Theresa Chabot
Accepted Abstracts: J Diabetes Metab
The cells in the body need energy to run properly. We receive our energy in the form of glucose. Glucose is formed from the carbohydrates and sugar in the foods that we eat. Insulin is a hormone that unlocks our cells, if you will, so that the glucose is free to enter. Insulin is produced in our pancreas. Type 2 diabetes happens when the hormone insulin is unable to unlock our cells, not allowing the glucose to enter. Two things happen in the situation where glucose is unable to enter our cells. The first thing is that with out glucose, (energy), in our cells, our body is unable to function properly. The second is that we end up with levels of glucose in our blood stream that are too high, causing all kinds of issues. At first our bodies begin to keep up with the overproduction of insulin that we need to let the glucose into our cells. But our bodies become tired and the pancreas so overworked that it just can?t keep up. This causes our bodies to stop producing insulin. The response is for doctors to provide insulin for these patients thinking that this is the solution to the problem. However the added insulin in our cells, causes our pancreas to begin working again, and overproducing insulin. Too much insulin in our bodies again causes other health issues such as heart problems. In this way, and others, we are now adding to the decline of our health, causing the need for more medicine with more side effects. So what we have is a downhill spiral. What we need instead is to level off the blood sugar and insulin spikes. This can be done through a very healthy diet. Put simply, the phytonutrients in a healthy diet can restore our insulin and other hormone levels, so that the cells are healthy again and able to let in the glucose One issue is that the public does not understand what a healthy diet is. Another is that many doctors and medical personnel are unsure of what to do when the see a patient with pre-diabetes. They wait until it becomes diabetes and then manage the disease with pharmaceuticals. Had we leveled the blood sugar and insulin levels in the pre-diabetes stage, through proper nutrition, it would never have gotten to the diabetes stage.
I am a United States citizen. I hold a Bachelor degree from Providence college in Providence, RI., where I graduated in 1993. My nutritional background and education comes from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is the largest nutritional school in the world, where I have learned from great teachers such as Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr. Joel Fuhrman. My nutritional education is holistic based. Have also studied how nutritional affects our hormones, and how our hormones affect our health. My more formal training on diabetes has come from Transformations, inc. I have been working with clients and seeing great results.
