Diabetes

The Fat Gene – Blame Your Ape Ancestors
Few animals – other than humans and our domestic pets – are troubled with weight issues or obesity. Now, scientists at University College London, writing in Scientific American magazine, think they know why. A genetic mutation that occurred several million years ago in our ape ancestors could well be a cause of the modern problem of obesity and the huge increase in diabetes. This mutation, in a gene called uricase, enables fruit sugar (fructose) to be converted to fat. This allowed the apes to add on layers of fat so they could survive... Read more...
Problems with Emulsifiers?
Dr. Paul Clayton’s Health Newsletter Spring 2015 A new paper in Nature (Chassaing et al ’15) has shown that when mice consume high doses of the emulsifiers commonly used in processed foods, they develop changes in their microbiome and go on to develop gut inflammation, metabolic syndrome, and weight gain. At first sight, this seems alarming, as emulsifiers are used in almost all processed foods, and diets rich in processed foods are very closely linked to all the above problems. The link to human disease is not at all proven,... Read more...
Diabetes – Cinnamon, an Old Spice Re-Visited
Cinnamon looks increasingly as if it may be the spice of life, as far as diabetics are concerned. It contains a number of active compounds, but the most therapeutic appears to be methylhydroxy chalcone polymer, an antioxidant and a flavonoid usually abbreviated to MHCP. In 2000, a trial carried out by the US Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Unit at Tuft’s University in Boston found that MHCP increased the ability of fat cells to metabolise glucose an astonishing 20 times(1). Subsequently, other researchers found that MHCP mimicked insulin and increased... Read more...
Sugar and Starch Drive Obesity and Disease
Dr. Paul Clayton’s Health Newsletter March 2014 “Added refined sugars and starches in the daily diet are undoubtedly contributing to obesity and disease.” Sugar has been getting a bad press lately, with a series of books and articles telling us how it contributes to problems with insulin, weight gain, and diabetes. I go along with some of that, but would expand the dietary definition of sugars to include starch (high-starch foods include white flour, rice, pasta, and potatoes). From the body’s perspective, sugar and starch are pretty much the same... Read more...
Diabetes – Tomato Juice for Type 2
Diabetic patients are more prone to blood clots, which contribute to their increased risk of cardiovascular complications. Blood clots can cause strokes, heart attacks and other life-threatening problems, which is why diabetics are, on average, around four times as expensive in terms of health care resources as nondiabetics. This is bad news for health care costs because diabetes is increasing rapidly, up by one-third during the 1990s alone. There are currently more than 194 million people with diabetes worldwide, and if nothing is done to slow the epidemic, the number... Read more...