Customer Reviews

Blood Sugar 101: What They Don't Tell You About Diabetes

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is simply outstanding, highly recommended if you have diabetes, prediabetes, or just want to know more about how to keep this from happening to you.

The core message of the book is (1) that blood sugars over 140 are damaging, and that you should keep your blood sugar below this level all the time, and (2) that keeping your blood sugar below 140 is something that everyone can do.

The problem with blood sugars over 140 is that they cause diabetic complications: increased heart attack risk, nerve problems, eyesight loss, kidney problems, blood vessel and circulation problems that can lead to amputations, etc. High blood sugars also accelerate damage to your pancreas, so that you get ongoing higher and higher blood sugars, a vicious circle. Not fun stuff.

The best early warning sign that your blood sugars are spiraling out of control is your peak blood sugar after a meal. If your blood sugar spikes to over 140 after eating, you need to start working on it. The best way to check it is to buy a low-cost over-the-counter blood sugar meter at your local pharmacy, and check your readings at 1, 1.5, and 2 hours after a typical meal.

The problem with fasting blood sugar as an indicator is that this is the last to go. You can have normal fasting blood sugars and high after-meal peaks for a long time, then "overnight" have very high fasting blood sugars when your system loses the ability to recover. Only when you show high fasting blood sugars will your doctor start treating you.

The best solution for high peak blood sugars is to reduce carbohydrates, which lowers the amount of blood sugar that your metabolism has to cope with.

One interesting piece of information is that carpal tunnel syndrome is often an early warning for blood sugar problems. Since I had carpal tunnel and other RSI problems years before I realized my blood sugar was not well-managed, this certainly fits for me.

This book is a great summary of what I've learned for myself, with enough new info and good ways of looking at things to make it extremely worthwhile. Thanks, Jenny!

If you like the BloodSugar101 WebSite, this is an excellent pocket reference for you!

For those of you suffering from Type 1, 2 or MODL type Diabetes, this book has the best advice for really improving your Blood Sugar Control and health. I have been able to bring my A1C from 8.4% to 5.8% in 3 months by using the key advice found in this source. (I stumbled on some of the Medication and Diet Techniques on my own but found all of them concisely listed in this wonderful book).

Book Strengths:
1. Good, practical advice on making the necessary lifestyle changes stick!
2. Keeping the focus on understanding your individual diabetes situation and tuning for it.
3. Outstanding references to support all advice and continued emphasis on healthy skepticism.
4. An excellent, handy reference which to keep nearby.

Having a diagnosis of diabetes for less than two years now has made me more than a little skeptical about the adivce and directions I've been given by the doctors, nurses & dieticians. It seemed as if they set the bar too low so I began to look for information that would help me avoid the ravages of diabetes. I found this book to be exactly what I needed to give my efforts a boost in the right direction.

I like that it speaks to all the major factors (food, exercise & medication) in a way that is simple to understand and specific with numbers that will help us live with this disease and I mean live without damage.

Thanks Jenny - everyone with diabetes should read this book and best case would be all those newly diagnosed would be handed a copy and told - This book will keep you on the right track and allow you to do what it takes to stay healthy with this disease.

As a diabetes "newbie" (just diagnosed a couple of weeks ago), I decided I'd better learn all I could while waiting for my appointment with the booked-weeks-in-advance endocrinologist. I ordered both "Blood Sugar 101" and Dr. Bernstein's book. Both are jam-packed with information, but Dr. Bernstein left me feeling a bit overwhelmed, and also scared of what would happen if I couldn't follow his program to the letter.

Jenny's book, on the other hand, made me feel like "I can do this". It is clearly written and provides a step-by-step program for getting one's blood sugar under control. Best of all, I can sit down and read it without suffering a panic attack. Highly recommended for the newly diagnosed, or anyone wanting to learn more about this disease.

I have read at least 25 books regarding diabetes plus much internet research. This is the best book out there on diabetes. I ordered 10 copies. I am circulating them around two counties in Wisconsin. All I ask is that the people read the book, put their initials on the inside front cover and pass it along to other diabetics, loved ones or health care providers, with instructions for them to read and pass it along. Worth much more than the price.

This book is a must-read for diabetics who would rather preserve their health than eat like everyone else.

I've been taking Jenny's advice since I was diagnosed with Type II eleven years ago, and I've maintained my health while others around me have been listening to the professionals and suffering complications.

The vast majority of doctors are not diabetics and don't know very much about the disease other than that their Type II patients gain weight over time and get worse. Yet these doctors tell their patients they can eat bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and desserts but that they must cut back and get exercise. For Type II's, these foods make you hungry, make you fat, increase your insulin resistance, raise your blood sugar sky high, make you feel awful and prompt you to eat more of these troublesome foods. If one eats this way and takes a lot of meds or insulin, they can maintain the recommended A1C, which is dangerously high, but they will get worse over time. Because the time horizon for complications varies, many diabetics come to believe that they are immune to complications. Not so.

Why do doctors hide the truth from their Type II patients? It's not their lives that are at stake. Many simply listen to the ADA's bad advice and most are afraid of depressing their patients with the truth and driving them to other doctors with sunnier dispositions.

Diabetic complications are so awful, they make dietary restrictions look like a minor inconvenience. It's easier to change your behavior when you know the real consequences. Sadly, too many Type II diabetics resist the truth and attack the messenger.

With the information this book taught me how to discover about my own diabetes, I have lost 32 pounds and brought my A1c down below 6%, without any medications. I bought this book 4 months ago, right after my Type 2 diagnosis, when my doc sent me out of his office with a prescription and not even so much information as they gave me when I had a sinus infection. I bought it along with three books from the American Diabetes Assoc and three other popular physician-written diabetes titles. The only one of these seven books I have read more than once is this one, and I've read it cover-to-cover *four* times with my highlighters and sticky notes at hand and gotten something new out of it every time -- it's a LOT of information, laid out very clearly. As you gather more info yourself from your finger-stick testing and eating experiments, you start to see patterns that the book helps you recognize and react to. I have then used bits and pieces from the other titles to fine-tune my diet ("Blood Sugar 101" has suggestions but no exact eating or exercise regimens, and only a very few recipes), and I am feeling better than I have in fifteen years. I really appreciate all the diabetics whose listserv posts have informed Jenny's book and website, the power of their experience gave me the guts to personally challenge the diabetes "party line." I like that I can look for free web updates to any of the information in this book, but I also imagine I'll buy any updated print editions, as the web can be overwhelming when the info you need is as complex as this.

I recently took a diabetes class offered by my HMO and their current hb1ac target is 6.5. That would mean that the average glucose would be about 154 as seen on your meter. This book confirms my suspicion that that number is still too high if you want to avoid complications from the disease. The research cited in this book says that you need to stay below 140 or a below 6.0 hb1ac to retain ones health. Once again, my HMO and the ADA have let me down with faulty recommendations. I plan to follow the book rather than the HMO and confound the predictions of inevitable deterioration.

The authors that actually have the disease seem to do their due diligence when writing these books in getting the real facts. I think that you should get this book along with Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. Both authors have the disease and can be trusted to tell the truth about the disease. Keep your hb1ac below 6.0 and stay alive. Very good book!

This book has helped me tremendously to get my blood sugars into the "5% Club", and some of the complications of diabetes have actually been reversing. Great info, concise chapters, easy to look up the things you need to re-read later. I'm an RN, and I highly recommend this book!

I CAN'T RECOMMEND THIS BOOK ENOUGH.

Anyone who has diabetes (newly diagnosed or veteran), is insulin resistant, has metabolic syndrome, or PCOS or knows someone who has any of the above should read this book. Positive, never condescending, always informative! A real touchstone.

As someone who comes from a diabetic family, I thought I knew plenty. I now feel like I know exactly what's going on with my body (and what was going on with it for years before my diagnosis!), why, and exactly what to do for it to avoid diabetic complications later. Extremely enlightening and interesting. Not just another diabetes book that tells you you're doomed, or that it's your fault because you're fat, or blah blah blah. It lets you draw your own conclusions with ALL the information.

After this I plan on fleshing out my knowledge with more biology research. And I have a community to go to if I'm ever needing more, which I am endlessly grateful for. Thank you, Jenny - here I come 5% club!