This article provides tips to optimise insulin sensitivity. The tips will also assist to: help manage blood glucose levels, prevent and/or reverse type 2 diabetes and reduce cardiovascular risk factors, PCOS and other insulin resistant associated conditions.
Insulin plays an essential role in the body, from facilitating the movement of sugar (glucose) into the cells, to promoting muscle synthesis, to stimulating the growth of new cells. However, like most things in life, we want just the right amount.
Whilst there is a definite relationship between insulin resistance and weight gain, which one comes first remains unclear. Both insulin resistance and weight gain are risk factors for type 2 diabetes and many other chronic diseases. Let’s examine their relationship.
During stress, we adapt our physiology and behaviour so that we are able to survive. This is known as the stress response. Under normal conditions, the stress response is vital and healthy. However, when activated repeatedly, it can have negative effects on our health. An over activated stress response is associated with weight gain and many chronic diseases. This article highlights ways in which stress can influence weight gain.
Type 2 diabetes results from genetic and lifestyle factors. The great news is, lifestyle can be changed. Changes to diet, physical activity and weight (especially body fat) levels prevent and reverse type 2 diabetes. This article covers the key lifestyle factors that contribute to type 2 diabetes and tips on how to start changing them.
The more you move and more active you are, the more you exercise and the fitter you are, the healthier you’ll be and the longer you’ll live. Slightly over simplified, but you get my point!
A well-balanced inflammatory response maintains good health, prevents illness and aids recovery. However too much of an inflammatory response, known as a low-grade inflammatory response, is associated with a host of chronic diseases, one of which is type 2 diabetes. This article covers factors associated with inflammation that may increase risk for type 2 diabetes.
Expert advice on recommended carbohydrate intake for type 2 diabetes remains controversial making it particularly confusing to know how much to have. This article summarises research on the impact of a low carb diet on type 2 diabetes.
Insulin plays a fundamental role in how food is utilised and stored. A state of insulin resistance results in metabolic dysregulation, subsequent health issues and chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. Read on to find out more about insulin, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and how they are related to one another.
In this comprehensive article I want to outline how a thorough Comprehensive Blood Chemistry (CBC) can be one of the main starting and ongoing assessments used to get an overview of your current state of health and to guide decisions about your health, nutrition and lifestyle habits.
Salicylates are chemicals that are naturally found in plants. They act like natural pesticides to help protect the plant against insects and disease. In some individuals, salicylate sensitivity is possible, and the symptoms are pretty obscure such as headaches, IBS, irritability etc, making it hard to diagnose.
Another major role of salicylates is their potential role in improving blood flow. The best known medication for thinning the blood, aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid and was originally extracted from willow bark. Adverse reactions to aspirin may be an indicator of salicylate sensitivity. Knowing that salicylates have the potential to improve blood flow we can then use this to our advantage in certain health conditions and also the recovery and repair of certain injuries.
Blood sugar regulation is the cornerstone of any good nutrition plan, and unbeknown to many, poor blood sugar regulation and thus insulin control can have a significant effect on male sex testosterone production.
Type 2 Diabetes is one of the most prevalent chronic disease around, especially in developed countries. Truth be told it is a disease of lifestyle. Some people are more prone to the development of the disease, but if the right lifestyle patterns are followed it can often be prevented and in some cases we can even reverse type 2 Diabetes naturally.
Working as a nutritionist and functional medicine practitioner, I am able to work with my clients on a number of different levels. I work on every single aspect of their lifestyle to elicit the most optimal change in their health, we look at sleep, stress, digestive health, immune, energy levels, blood sugar regulation, exercise to name a few. Most my clients are for fat loss, however my view is fat loss should be a side effect of improved health, this is why few of my clients will lose lean tissue when reducing their body fat levels and their health and energy levels improve.
In the UK we have the third highest obesity rate in the world, with 22.4% of the population obese. Between 50-60% of the population are also overweight and these statistics are rising each year. Alongside the obesity rates diabetes prevalence has almost doubled since 1997 from around 2.5% percent to almost 5%. What could be going wrong?