diabetes – The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal

Finding a non-sugar sweetener for food and beverages, one without it’s own unwanted side-effects, has been the holy grail of food processors for as long as I’ve written about the food business (40 years). A new possibility, brazzein, is getting some positive attention now.

Another, Xylitol, long used in sugar-free candies and elsewhere, is getting negative attention, however.

“A new study linking the low-calorie sugar substitute xylitol to an increased risk of heart attack or stroke,” reports The New York Times.

“For the new study, the researchers measured the levels of xylitol in blood plasma samples of over 3,000 participants who had fasted overnight. They found that people with the highest xylitol levels had roughly double the risk of heart attack, stroke or death within the next three years compared to people with the lowest levels,” the Times reports.

Xylitol, also known as sugar alcohol, has never been something I could eat much of without becoming bloated and…well, you know. So this study isn’t worrying me so much.

But I am interested to read a company has received permission to use brazzein, a sweet protein produced through fermentation, reports The Food Institute.

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I recently heard a doctor speak very enthusiastically about Ozempic use by heart patients such as myself. Ozempic and similar drugs now on the market cut your appetite (to put it very simply) and you drop pounds. That in turn helps heart health.

***Would I stop loving Italian food if I took Ozempic?***

Being able to take a pill (or an injection in Ozempic’s case) while still eating whatever you want sounds like the American dream doesn’t it? There are side-effects. A friend taking it for her diabetes tells me she throws up from it but finds it a small price to pay for dropping pounds.

And what about the price — more than $1,000 a month? Medicare won’t pay for it, although lobbying is underway to change that. Private insurance may or may not, enjoy the fight (that will probably make you nauseous too).

So should I ask my doctor to prescribe it (wonder if he would)? This all comes at a time when I’m feeling particularly frustrated by my weight.

After my first stent in 2012, I lost 30 pounds in about a year because I stopped eating everything I liked. But I could only stay hungry for so long and, after needing a second stent in 2017, I began wondering how much losing weight really impacted my arteries which seem determined to clog every few years.

Fast-forward to 2020 and Covid. Worrying about what I was eating went out the window at a time when a new virus could kill me in a matter of days.

I ate whatever we could buy in depleted stores or from restaurant takeout windows. And I started getting deliveries from a local bakery which had never delivered before.

The result — I’m now 14 pounds heavier than when Covid hit four years ago and 31 pounds heavier than my lightest in 2013. And I feel it every day. Exercise? I walk and ride an exercise bike. And for the past year and a half I’ve been taking a weekly boxing class. Punching the big bag is a great way to face my weight-loss frustration. But it hasn’t helped me lose any weight.

So is an Ozempic injection the answer? The idea of having medicine take away my appetite seems a bit big brotherish to me, a little too controlling. But am I just looking for an excuse? What would you do?

Roughly 10% of Americans ahve diabetes and how they’re managing that condition is deteriorating, according to a new study. While this blog is about healthy eating and doesn’t pretend to give medical advice, this topic is important enough to discuss. Sugar is one of the three evils Americans eat too much of and too much sugar is the issue for diabetics.

The new study, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “over the last decade, people with diabetes in the U.S. have become significantly less successful at controlling their blood sugar,” reports Medical News Today.

“These are concerning findings. There has been a real decline in glycemic control from a decade ago, and overall, only a small proportion of people with diabetes are simultaneously meeting the key goals of glycemic control, blood pressure control, and control of high cholesterol,” said study senior author, Dr. Elizabeth Selvin, of the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology.

If you;ve developed diabetes later in life, remember it’s not jst sugar you need to watch your consumption of, it’s also breadstuffs, potatoes, any food that converts to sugar in your bloodstream. American eat way too much bread, not to mention French Fries, both fo which contribute to this problem.

Regular readers know I’m a big Costco shopper and usually deconstruct a Costco food court salad once a week for a lunch there after my shopping trip.

You can find healthy items there, but like everywhere else, you need to know what to look for and you need to read labels, especially because products come and go at Costco. I’ve written about that before, click here to read that post.

You can download the booklet at this link: cdiabetesshoppingnov21

It covers the basics, so if you’ve researched food and diabetes or heart issues before you might not need it. but if you;re new to the topics, it’s a good first step.

Tag: diabetes

The quest for a new non-sugar sweetener goes on, with some bad news, some good

The Ozempic dilemma — worth the pain, and the money?

Americans aren’t managing their diabetes very well, new study finds

Costco offers diabetes, heart-healthy shopping guide

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