A.F.MomDiane said...
I'm sorry...but no one's ever explained why the National Institute For Health and the American Diabetes Asociation each have acceptable levels much higher than accepted here by a lot of you folk??? Are they wrong???
I can stay within their guidelines and feel good about myself. But when I go by the standards mentioned here I stuggle and get frustrated half the time. ..I always have that "feeling of inadaquacy" in the back of my mind because here I don't measure up. I come close but...then I'm a frustrated carcastic sourpuss , a scared little rabbit, or I choose not to care.
Diane,
It definitely is not our intention to make you feel like you don't measure up or your numbers are 'bad'. To me, having diabetes is a lot like driving a car. We all have seen terrible drivers and aren't surprised when they have accidents (or get themselves killed!) They weren't paying attention or didn't keep their cars brakes or fluid levels in good condition. In a way, they bring disaster on themselves. People who don't follow their food plan, never get their labs done, don't check their morning sugars or never get an eye exam fall into this category. By the time they figure it all out the disaster has already happened.
Then there are the 'safe' drivers who drive so slowly and carefully that they have trouble getting anywhere... It's just easier for them to stay home. These are people who are so regimented in their food plan and lifestyle that they can't let go for a minute to have a good time at their daughter's wedding or take a chance and taste their grandson's attempt at Christmas
cookies. Their fear of mistakes makes their lives no fun.
Then there are peeps like me, rolling on down the road, trying to keep it between the lines and under the speed limit. Occasionally I'll have a flat tire because I forgot to check them, but then I'll go and buy an entirely new set of tires, figuring that they are all the same age. I don't always get my food plan and exercise regimen exactly right but I try to make up for it by learning better ways to get to the same end.
And the more educated I become about
the effects of diabetes on the human body the more I want to keep my sugars in line with a lower starch food plan. There is more to this disease than just high blood glucose. There are studies showing vascular changes in people who maintain good numbers with meds. There are studies showing problems in ligaments and tendons specific to diabetics even while they keep the numbers inline with meds. And there are very few studies showing good results for people who go to the basis of the problem, lowering the need for meds by not consuming the carbs. This is because, for some reason, nobody ever asked diabetics to do this. (DUH!)
We still run into people who have been told by their doctors to avoid sugar, so they eat sugar-free
cookies made with another form of sweetener and flour. For the carbs involved they would be better off eating one real
cookie! And I can't really fault the doctors on this just now because they only spend about
one week of their entire medical training on nutrition. They believe the dietitians are the ones with the credentials about
food plans and refer us to them. But much of the dietitian's training is based on government recommendations ....
UNFORTUNATELY the entire food 'agribusiness' industry is politically motivated to drive the consumers to consume what makes the most money for the food business. There are big lobbies for the milk, corn growers, wheat farmers and others who influence what the government tells us we should consume. I imagine if cocoa beans were grown in the U.S. mainland we would be prodded to eat chocolate every day! And although there are milk subsidies for dairy farmers so they can be paid well for their milk nobody ever helped out the squash farmers when there was a squash blight a few years ago. So to answer your question about
if the ADA guidelines are wrong, in my opinion, yes, they are wrong. I spent over 10 years of my life beating myself up over high sugars and eventually had to start insulin when I should have listened to my new doctor and started on the South Beach diet. (It's a modified low carb food plan.)
Sorry to be on such a rant here, but if you want to find a rock solid line of numbers to follow grab your hubby or one of your kids and test their sugars in the morning, before a meal and two hours after dinner. If they are a normal then those are the kinds of numbers you want to emulate. If you need meds, food plan changes, exercise and/ or have to do the hokey pokey to get those kinds of numbers, THAT'S where you want to be.