, it screams for more sugar as glucose is converted into energy. Without sugar, the obese become edgy, depressed, weak, and tired. This is the body making a desperate call for more detrimental sugar.
Soda, juice, sugar-fortified coffee, cereal, beer, and candy manufacturers have built empires around such addictions. This is the metabolic nightmare our parents innately feared when they told us, “Don’t eat too much sugar.” Sugar addicts are headed toward more treacherous health problems than just obesity. They’re accelerating their own death.
WHEN OBESITY BECOMES LIFE THREATENING
If habitual sugar or the consumption of sugar mimics continues, the metabolic nightmare can turn into a living hell. Similar to those who consume excess alcohol and develop resistance to it, the excess insulin numbs the cells of our muscles. Once this occurs, they no longer vacuum glucose or other essential nutrients from the bloodstream. Unable to gain entry into muscle cells, glucose accumulates in the blood, and cells become old prematurely. Blood gets bad, as seen by sugar levels above 115 (normal is 85 to 95). Over time, high blood-sugar and insulin levels lead to type 2 diabetes, or more accurately called, insulin resistance.
Recognizing the rise in blood glucose, the pancreas attempts to curtail the danger with yet more insulin production. Or worse, physicians might prescribe insulin by injection or symptom-masking drugs like Januvia (sitagliptin) that further promote mass production of the dangerous hormone. Either way, the bloodstream becomes toxic with exorbitant amounts of sugar and insulin. Insulin resistance begins to take its toll on the body, and obesity becomes life threatening.
The blood sugar and insulin overload leads to the clinical diagnoses of depression, premature aging of the skin, hypertension, and eventually the pandemic killers—obesity, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. In most cases, each of these is nothing more than a “sugar-eating” disease.
Insulin resistance is the health crisis of this century. Currently, 25 percent of the American population suffers from it, and the rate is climbing. One in three born in the year 2000 are predicted to succumb to it! According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that will equate to a loss, on average, of eleven to twenty years in life.132
This is the first reduction in life expectancy in more than 200 years. It’s suicide in slow motion. And most people have no idea that they suffer from it. The symptoms of the metabolic nightmare do not appear for at least seven to ten years. Over this time, the effects begin to build and become irreversible. But if caught early, the insidious outcome can be prevented. In addition to measuring belly fat, you can take a simple blood test to measure whether or not you have bad blood.
TOP BLOOD TESTS TO IDENTIFY THE SILENT KILLER
The best way to find out if you’re a potential victim—before the nightmare turns into a living hell—is to get your blood tested. Three simple blood tests can tell with reasonable certainty whether or not you’re at risk for type 2 diabetes.
First, test your fasting blood sugar. Wake up, go to a blood lab, and have them draw blood, or buy a self-test at a grocery store. Normal is 85 to 95 mg/dL. If yours is higher than that, you may have some bad blood. But then again, the reading is only a snapshot. Elevated blood sugar doesn’t always mean you’re at risk, nor does a normal reading mean you’re in the clear.
Your body has the ability to hide the threat of high blood sugar. When blood sugar rises, your pancreas attempts to protect you from the poison by increasing its production of insulin. This helps to force-feed your muscle cells the excess blood sugar, keeping excess blood sugar invisible from tests. To avoid a false fasting blood-glucose test, get your insulin levels tested, too, so that you see if your insulin is compensating for high sugar levels. Any doctor can do this for you. If you have normal blood sugar and high insulin levels, you might have bad blood.
Both blood glucose and insulin tests are mere snapshots and don’t give a good idea of what’s happening over time. To achieve this, get an “A1C” test. If you have raised blood sugar for long periods, it will attach itself to hemoglobin. The process basically works like this: sugar floats in the bloodstream for too long, gets lonely, and then grabs onto a nearby hemoglobin molecule. The attachment gives rise to “glycated hemoglobin.”
Since the same hemoglobin molecule lasts for about three months in your blood, an A1C test measures your blood sugar over that time. For instance, an A1C reading of 6 percent equals an average glucose of 135 mg/dL (7.5 mmol/L). If your reading corresponds to anything higher than 95 mg/dL, you could be in danger. Your health trajectory might be taking you toward depression, premature heart attack, stroke, cancer, and even Alzheimer’s, usually in that order.
Plenty of other blood tests exist. Since high insulin can plummet testosterone levels, getting this hormone checked is also advisable. Watching your testosterone levels rise—and your blood sugar, insulin, and A1C drop over time—will help you know whether your healthy efforts are paying off.
There are also tests for inflammation like C-reactive protein. To show if you’re aging prematurely, you can monitor your human growth hormone levels. Testing your vitamin D levels can be beneficial, too. But all this testing gets expensive fast. And since the tests are just snapshots, you don’t really need them to know if your blood is bad. Ultimately, if you’re carrying a body-fat percentage of 22 percent or higher, you can bet that you’re not as healthy as you could be. Blood sugar is bringing you down fast. You can stop this insidious outcome by increasing your insulin sensitivity.
HOLY GRAIL FOR TOTAL HEALTH
My wife and I are about to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. Over the years, I’ve learned that being more sensitive to her needs keeps our marriage strong.
Being more sensitive is also the key to optimal health and longevity. But, I’m not talking about emotional sensitivity here; I’m talking about insulin sensitivity. Being more sensitive is the only way to make sure that your body controls its weight and blood sugar while strengthening your health.
Neither diet pills nor antidiabetic drugs were going to help me overcome my metabolic nightmare. Grocery-store fat traps had successfully put me into XL-sized shirts and the extra thirty-five pounds were taking their toll on my energy levels and heading me toward an early grave. Exercise proved futile, and dieting just made me binge later at night. Digging deeper into the cellular cause of obesity, I learned that my only escape was to increase my insulin sensitivity.
Your body is a round-bottomed flask. To biochemistry geeks, this means that internally, you are a mesh of chemicals, and your health depends on how they react with neighboring cells. There are billions of chemical reactions that make up human function. I’m only concerned with one. It’s known as phosphorylation.
Forget memorizing that; it’s not even on your computer’s spell-check list. All you need to know is that it’s the most important reaction for increasing your insulin sensitivity, which helps to control weight, blood sugar, insulin, and lifespan. Akin to a plant getting sunlight, cells are renewed by this biochemical reaction.
Here’s why phosphorylation is so important: When insulin is released by the pancreas, it races—faster than the speed of light—to your muscle cells. When it reaches the exterior, our natural intelligence guides it to its corresponding receptor on the cell’s outer membrane. Once bound and clinging to the cell, the insulin-sensitive receptor undergoes the phosphorylation reaction, which sequesters sugar and nutrient vacuums from the inner core. Once the vacuums reach the outer membrane, they pull sugar and other cellular nutrients from the blood into the cell. What happens next is a testament to the power of your “hormonal intelligence” and shows why it was my only escape from obesity.
As blood sugar and insulin are controlled by phosphorylation, your energizing, fat loss, and antiaging hormones begin to flood the body in the proper amount, in the proper ratio, and at the right time of day. For instance, your testosterone-to-estrogen ratios are optimized to allow for increased muscle growth and fat metabolism, while protecting you from the cancer dangers associated with estrogen dominance.
During exercise, fat-melting hormones known as catecholamines are released by your adrenal glands. At night, your levels of human growth hormone surge to help your cells recover from daily stress and aging. When you eat, your body becomes more sensitive to the hormones ghrelin and leptin, which means that you don’t overeat, while at the same time you burn off calories more readily via thermogenesis. The list goes on, as a myriad of hormones that reduce inflammation, pain, and your risk of heart disease and cancer are totally optimized, thanks to this hormone intelligence.
The better your phosphorylation, the younger and thinner you remain. Just as sun-deprived plants come to life when exposed to sunlight, malnourished and dying cells are renewed by this single reaction. If it is numb to insulin, the receptor does not elicit this essential reaction when bound by insulin. All of the subsequent hormonal intelligence ceases to exist, and you get bad blood along with belly fat. Sugar and vital nutrients remain out of reach for the aging, insulin-resistant cell and instead float in the bloodstream with nowhere to go.
Just as a relationship can’t be healthy without sensitivity, bad blood and obesity can’t be corrected without increasing sensitivity to insulin. That’s the Holy Grail to health because it serves as one method for controlling weight, blood sugar, and insulin while maximizing longevity.
TOP ANTIDIABETIC DRUGS DEADLIER THAN DIABETES
When it comes to antidiabetic drugs, your doctor can choose from a host of options or prescribe multiple types of medications known collectively as hypoglycemics. Most popular are Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate), Actos (pioglitazone hydrochloride), Januvia, Glucophage (metformin hydrochloride), and Glucotrol (glipizide). While they might lower blood sugar levels by 15 percent to 20 percent, this effect doesn’t translate into health for diabetics. Quite the opposite, this drop in blood sugar results in early death!
In a press release issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. government alerted the public about the hypoglycemic risk:
Intensively targeting blood sugar [with hypoglycemics] to near-normal levels in adults with Type II diabetes at especially high risk for heart attack and stroke does not significantly reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events, such as fatal or nonfatal heart attacks or stroke, but increases risk of death, compared to standard treatment.133
The disturbing news came from the ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes Study Groups) study. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and showed that those taking drugs like Avandia or Glucophage experienced the greatest drop in blood sugar and also longevity.
The official story in the media hid these facts from the public by implying that lowering blood sugar among diabetics might be dangerous. But anyone who isn’t dizzy from Big Pharma’s spin can tell you that if lowering blood sugar was deadly, cinnamon would have wiped most of us out a long time ago.
The biggest fault in the study is that researchers failed to cite the laundry list of dangers associated with the hypoglycemic drugs that were the likely culprits for early death. The most prominent are obesity, heart attack, heart failure, and rigor mortis caused by the buildup of lactic acid. Avoid these deadly outcomes by making a quick trip to Wal-Mart.
NATURE’S BLOCKBUSTER DIABETES DRUG
Organic chemists are always on the hunt for the next blockbuster drug. More than 30 million molecules have been synthesized to date in this quest. Chemists use a deluge of drug discovery techniques in hopes of finding a winner.
The most popular methods used today are natural product screening (the large-scale study of naturally occurring proteins, peptides, and amino acids) and combinatorial chemistry. Most recently, the Nobel Prize–winning technique of metathesis has also been employed. This method changes the three-dimensional shape of molecules to allow for more diversity. These techniques all have one thing in common: they allow chemists to shuffle atoms or molecular formations to make new molecules that can eventually be tested for medicinal properties. The process is like shooting craps. There are a lot of variables, and only a few outcomes are winners.
To date, one method has proven most beneficial than all the others—natural product screening. The design of most prescription drugs is guided by knowledge obtained from plant-based predecessors, which are commonly sold as nutritional supplements. Drug companies obfuscate this. They like people to think drugs are the only option and that they intuitively invent them out of thin air using expensive, hard-to-understand technology.
All of today’s blockbusters have natural roots. Painkillers, blood pres-sure meds, anticancer drugs, and even the particularly nasty cholesterol-lowering drugs are nothing more than copycats of Mother Nature. And that’s why chemists use natural product screening over all other methods. Nature provides the best medicine, and using it successfully to make a synthetic version could mean big bucks. The method rarely makes for great drugs, because when nature’s molecules are altered, they usually become toxic. But it does make for great natural medicine discoveries, as recently proven in the fight against insulin resistance.
Using natural product screening, chemists have discovered the only blockbuster diabetes drug. It successfully lowers blood sugar, triglycerides, and A1C levels while increasing insulin sensitivity—and without a single negative side effect. Such a discovery is like striking medicinal gold. This drug is commonly known as cinnamon! Just as the simple act of supplementing vitamin C (from lemon juice) saved our ancestors from deadly scurvy, cinnamon is positioned to save modern society from the type 2 diabetes epidemic.
Richard Anderson, PhD, a researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has studied the antidiabetic effects of cinnamon for twenty years, along with more than fifty other natural products. Nothing outper-formed the tasty spice in increasing insulin sensitivity. Further studies have isolated two active ingredients, known in scientific circles as MHCP (methylhydroxy chalcone polymer) and cinnamaldehyde.
In one of the most well-known studies, sixty insulin-resistant patients were given 1, 3, or 6 grams of cinnamon per day and were compared to control subjects who received a placebo. The placebo group’s blood sugar levels did not change. But the researchers found that the cinnamon group’s blood sugar dropped, on average, from 208 mg/dL to 156mg/dL! Even the lowest amount of cinnamon (less than half a teaspoon) was shown to reduce blood sugar by 20 percent. These findings have been supported by other well-designed human studies.134
Blood sugar levels are highest after you eat. The sooner your body eliminates sugar from the blood, the healthier you are because your hormonal intelligence is able to rebound faster. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that taking 6 grams of cinnamon with meals lowered blood sugar twice as much within ninety minutes, as compared to meals without cinnamon.135
Writing for Phytomedicine, researchers found that the active ingredient cinnamaldehyde caused blood sugar to dive by as much as 63 percent. This was accompanied by a beneficial drop in the age-accelerating process known as glycation (as shown by A1C blood tests) and the formation of the sugary rich, triglyceride molecules.136
Cinnamon doesn’t simply mask the insulin-resistant symptoms of high blood sugar. It is powerfully effective at overcoming bad blood because it activates the essential reaction known as phosphorylation. In other words, cinnamon increases insulin sensitivity by mimicking all the positive effects of insulin. When consumed, cinnamon rushes to muscle cells, attaches to them, and does what insulin cannot: it triggers the uptake of glucose and other lifesaving nutrients from the blood by eliciting phosphorylation. It brings numb, insulin-resistant cells back to life and maximizes hormonal intelligence.
The easiest way to harness the benefits of cinnamon is to buy it organically and use it before meals three times per day. The two main types of cinnamon are Cinnamomum cassia (sometimes labeled Saigon cinnamon) and Cinnamomum verum (sometimes labeled Ceylon cinnamon). Saigon cinnamon is the common form used in the studies and is readily available on grocery shelves.
Cinnamon’s positive effect on health is a stark reminder that nutrient logic is man’s best bet for optimal health. Its value has been proven historically and with modern drug-discovery techniques. Since cinnamon isn’t man-made and cannot be patented like commonly used drugs, don’t wait for your doctor to prescribe this nutritional supplement.
THE OVER-THE-COUNTER NATURAL CURE TO BAD BLOOD
Spring Valley brand sells cinnamon capsules at Wal-Mart for about $8.00 per bottle. I recommend taking one capsule thirty minutes before each meal. This will prime your system for food to ensure that you don’t suffer from bad blood each time you eat. If you already suffer from bad blood, adding a small dose before bed will help keep it in check while you sleep and the following day. Using cinnamon three times daily would cost you $4.00 per month.
Spring Valley cinnamon is manufactured under FDA-approved good manufacturing practices, and my independent lab analysis showed that it did not have adulterants or excess fillers. This can be verified with the certificate of analysis found at my website, www.overthecounternaturalcures.com. Since cinnamaldehyde has been shown so effective at lowering blood sugar, I ran further tests to isolate and quantify the amount of this ingredient in each capsule. The COA shows the average amount shown in each capsule, so you can be sure you are getting medicinal-grade cinnamon.
Don’t worry about toxicity. Cinnamon use dates back as far as 2,400 BC. Nobody has ever died from it.
ONE POTENT WEAPON AGAINST HUNGER
By itself, cinnamon may not save you from the metabolic nightmare. While it might help lower blood sugar, taking part in other healthy life-style habits is usually required. Great supplements require great lifestyle habits, and vice versa. One of the most important habits that should accompany cinnamon use is proper eating frequency.
Despite what the diet gurus insist, you don’t need to eat four to six meals per day. Stop doing it. This myth comes from exercise-addicted diet gurus who usually offset the fat-building effect of grazing with excessive exercise.
Each time you eat, you raise your fat-storing hormone, insulin, while at the same time pushing your fat-burning and antiaging hormones from the blood. High insulin and hormonal intelligence cannot coexist. This phenomenon explains why studies on caloric restriction show that it increases functional lifespan. Your hormone intelligence is being optimized to keep you alive longer, courtesy of proper eating frequency and controlled insulin.
Grazing is for cows. Stick to eating only three meals per day. Each meal should be spaced out by four to five hours, and cinnamon should be consumed with the meal or thirty minutes before. If you’re accustomed to grazing, your brain and body will demand food due to the Pavlov effect. Familiar surroundings will be cueing you to eat, not your body. For instance, if you habitually eat popcorn during a movie, your body is trained to demand it once the show starts. It’s an addiction, not a hunger. Ignore it, and as time passes, the addiction will fade.
One potent weapon against hunger between meals is lemon juice in purified water. Use it to fend off food cravings and addictions. After a few weeks, snack cravings will pass. As your hormone intelligence becomes optimized, you’ll never feel hungry and your metabolism will be at its best. The metabolic nightmare of bad blood will be nothing more than a bad dream.
SO INEXPENSIVE, IT’S ALMOST FREE
Health takes a back seat to wealth in the business of corporate drug dealing. That’s why cinnamon rarely makes the news and why it isn’t being pushed on you by television advertisements and paid celebrity endorsements. The goal of Big Pharma’s business model is to sell you on costly, man-made versions of Mother Nature, while concealing the safer, less expensive natural-healing compounds. Don’t be fooled.
The average annual cost of an antidiabetic drug like Actos or Januvia can range from $2,500 to $3,000 per year. Proper cinnamon supplementation can cost as little as $48.00 annually. Use this nutrient logic to protect your health and wealth. You can become more aggressive at defying obesity and diabetes by adding the five lifestyle habits found in chapter 11 to your daily routine.