Cancer Articles (Dr. S.N White)

It's hard to find a middle of the road diabetic. Diabetics either try to ignore the disease totally or they become almost obsessed by it. Those who fall into the obsessive category are at least better than the ignorers. They'll probably live longer and eventually outgrow their obsession. As a matter of fact, many diabetics are only obsessed for a while, right after they're diagnosed. It's not surprising that they should be preoccupied when they first confront a disease that demands the constant attention and thought that diabetes does. Much of the diabetic's talk about diabetes at this time is just musing out loud as he or she tries to figure out what to do; whether he or she needs another slice of bread to make up for that weeding before dinner, if those funny feelings indicate low blood sugar or if they're something totally unrelated to diabetes. One way that might tone a diabetic down a little is to become more informed on diabetes yourself. By showing y...

You live exactly as a diabetic lives for a period of time. This idea was developed at the Diabetic Unit of the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Center in Western Australia, where they believed that the staff who treated diabetics needed to know what their patients' lives were really like. Volunteers for the experiment were required to take injections, using a saline solution instead of insulin, test their urine, eat the diabetic diet including snacks at the proper time, etc. These educators only had to "be diabetic" for a week, but some of them couldn't even last that long. The only one who was really successful at it just gave up her social life entirely and stayed at home catering to her diabetes. That, of course, isn't the way to do it. You're supposed to lead a normal life. After all, that's the goal for diabetics and that's what everyone else is always telling them they can do. As Dr. Martyn Sulway, the physician in charge of the program put it, ...

Of course. You must, however, always carefully compensate for the behavior of injected insulin. Doctors generally recommend that diabetics at the wheel eat ten grams of carbohydrate every two hours. This means you've got to tote plenty of food along with you in the car. It should go without saying that when mealtime strikes, stop and dine. If you know there's a dearth of restaurants on the route or if you're particular about what you eat, it's better to take along a picnic meal than to risk having to delay your meal or stoke up on snacks.

To some extent, that depends on what you did to get tired. If you're weary from your job as steeplejack or longshoreman, or if you're a housewife who's cleaned the whole house or galloped after a four-year-old all day, you've already had a great deal of exercise. Getting more is not that critical for you. On the other hand, if you're tired from a long day of sedentary office tensions or sitting in the car, then you need exercise for more reasons than diabetic ones, and you should clamp your jaw and force yourself, at least initially. Just as the appetite comes with the eating, the energy and enthusiasm for exercise come with the exercising. Often the fatigue you feel at the end of a day comes from a lack of physical activity rather than from too much of it. If you find yourself too tired to exercise and it's not a true physical tiredness, you may go to bed and find yourself too keyed up and tense to sleep. The next day you've got a lack-ofsleep tiredness ...

Is fructose a good sweetener for a diabetic? Fructose is being promoted now because it is sweeter than table sugar and you can use less of it for the same amount of sweet taste. Therefore, you get fewer calories. Also, the body handles it in such a way that it does not cause the quick and high elevations of blood sugar that regular sugar does. This is why it is claimed to be especially useful for diabetics. Furthermore, it does not require insulin for use by the body. Sounds great, doesn't it?  Wouldn't you know there's always a catch. Nobody has yet figured out how increasing the amount of fructose in your diet (it occurs naturally in fruits) affects you in the long run. And if you do use it, you can't just "ingest it freely" as dietitians like to put it. You have to count each tablespoon as one of your fruit exchanges. And don't forget that although fructose doesn't need insulin at the start of the digestion process, after it's been stored...

What about best foods for diabetics? If you mean granola, home-baked bread, yogurt, soybeans, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, alfalfa sprouts, and all that, great! The more different foods you eat, the better. Just make certain that you know the calorie, protein, fat, and carbohydrate content (or exchange equivalent) of whatever you eat and limit your portions so that you stay within your diet. June adores many health foods but finds she has to select them carefully, because many of these foods are laced with concentrated sweets honey, coconut, dried fruits, brown sugar and many of them are overpotent in fat, and calories. For instance, one-half cup of sunflower seeds is 280 calories and 26 grams of fat. Most health breads are also heavier than ordinary bread. One slice will often equal almost two bread exchanges instead of one. You can check this out by weighing a slice. Bread is usually 50 percent carbohydrate, so a slice weighing sixty grams contains thirty grams of carbohydrat...

Is there anything I can eat all I want of without counting it in my diabetic diet? Yes, you can eat all the unsweetened rhubarb, unsweetened cranberries, and unflavored gelatin that you can possibly hold. But seriously, folks, you can hype up the flavors of your meals with herbs and spices without counting them. And you can eat as much of the following vegetables as you want, if you eat them raw: chicory; Chinese cabbage; endive; escarole; iceberg, butter, red leaf, or romaine lettuce; parsley; radishes; and watercress.