Mule Deer

My most recent articles are:

• Transmitting Tests without Wires. The GlucoTel is the first meter to wirelessly send blood glucose results. Developed by a company in Germany, it will work with your cell phone — assuming that it’s Bluetooth enabled, as almost all modern cell phones are. My article originally appeared in the October 2006 issue of Diabetes Health and is now also online here.

• My New Diabetes Blog Articles
  HealthCentral.com published eight more of my blog articles in October:
  • New Nutrition Recommendations. The new nutrition recommendations of the American Diabetes Association are surprisingly good. They even recognize the value of the glycemic index.

  • Benfotiamine versus AGEs. Earlier research reported that benfotiamine might improve nerve functioning in neuropathy as well as prevent retinopathy and nephropathy. The latest research shows that it also helps to prevent heart disease. What are you waiting for?

  • Looking Back and Forth at Our Story. When we focus only on our longing for a diabetes cure, we get understandably impatient and discouraged. We need to balance that hope with a look back at how far we have already come. Two wonderful websites span the entire diabetes story.

  • Testing Cholesterol and Glucose. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a meter that tests both blood glucose and cholesterol? We can do that with a hand-held meter called the CardioChek. Using different strips, it can test total cholesterol, calculated LDL (bad) cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, and ketones. I have been testing the cholesterol test of this meter.

  • Diabetes Podcasts. There are already at least 28 podcasts on diabetes. I think that the most valuable ones are Dr. Alan Rubin’s Healthcast and Diabetes Podcasts from dLifeTV and dLife.com.

  • The A1C Meter. Regular testing of our A1C is a key to controlling diabetes. Metrika once made a meter that we could conveniently use at home for this test. They have improved the meter, and I have checked it out. It will soon be generally available.

  • Sleep Away Blood Glucose. A new study shows for the first time that too little or poor sleep does go along with higher A1C levels. The people studied who didn’t have complications a reported sleep debt of three hours per night and A1C levels 1.1 percent above the average. For those with complications the level was 1.9 percent above average. Typically, the drugs we take for diabetes don’t work any better than getting enough sleep does.

  • David’s Diabetes Diet. My pantry is pretty bare compared with what most people have. I like to keep it as simple as possible. What I eat must taste great and provide great nutrition. That’s the key. David’s Diabetes Diet talks only about foods and does not include a single recipe. The food choices are the basis of a diet, and the recipes will follow.

New Books:

Veggie GI

The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook. If you are a vegetarian and have diabetes, you have a big problem. Vegetarians really do have to eat vegetables.

Most of us would agree that vegetables are healthier than meat. But meal won’t raise your blood glucose level. Vegetables will.

The trick is to learn what vegetables won’t raise your blood glucose levels too much. That’s where the glycemic index comes in.

Nobody has done more to educate the world about the value and the use of the glycemic index than Professor Jennie Brand-Miller of the University of Sydney in Australia. I can’t even keep track any more of all the books that Jennie has written in the past decade about the GI. She even wrote one with me, The New Glucose Revolution: What Makes My Blood Glucose Go Up…And Down?

Her most recent book in “The New Glucose Revolution” series is her Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook. This new book, just published on September 28, is the most important resource ever for vegetarians with diabetes.

There isn’t even much on the Web that I have felt good about recommending now that Virginia Messina’s article “Diabetes and a Vegetarian Diet” is no longer online. Instead, it is now a part of her book, The Vegetarian Way. That book, and another book, Defeating Diabetes, which I reviewed in an earlier issue of this newsletter, have been the best resources that vegetarians who have diabetes have to work with.

Jennie’s new book on the GI for vegetarians has 80 vegetarian and vegan recipes. But what I found to be much more interesting and valuable were the sections at the front and back of the book that bracket the recipes.

Here vegetarians with diabetes will find what they need to know about all sorts of vegetables, everything from legumes — beans and lentils — to nuts and seeds. Aside from vegetables, all vegetarians also have a wide variety of fruit to choose from. And unless the vegetarian is a vegan, he or she can benefit from eggs and dairy products.

Marlowe & Company in New York just published The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook. This 186-page trade paperback lists for $19.95. The ISBN-13 is 978-1-56924-278-0; the ISBN-10 is 56924-278-X.

Announcements:

• This Newsletter
  Diabetes Update keeps you up-to-date with new articles, Web pages, and books that I have written about diabetes.

  I list and link most of these on my at Diabetes Directory and in the site’s menu at the upper left of all my Web pages.

  From time to time Diabetes Update may also include links to other Web pages of special interest.

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