In the last article we discovered that the blood sugar targets established by the American Diabetes Association are far too high, and do not protect people from developing heart disease, diabetes or other complications. And we looked at what the scientific literature indicates are safer targets for fasting blood sugar, hemoglobin A1c and either OGTT or post-meal blood sugar.
On the other hand, we also discussed the importance of context: why it's important not to rely on ...
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I had a great conversation with a colleague yesterday. We were talking about parasites, chronic infections and cancer. The conventional understanding is that pathogens cause disease and must be eliminated to restore health. This makes sense, on the surface, and it's certainly true in the case of some virulent infections.
But what's missing here is an understanding that the body is an ecological system. There are over 100 trillion microorganisms living in our ...
In the last article I explained the three primary markers we use to track blood sugar: fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and hemoglobin A1c (A1c). We also looked at what the medical establishment considers as "normal" for these markers. The table below summarizes those values.
Marker
Normal
Pre-diabetes
Diabetes
Fasting blood glucose (mg/dL)
<99
100-125
>126
OGGT / post-meal (mg/dL after 2 hours)
<140
140-199
>200
Hemoglobin A1c (%)
<6
6-6.4
>6.4
In this article, we're going to look at just how "normal" those normal levels are - according ...
There's been a lot of discussion about the benefits of intermittent fasting (IF) in the paleo community lately. Paul Jaminet mentions it's role in boosting the immune system in his book, The Perfect Health Diet, and IF can also be helpful for those trying to lose weight and tune their metabolism.
From an evolutionary perspective, intermittent fasting was probably the normal state of affairs. There were no grocery stores, restaurants or convenience stores, and food ...
In the next two articles we're going to discuss the concept of "normal" blood sugar. I say concept and put normal in quotation marks because what passes for normal in mainstream medicine turns out to be anything but normal if optimal health and function are what you're interested in.
Here's the thing. We've confused normal with common. Just because something is common, doesn't mean it's normal. It's now becoming common for kids to ...
Over the last several years I've come to believe that chronic stress - and the cascade of changes it causes in the body - is second only to diet as the primary cause of modern disease. This isn't just my opinion. It's supported by mountains of scientific evidence as well as a basic understanding of evolutionary biology and human physiology.
The problem is, nobody wants to hear this. I think it, um, stresses us ...
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