The BBC are running a story about a miracle berry (see here) Synsepalum dulcificum.

Interesting. I am reminded of the Lo Han Gua fruit which is used in China to sweeten food. This fruit, which I blogged about recently, has the attribute that it cannot be metabalysed by the human body. So diabetics, like me, and hypogylcaemics suffer no rise in blood sugar levels. It also apparently has other beneficial effects such as it can help relieve gastritis, constipation and respiratory inflammations, and they also appear to inhibit the Epstein-Barr virus and display anti-carcinogenic properties. (That is copied directly from my blog a couple of days ago, important enough that I felt it worth repeating)

My point here is that there are real substitutes to sugar that would massively improve the global health of the human species. Why on earth are we still pumping sugar, a known health hazard, into our food and thus into our body? Have you looked at the sugar content of simple every day foods like breakfast cereal? Some well known brands aimed at the dieting market have as much as 50% sugars - don't believe me? Look at the labels. Some, have none. Guess which ones I have for breakfast?

I am not interested in all the conspiracy theories in the BBC story, they are a real product of the sixties and seventies in my view, more in the fact that the internet has opened up the world to such a large extent that people like you and me can find out about these alternatives and explore them for ourselves.

Look at the food contents labels, avoid sugar and Live healthy.

Did you hear about the bit of red tarmac that was forcibly detained in a mental institution?

Apparently he was thought to be a bit of a cycle-path

Gabapentin. It is my prescribed pain killer at the moment. It wasn't yesterday, but it is today. Let me explain.

I went to a Pain Clinic group hug the other day. Following on from the nerve killing (more like nerve irritating and getting them jolly mad!) injection, my follow up appointment was a group session in the Centre for Pain Management. A sort of group hug if you like, but we were presented details of how they (the Pain Clinic) could help us manage our pain. We were told in no uncertain terms that they would not get rid of our pain, but help us come to terms with it. Good Grief! I've been in pain since I was 14, 38 years ago, I think that I have learned to come to terms with it by now. But anyway, I will try anything, I have nothing to lose. Back to the hug, there was a psychologist there (!), a nurse and a previous 'graduate' of the programme. I listened, but mostly to the other patients. I had to suppress my smiles at one other inductee when she complained about her co-codamol. Good Lord, I mean, my pain went beyond co-codamol twenty years ago. Bless, she was new to it all.

One snippet did make sense though. A fellow inductee mentioned that she wouldn't take gabapentin because it caused memory loss. PING!!! Yvonne and Hannah have 'complained' to me recently that I haven't done things they asked, such as use up some specific food stuffs when I make tea. I had completely forgotten it, and on several occasions too. The nurse confirmed that memory impairment was a major side effect of Gaba.

Right, so I came straight off it. That was Tuesday. Wednesday was okay, and I thought, hey, I can handle this. Thursday I hurt and ached in places that I had forgotten existed. Yesterday, (Friday) I could hardly move with the pain. It obviously takes a few days to work out of the system, and boy, do I now know how much pain it suppressed.

Sod the memory loss, give me my gaba!

Sorry, what was I saying?

So why, I wondered, do so few chinese suffer with diabetes type II? So I did some research and it seems that there is a product called the Lo Han Gua fruit which is a member of the cucumber family (which also includes gourds, squash and melon's). This fruit, which I ought to refer to as 'this amazing fruit', is around 300 times sweeter than sugar but has the following attribute:
It cannot be metabalysed by the human body. So diabetics and hypogylcaemics suffer no rise in blood sugar levels. That alone is not what makes this fruit amazing, it also helps promote the metabolization of stored body fat. An article in Whole Foods June 2003, Lo Han: A Natural Sweetener Comes of Age" by Peilin Guo and Dallas Clouatre has shown that Lo Han extracts help relieve gastritis, constipation and respiratory inflammations, and they also appear to inhibit the Epstein-Barr virus and display anti-carcinogenic properties.

Now the quandry for me is that I don't use sugar in any of my food or drinks, and so i can't actually use it as a sugar substitute, and more importantly as a fat metabolyser. see here

We are back from the holiday on the Island of Manhatten and back with the Islets of Langerhans. Interesting read on Diabetes Self Testing here. It also explains, perhaps, why my GP practice is discouraging the practice of self testing, and has taken the strips off my repeat prescription list.
When I was newly diagnosed, I found self testing hugely helpful in understanding my condition and what effects various foods had on me. I tested myself before every meal and two hours after I had eaten. By keeping a log in Microsoft Excel it was easy to turn the figures into a graph which gave a very visual representation of what was going on. When my GP changed my medication, the effects could be seen on the graph, when I 'sinned' foodwise, the effects could be seen. Far from leaning me towards depression, the practice of self testing helped me understand and come to terms with diabetes.

Now I only self test 2 or 3 times a week, just to make sure that I am still well in control. The biggest lesson I learned? That white bread is a no go area for me as a diabetic. Brown bread is typically half the sugar of white bread, and lowers my blood sugar by around 1 point compared to white.