The World Wide Diabetic

International Diabetic Awareness Month (November) comes to a close and we now have some statistics and estimates published by the International Diabetic Foundation. http://www.idf.org

There are an estimated 371 million people worldwide with the disease and 50% remain undiagnosed per the IDF. Not sure how they figured that out? 

CLICK on the images below to enlarge. 

Notice where this disease is the highest? 

 

 

 



 

Dietician Consult

Consulted with a professional Dietician; who believes that one of the underlying causes of type2 Diabetes may be that the cell receptors are blocked by fat or other impurities in the body. She is very knowledgeable.

She advised me to start a Vegan diet and to maintain this diet for 90 days. In addition, no wheat, no nuts, no sugar-free pudding, no Jell-O, no animal products (dairy, meat), no oils at all, no plain yogurt, a salad a day with fat free dressing, no milk or other dairy products, no creamer for coffee, lots of fiber(beans), sea salt instead of regular salt, low sodium, gluten-free, ground flax seed, a daily protein shake and many other ideas and instructions too numerous to list here.

This will really be a new lifestyle and so we’ve decided to eat up the remaining meat and other non-approved items on the list over the next month as well as create/document a new diet plan over the month of December and then start our new plan on January 1^st, 2013.

Happy New Year!  This will be fun. 

HbA1c Test

The HbA1c test or as its also known the A1c or Glycated Hemoglobin test is a blood test that shows a person’s average glucose levels over the previous 2-3 months.

This is the test the doctor did when I was diagnosed with Diabetes. You can see from the chart below that anyone with an A1C Glucose percent higher than 6.5 is a Diabetic. The chart came from the National Diabetes Clearing House. I recommend it highly as it is filled with so much essential information. This link is: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/diagnosis/

 

The goal my doctor set for me at that time was to get my glucose level below 7%.  I’ve been working on that goal for three months. I have logged every bit of food I’ve eaten in that time into an app that calculates and records the carbohydrates, calories, fat calories, &c..  In addition, I’ve logged every glucose test I’ve completed in that time into another app built for that purpose. That app also has a feature that provides one with an estimated HbA1c percent. This morning, my estimated HbA1c was at 6.0! 

A few days ago, I ordered a self A1c test kit for Diabetics off the Internet. You can get these from a number of sources. Some purport to allow you to take the test and get the results immediately while others have to be mailed into a lab and the results emailed or sent via normal post to you within 4-5 days.  The tests range from $19.00 to more than $100.00 depending upon the type and the speed of the results.

The one I ordered was cheaper and requires one to place your blood onto a provided card and then send it into a lab. The results will be emailed to me in 4-5 days and I’ll report the results as soon as I receive them. Once I get the results I'll schedule an appointment with my doctor to have an “official” test and compare the results. I’m hoping I’ve been able to reduce my blood glucose down to the fairly well managed level.

Gregory