Hyperinsulinemia: The Silent Killer

Being that I am personally affected with hyperinsulinemia and have noticed the strange methods he medical community 'treats' it, I have been looking for alternatives to conventional medical wisdom on the subject. Hyperinsulinemia, as one of my doctors told me, is a precursor to diabetes. My pancreas, at some point, could just decide to 'give up'. It seems to me that the medical community has somehow transformed itself from 'healing' and 'diagnosing' to giving us 'treatment' for 'symptoms' rather than helping us to get to the bottom of our physical problems. This only promotes our sitting in their waiting rooms from illness, rather than living our lives in radiant health.

This evidenced itself when my sister, who is five years my junior, went through a eries of harrowing experiences during High School and beforehand. Having suffered since she was very small from a severe case of excema and other discomfort, in High School, the physical problems increased, seemingly with no medical cause. She had spells of migraine headaches, saw spots in front of her eyes, had problems with digestion and her digestive tract, in addition to the ongoing problems were her lovely porcelain skin. She had excema in the folds of her skin, under her arms, on her scalp and behind her ears, and there seemed to be little expertise available to help her get to the root cause and rid herself of this once and for all. It wasn't as though my parents were not educated, or that we came from a backwoods family that wasn't able to go to the doctor; in fact, we were going to one of the most famous pediatricians in town; Dr.Richard Marks, who was such a modest man that he charged only $8.00 to to see him, had no office help, answered his own phone, and sterilized his own instruments. Today, I'm certain that Dr. Marks would be considered an old-fashioned 'country' doctor, but he was very good with babies, and his patients donated money in his name to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, to their prenatal wing.

As time went on, my sister's problems were so distressing to my parents that they brought her to Mayo Clinic. It was at mayo clinic, after running a series of tests, that it was recommended she be seen by psychiatrists at Northwestern University. At Northwestern, they reached the conclusion that it was psychosomatic, that she was setting unrealistic goals for herself that ultimately made her sick.

But then my mother, the R.N., ran across an article about allergies. Getting in touch with a food/environmental allergist and setting an appointment for my sister changed her life. It was discovered through a series of tests that all those years of suffering could have been eliminated, had we known my sister is allergic to corn, and other foods to a lesser extent. After ridding her diet of corn, my sister began a new life. When she realized that at the movie theater she would reliably get a migraine headache to the point of bringing on vomiting, because of the smell of popcorn in the air, she made the conscious decision never to go to a movie in a theater again. She also discovered how she felt after being in touch with corn; and could narrow it down to the extent that if she went to a friend's house, and they had cooked corn in the kitchen even hours before, she came down with symptoms. This completely freed her from the notion that she was dying of some undiagnosed illness, and led her to the revelation that her symptoms were controllable, and due to a relatively simple and preventable cause. She learned to read food labels, and that certain ingredients like corn sweetener and other products using corn are used in a wide variety of products. Corn is used as a thickener in gravies and yogurt, and in other items without being called 'corn' on the label. We all learned a tremendous amount of things about ourselves during that period, and learned to read our labels, which led to other discoveries.

In our journey in attempting to diagnose our own medical maladies to find the root cause rather than buy into the medical community's treatment of symptoms, I recently came upon and am now experiencing my own personal revelation in this area, which seems to be very much related: I have gastrointestinal trouble, and was recently diagnosed as hypersinsulinemic. This came as the result of a blood sugar test at my local hospital; after fasting, I was given a concentrated sugar concoction, which put me to sleep. My blood sugar spiked, and then dipped, and it was all recorded in the blood samples they took. My grandfather died from side effects from raging diabetes he refused to admit that he had, so it should have come as no surprise that I have a tendency to have trouble with blood sugar, too.

But recently I reached a life-changing conclusion; that my ingesting milk products could be a part of this, as it plays a role in the overproduction of insulin. AND, that people who have these problems also have a tendency to test low on thyroid. I am right at the borderline with my thyroid, my mother ended up having her thyroid removed. Her thyroid gland didn't work properly and didn't produce enough. But what I'm discovering now is...that might be the tip of the iceberg for her. People with our problems also seem to have gall bladder issues, and she had hers removed not long ago, and my sister is having trouble with hers today.

After drastically cutting down on dairy products, I already have experienced a marked improvement. I have, in fact, been living with a systemic candida infection for over 20 years, the root cause being my almost in sane addiction to common every day foods, which react in my system like poison. If you are a diabetic, you know about eating like a diabetic, but may be not be familiar with eating right for your blood type. Type "O" blood types should not be eating carbohydrates like refined white flour, sugar, corn, and other things, but the description of foods that we should eat are slightly different than the diabetic diet, and could help you further curb your craving for sweets, not to mention head off medical problems down the road. I wouldn't go so far as to subscribe to what D'Adamo talks about in terms of the different blood types and the theory of evolution, which I don't think belongs in this discussion, but ignoring that part, I am turning my diet around according to the recommendations of Peter J. D'Adamo and Catherine Whitney in their books. There is also other good reference material available on the web about this; a report call "Insulin: Our Silent Killer". Happily, people don't need to suffer so much from this misunderstood affliction, and much of it can be helped, if not completely cured, by simple changes in diet. I can't say that I've been completely cured, but I am experiencing tremendous relief by following the recommendations in the pocket handbook "Blood type O - Food Beverage and Supplement Lists", and from the book "Eat Right for Your Type". Some of the illnesses related to blood type O are diabetes, hyperinsulinemia, problems with the gastrointesinal tract, problems with refined sugar and carbohydates, arterial disease, not limited to being prone to heart attack and stroke, and thyroid problems. None of this should be taken that we should ignore the recommendations of doctors, particularly if you have heart disease, but doctors are only human, and medicine has turned in the direction of 'business', which has effectively, in my opinion, made it a situation where it benefits doctors to have you returning to see them for things which could have been cured, had they pointed you in the right direction. Your health is in your own hands, make sure you make informed decisions when taking a course of action. Arm yourself with information. You could stumble upon, as I have, an answer that could literally change your life.