ISSUE 77 : 01-15 August 06 Last update August 1 ,2006 -*-
     
 

Diabetes – When Sweet becomes Poison.

By Dr.Banchob Junhasavasdikul

"We have heard that meat and fat are risky and harmful to our health. So someone who follows the health tips will not eat meat such as vegetarians. Someone will trim fat from meat in every dish, for example, they eat chicken meat with no skin." Ph.D. Dr. Wisan Yaowapongsiri said. "Now many people are too much worried about meat and fat, but they do not even know that the new dodgy nutrients which can harm anyone's health is starch and sweet."

"Why do I say like this? Because of carbohydrate which is used as fuel in our body to supply energy can be absorbed into blood vessels and then turned to be glucose in the bloodstream. Some of carbohydrate is turned to be a substance known as tri-glyceride, which causes to be high cholesterol in blood vessels and also to be fat. Moreover, some of carbohydrate is still as glucose in the bloodstream and not leave our body's cells. This is what makes us older. If the glucose sticks to the cells for a long time, it becomes diabetes." Ph.D. Dr. Wisan repeated.

"Food made from flour and sweets can be found anywhere and the price is inexpensive. So people can eat them in many types all the time and the result is there are many people suffered from diabetes nowadays. Most people who are obese tend to have excessive amount of starch or to be diabetes. According to the Thai statistic, some provinces or regions which have a lot of products made of sugar, the residents tend to suffer from diabetes. For example, Petchburi, where is famous for palm sugar, Chonburi, Rayong and other provinces on the eastern coast of Thailand, where sugar-cane grows and many sugar factories are located. Many people who live in these areas have diabetes as well."

"But it is not always like that. Because of comfortable transportation nowadays, sweets can be delivered rapidly to other places. So people who live around those provinces may not always suffer from obesity and diabetes. For example, everyone who comes to Chonburi has to visit and buy glutinous rice in bamboo slip at Nongmon. This dessert is sweet even more every day so there are many people suffered from diabetes. Bangkok, where people love eating, tends to have a greater number of people with obesity and diabetes than other provinces." He added

What is the weak point of eating sweet? First, you have to understand the fundamental process of the body system used for living. It is a system to burn nutrients known as metabolism. The body has glucose in cells as a fuel and wait for oxygen circulating to cells. Then, oxygen will burn glucose (fuel) in each cell to create energy. It is like to light a small fire in cells. The fire will burn the fuel in order to renew cells, but remaining carbon in those cells. Carbon generates free radicals which can destroy cells. It is like burning leaves, explosion of benzene in mobile engine or heat the oil in a pan, which causes smoke, carbon and exhausted gas.

If your blood sugar level stays higher than normal, your tissues can easily be burned. For example, it's like when meat which contains protein is covered with sugar, and then brings it to burn. It can simply be blackened with fire. You can learn by a chicken roasted with honey. When it is burnt, the smell is sweeter than usual. That means the meat is burnt with combustible sugar even the smell is savor. In this case, pathologists know the best. They compare this incident with a human's tendon. Kids and teenagers have a pretty white tendon, but a tendon is yellow in an old age. That is because the tendon sheath is completely used for many years, resulting in its color which is similar to the color of chicken roasted with honey.

Another scholar who explains the hazard of sugar with biochemical principle is Prof. PhD. Maitree Sutthajit. He represents if you have high sugar in blood and it cannot be used in time, sugar can be turned into a chemical called Aldehyde group. Most people hardly know this word, but if we talk about formalin, everybody knows it for sure. Formalin is just a kind of embalming fluid. When aldehyde in the plasma is formed, it is toxic to the cells because this chemical can change protein into a deficient state.

My aunt tell me that when she was a teenager and lived in Tae-Jew, a fight between two families regularly took place, for example, Tae's family and Lim's family. At first, it was just a common battle to save their area like other rascals. Then, having been a fight, a young man was hit to death in the village. Causing all the villagers brought guns, knives, swords and etc in order to revenge. My aunt was a bravery woman. She used to compete with a true man by carrying water tanks on her shoulder with a pole. So at that time, she joined the fight and brought her pistol with. The leader of the opposite side was beheaded. The killer placed the leader's head in the jar of embalming fluid and sent to the enemy in order to ridicule. The fluid they used is honey. It is well known by almost everyone that honey is a substance good for embalming bodies.

According to the story, my aunt does not tell me who was a winner in the end. Without doubt, both families definitely lost their member. For me, I just want to express that letting your blood keep a great amount of sugar is like you are going to embalm your own blood vessels and cells.

One of the most important cells which are previously affected is red blood cells. They are soft, flattened sacks, which shaped like doughnut without a hole. Red blood cells have an average diameter of 7-micron. The most honorable duty of red blood cells is to carry oxygen throughout the body. Capillaries are slight hollow tubes of red blood cells' tips, which merely as narrow as 4 microns in diameter.

The problem is that red blood cells have density more than capillaries. So how can the cells pass through these narrow cavities? The answer is these cells have to pass through capillaries slowly. During this process, oxygen will be absorbed from capillary to red blood cells. It depends on the flexibility of red blood cell's coat to insert itself into the capillaries as well. If its coats are soft and flexible, they can easily pass through the capillaries without any problems. On the other hand, if the coats are too stiff, how they can pass through it. This is what makes the tissues in those areas lack of blood supply.

Person who suffers from diabetes will has the great amount of sugar in blood which can make red blood cells inflexible. The result is blood cannot be carried to other parts of the body which can lead to other diseases as followed;

Retinas deteriorate.

Hard of hearing, damaged auditory nerve.

Dull of the brain, degenerate brain disorders, Alzimer

Finger numbness, Toe numbness. Someone has to cut his leg off due to numbness, which can unexpected lead to leg pain.

Sexual deficiency.

A person with diabetes has episodes of high sugar in blood vessels, which can lead to high blood pressure. Moreover, rough tube of blood vessels causes the occurrence of platelet aggregation and patients will finally have clogged blood vessels, ischemia and paralysis.

It seems Thai proverb saying that 'It is better to take the bitter medicine than the sweet one.' is true. If you eat too much starch and sweet, you will get obesity, high levels of blood cholesterol, diabetes and many more diseases. Anyone who suffers from diabetes is always careless because this disease will not show the symptom immediately. But they will be tortured in great pain later.