Broccoli and Diabetes

Hi!  I'm diabetic and I just found this tidbit of information on line this afternoon and thought I'd pass it along.  This is an article that says that broccoli may undo the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels.  They are just starting the research but it looks promising.  I am adding the link to this article.  Also, at the right hand side of the article is another link about broccoli fighting heart disease. 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7541639.stm

 

Broccoli is in the brassica family of vegetables.  Others in that family are spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, kale, collard greens, pak choi, and kohlrabi.  So, let's start eating our veggies!

 

Sherrine

Also, I heard today that it's good to have a couple of eggs every morning for breakfast.  They fill you up and so you don't snack between meals.  I used to be concerned about the cholesterol but this doctor, from Cornell University Medical Center, said that eggs don't have the saturated fats and they don't raise cholesterol.  This was a myth! 

 

They did a study using overweight people.  One group had a bagel for breakfast and the other group had eggs.  The group that ate the eggs lost considerably more weight than the other group.  I know that bagels are higher in calories than eggs, but not enough to make that big of a difference in weight loss.  But the carbs in them will shoot the blood sugars high.  So, I know you advise people to eat eggs for breakfast on this forum and you are absolutely correct!

 

I know that losing weight helps with diabetes.  I have lost 80 pounds and still want to lose a little more.  When I lost the weight, the diabetes was much better and it's easy to control now.  So, that's why I wanted to reinforce this.  Hmmm....how about an omelet stuffed with mushrooms, broccoli, and cheese for breakfast!  YUM! 

 

Sherrine

Lanie, I started eating a half a Haas avocado a day and it brought my cholesterol down even more!  My last check my LDL was 77, my HDL was 41, and my triglycerides were 122!  My doctor was amazed and sooo happy.  The only thing I did differently was add the avocado to my diet.  I like putting it in salads or stuffing it with cottage cheese.

 

Sherrine

Welcome to the Forum, Kae.  I'm sure you'll find a lot of information here.  Please read the "Welcome" thread and go through the past topics here in which we've talked about food and diets.  I believe they would be helpful.  Avocados have the 'good' fats and are useful in a diet for diabetics.  Of course, we're not saying you would eat two at a time during a meal.  Several sources that we've cited here state that our bodies (the liver actually) manufacture the cholesterol from the carbohydrates that we eat.  I found this true for me.  In six months, my total cholesterol dropped 40 points when I started a very low carb diet.  My LDL went from 124 to 93 during that time.  The only difference, as I say, is that I stopped eating bread, rice, potatoes and other carbs.  During those months I also started doing a lot of exercise (walking and weight training).  The bottom line is that not only did my cholesterol drop to normal levels but my blood sugar came to normal levels and I lost weight.  If weight, cholesterol, blood sugar are issues for you, you could probably benefit from a diet change.  As I said, we've discussed all this many times over the last year or two, so please look back at the past threads for this information.  Some people are stricter than others about eliminating carbs.  Some members are on meds, some are not.  And some of us metabolize carbs differently according to where our bodies are on the diabetes "road".  There are different levels of no or low carb diets.  You might do very well with whole grain and whole berry bread within your diet.  Maybe not.  The bottom line is what your blood sugar is, which is why you have to test to see how you react to different food.  So, with all the ideas here from our members, just try to see what works for you.  There are several sources for low carb diets which you can look up easily:  Atkins, Dr. Richard Bernstein, Dr. Gott's no flour/no sugar diet, insulin resistant diet.  Let us know how it goes for you.

(By the way, those "missing key" and other strange expressions sometimes pop up when the website has hiccups.  They don't mean anything to us.)

Post Edited (LanieG) : 8/15/2008 8:59:33 AM (GMT-6)

Apparently avocados are also good for men's prostate health, and actually the only food that does what they do for men. Don't understand it all, but there was one of those doctors on the PBS station telling us how to live longer (and NOT selling a book!) and the avocado thing came up. My hubby has been noshing on them ever since.