Decoding the Diabetic Formula: Chromium Picolinate

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This blog allows us the freedom to disseminate the NoBetes formula that we developed to help diabetics control blood sugar and side effects from diabetes from 1998-2002 (Check out the post “The Diabetic Formula” for more info). Unfortunately, the world wasn’t quite ready for NoBetes at the time, but now we are excited to have this opportunity to distribute the formula to all of our readers. This post will discuss Chromium Picolinate, an important ingredient of our formula, and insulin resistance.

Most Type II diabetics are aware that diabetes is a condition of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when your insulin is working inefficiently. Insulin helps get glucose into the cells, so when insulin is not working at its full potential, excess glucose remains in the bloodstream. Glucose can also accumulate, unutilized, within cells.

We’ve included Chromium Picolinate as the first ingredient in our NoBetes formula because it is proven to bolster insulin sensitivity. This improved insulin sensitivity also helps burn fat, which is something diabetics need to consider.

We found a dosage of 200 mg, 20 minutes before meals, 3 times a day to be beneficial. At the time we were developing NoBetes, the drug Metformin (a prescription drug which improves insulin efficiency) wasn’t on the market. If you plan to use Chromium Picolinate and Metformin in tandem, it is essential that you monitor your blood sugar and dosages very carefully. You may find that you’ll need to adjust your Metformin dosage.

When we evaluated the NoBetes formula in 1998, we found several studies that showed improved glucose levels in subjects given 600 mg daily of Chromium Picolinate. We have discovered that there are at least 7 other types of Chromium products. Some or all of these may work as effectively as Chromium Picolinate, but the studies we read were successful using the Picolinate form which is why we chose to include it in NoBetes.

We feel that NoBetes is revolutionary because unlike other alternative diabetic formulas, it addresses insulin sensitivity directly rather than through the indirect route of improving glucose levels. Diabetics need an alternative formula that helps control blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. Our NoBetes formula had diabetics taking 200 mg of Chromium Picolinate 20 minutes before meals. We’ve seen no evidence of adverse side effects at the 200 mg dosage level. Before using any ideas found in this post, make sure you check with your own doctor and take time to do your own independent research.

Our next post on the NoBetes formula will discuss stress, its affect on diabetics and the ingredients we used to combat it. When we are under stress, the body can release great amounts of glucose into the bloodstream, independent of that released from digesting food products. With the inclusion of our next ingredients, we were able to formulate NoBetes to combat stress and the glucose it releases. Check back soon to find out more!

The Miracle That Is Our Body

Throughout this blog, we’ll be discussing many practical and technical ideas regarding health. Yet, occasionally, we would like to remind everyone that the power of our mind, and its control over our body, is valuable in dealing with any condition or health issue.

It is important that we keep in mind the immense and powerful creation that is our body. It has been estimated that more than a million macromolecules per minute are transported between the nucleus (center of the cell) and the cytoplasm (the interior of the cell outside of the nucleus) in the active eukaryotic cells in humans. These transports can take place a million times per minute! (Harper, Biochemistry 515)

It is estimated that the average body has over 70 trillion cells. Inside each cell there are an estimated 1 million transports taking place each minute. That is 70,000,000,000,000,000,000 transports taking place in the body per minute. In 60 minutes this is 420,000,000,000,000,000,000 transports. That is 1,008,000,000,000,000,000,000 transports in 24 hours!

The point of this demonstration is to increase your awareness of the marvels of our body and to re-ignite your faith in its healing powers. Faith is a powerful tool of the human mind.

Imagine the grand design of such a body and realize we can heal from anything. What limits can be put on such a creation as our bodies? We must also have faith in the immensity and grandeur of our conception and this faith will take us down the right road to healing and health.

For our bodies to properly execute the process of healing it is essential that we be well nourished; the rest we leave up to creation. We will from time to time include other such miracles of our body in this blog to remind everyone that there is always hope, especially in regards to healing, as long as we do not interfere with the process by abusing ourselves with inappropriate drugs or treatment. Also, remember to be very careful when electing surgery. Once something is removed there can be no turning back and no miracle for the body to perform. Sometimes surgery is necessary, but always remembers to carefully consider all of your options.

Get The Most Out of Your Drinking Water

There is a lot of confusion out there regarding the best drinking water. The basic waters available are tap water, spring water, purified water, distilled water, alkaline (bubbly or carbonated) water, and water with increased oxygen.

Tap water is the least pure of all drinking water. It’s up to you to decide if you want to put impure water into your body. Spring water is usually weakly purified, but may have the added benefit of minerals. When you drink any water, the water will generally carry minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients out from your body along with waste. Spring water contains many of the minerals you lose when you drink water, so it is a good idea to drink spring water for its ability to replace lost minerals. These minerals may or may not be worth the impurities, but personally, I prefer to take a high quality multivitamin to replace any minerals I lose daily from drinking non-mineral water.

Purified water has many toxic substances removed via a filtering system. This is much healthier water with fewer impurities. Distilled water is water in a chamber that is heated to steam, which is then moved into an adjacent chamber where it is condensed and turned back into water. This distillation process leaves the water almost totally pure. This is the most pure of waters and almost any toxic substances are left behind in the first chamber when the water is turned into steam and rises into the final chamber. The main argument people make about distilled water is that you lose a lot of minerals when you drink it. Once again, I suggest a mineral supplement to replace those lost minerals, rather than drinking less pure water that contains minerals, such as spring water.

Alkaline water, such as Perrier, club soda, and other waters that are advertised as high alkaline, may or may not be filtered. The common denominator between these beverages is the presence of carbonation. Usually the process that makes the water alkaline also kills germs, although it would still need purification from toxic chemicals and the like. Regrettably, there is a large drawback in that alkaline water can interfere with digestion. Your digestion requires stomach acid and the alkaline quality of the water can interfere with stomach acid, thereby preventing it from properly breaking down food. People who drink alkaline waters and even bicarbonate sodas right before meals or during meals are interfering with their digestion. An easy rule to remember (which I’ve mentioned in a prior post), is to always drink these beverages at least 20 minutes after meals in order to allow your stomach acid time to work on your food. Do not drink them before or during meals if you care about proper digestion.

You may remember a previous post wherein I discussed Anemia, a disease which results when a person is too alkaline. It is important that a person know if they are too alkaline before drinking alkaline drinks. If your body’s pH is alkaline, stay away from carbonated beverages and alkaline water. Refer to my post on acid/alkaline balance to learn how to test your alkaline level at home.

My daughter’s boyfriend, who drinks Perrier constantly throughout the day, recently began complaining about fatigue. I gave him a pH strip (discussed in my acid/alkaline balance post) and we were surprised to discover that his pH was close to 7.5, almost anemic in measurement. I suggested that his over consumption of Perrier may be influencing his body to the degree that it could be part of the reason for his fatigue.

A recent trend in the bottled water industry is the marketing of water that is said to possess higher oxygen content than competitors. The jury is still out on this one. I don’t drink these waters because extra oxygen most likely means more free radicals. We discussed in another post that there is almost universal consensus over the past several decades that free radical damage is the main reason for disease, degeneration, and aging. I am cautious about drinking water that may increase my free radical production.

Everyone: Realize that the type of water you drink can influence your health a great deal. You drink water everyday. Take extra care to choose wisely, as this is an important area of healthy living.

Remember that any drinking water carries some minerals out of your body through urine, regardless of its mineral content or method of filtration. All waters being equal in this regard, I find it most beneficial to drink distilled water for its purity and lack of toxicity, and take supplements to replace the minerals I lose from regular water drinking.

Background & Mission Statement

Most cutting edge health and medical technologies take years and sometimes decades to reach the public. With this blog, I hope to do more than just provide my readers with cutting edge, scientifically viable health knowledge (which I will do of course); with each article, I will provide my readers with specific tools they can use to change their lives that day. I have studied the health fields since 1983 under the tutelage of DR. Robert Gibson, a medical M.D. with 65 years of experience who became diabetic in his 50s yet managed to extend his age to 108 and lived to talk about it.

A few fields which I have studied over the past 25 years include:

Medicine

Environmental

Anti-Aging

Sports

Hormonal

Orthomolecular

Supplements and Nutrients

Diabetes & Parkinson’s

With my unique mentor and many fields of study, I know that my readers will come to appreciate the new viewpoint regarding health presented here at Restore Unity. It is my hope that I can clarify and debunk some of the unscientific claims being presented as facts in the health community, and I encourage my readers to comment on my articles and submit any information that can enrich the community, whether to agree or oppose.

Better than Antioxidants?

Would you rather repair the damage that causes aging, or prevent it from ever happening? According to scientists from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity (ORAC) could be the REAL key to longer living.

ORAC is a measure of the antioxidant activity against the peroxyl radical, which is one of the most common reactive oxygen species (ROS) that cause damage to cell membranes. The standard was developed in a collaborated effort by the National Institute on Aging and the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging. The higher an item's ORAC, the better it is at combating the free radicals present in our environment.

Free radicals damage the body and there is almost a universal consensus over the past several decades that the main cause of damage and aging to our bodies is due to free radicals. Stable molecules contain electrons in pairs. When the molecule loses an electron, this molecule becomes a free radical. These unbalanced molecules bounce around and create damage. The body repairs the daily damage that happens to it using antioxidants. Unfortunately due to the constant barrage of free radicals, antioxidants are stuck playing catch up in a losing effort.

ORAC units help keep the body healthy in a different way. ORAC units lend electrons, preventing unbalanced molecules from creating havoc to the body. Many times ORAC units help stop damage to the body before it begins! This is a much more effective way to keep a person healthy, than to fix him after the fact (via antioxidant repair after the damage has occurred). This reduces the total number of molecules needed to be repaired, thereby increasing the effectiveness of antioxidants if taken in tandem.

The average human takes in about 1600 ORAC units. The scientists of Tufts University recommend that we increase our average intake to somewhere between 3000-5000 units per day. As it turns out, many antioxidant rich foods (blueberries, red wine, tomato paste) contain a high quantity of ORAC units, as well as black tea and many other fruit and vegetables.

Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to consume the optimum amount of ORAC units in a day without a major change in diet. A person would have to eat at least ten servings of high ORAC fruit and vegetables per day just to reach the minimum daily standard. When you combine that with the other demands of healthy eating habits, it’s obvious that a new focus is on the horizon for the health minded individual.

It’s essential that we make a conscious plan to add those extra ORAC units to our daily intake:

Women: Go out there and add an additional 1500 ORAC units per day!

Men: I want you to add around 3000!

Below you’ll find a link to a listing of ORAC values of many edible items. All values are listed in relation to 100 grams of the substance. If you’d like to know the value per gram simply divide the ORAC value by 100.

ORAC VALUE DATABASE

Personally, I usually have at least one cup of black tea daily for about 1000 ORAC units. Whenever possible, I eat Italian food for the tomato paste and supplement an unusually high amount of vitamin C (vitamin C supplements are high in ORAC value) . I also have two highly concentrated ORAC fruit drinks of between 2 to 4 ounces to supplement my ORAC intake. It’s up to you to make the effort and commit to hitting your ORAC quota each day, if you are truly serious about combating the effects of aging.