Plaque is the stuff of coronary heart disease. It is CONTROLLABLE, it is STOPPABLE, it is REVERSIBLE.
But you must be equipped with the right information on diet, nutritional supplements, and hopefully the avoidance of medication.
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There it is, sitting quietly tucked under your diaphragm, nestled beneath layers of stomach and intestines, doing its job of monitoring blood sugar, producing insulin, and secreting the digestive enzymes that allow you to convert a fried egg, tomato, or dill pickle into the components that compose you.
But, if you’ve lived the life of most Americans, your pancreas has had a hard life. Starting as a child, it was forced into the equivalent of hard labor by your eating carbohydrate-rich foods like Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Hoho’s, Ding Dongs, Scooter Pies, and macaroni and cheese. Into adolescent years and college, it was whipped into subservient labor with pizza, beer, pretzels, and ramen noodles. As an adult, the USDA, Surgeon General’s office and other assorted purveyors of nutritional advice urged us to cut our fat, cholesterol, and eat more “healthy whole grains”; you complied, exposing your overworked pancreas to keep up its relentless work pace, spewing out insulin to accommodate the endless flow of carbohydrate-rich foods.
So here we are, middle aged or so, with pancreases that are beaten, worn, hobbling around with a walker, heaving and gasping due to having lost 50% or more of its insulin-producing beta cells. If continued to be forced to work overtime, it will fail, breathing its last breath as you and your doctor come to its rescue with metformin, Actos, Januvia, shots of Byetta, and eventually insulin, all aimed at corralling the blood sugar that your failed pancreas was meant to contain.
What if you don’t want to rescue your flagging pancreas with drugs? What if you want to salvage your poor, wrinkled, exhausted pancreas, eaking out whatever is left out of the few beta cells you have left?
Well, then, baby your pancreas. If this were a car with 90,000 miles on it, but you want it to last 100,000, then change the oil frequently, keep it tuned, and otherwise baby your car, not subjecting it to extremes and neglect to accelerate its demise. Same with your pancreas: Allow it to rest, not subjecting it to the extremes of insulin production required by carbohydrate consumption. Don’t expose it to foods like wheat flour, cornstarch, oats, rice starch, potatoes, and sucrose that demand overtime and hard labor out of your poor pancreas. Go after the foods that allow your pancreas to sleep through a meal like eggs, spinach, cucumbers, olive oil, and walnuts. Give your pancreas a nice back massage and steer clear of “healthy whole grains,” the nutritional equivalent of a 26-mile marathon. Pay your pancreas a compliment or two and allow it to have occasional vacations with a brief fast.
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Sshort-term supplementation with cholecalciferol improves β cell function
Effects of vitamin D and calcium supplementation on pancreatic {beta} cell function, insulin sensitivity, and glycemia in adults at high risk of diabetes
Perhaps if they’d used 5000iu/d the results would have been even better as Dr Cannell suggests here
Improving melatonin secretion (or using a time release supplement) may also be worthwhile to protect pancreatic function.
Glad to see T. H. back …. for Melatonin synthesis we use zinc and taking zinc raises one’s melatonin output (2003 journal Acta Physiologica Hungarica, 90(4),335-339). Pancreatic lipase enzymes that help cleave fat we’ve eaten also uses zinc.
I have no zinc guide lines for anyone, and definitely am not claiming zinc is the only relevant parameter in pancreatic dynamics. For home evaluation of zinc status please see Dr. Dereck Bryce-Smith’s “ZTT” technique; it is a 10 second mouth swish of 2 teaspoons of zinc sulfate mono-hydrate and how one’s response ranges in four gradients going from tasteless to metallic.
I am just about convinced that I have experienced some amount of beta cell duplication as a result of many months of low carb dieting, as noted in an earlier post by Might-o in March regarding the formation of new, larger beta cells in the absence of hyper-glycemia. After trying many diets to address my type 2 diabetes, I settled on a low carb diet of 65% fat 25% protien and 10% carb after extensive research on the effects of the different micronutrients on blood sugar. For almost a year, my A1C has been 5.4, and I lost 40 lbs in that time period.
However, after feeling that I had lost some strength in weightlifting, I did some additional research on maintaining strength while on a low-carb diet, and it was suggested that on weekends, to eat anywhere from 100-500 grams of carbs to restore my glycogen levels. To make a long story short, I ate half of a large pizza, and tested my blood glucose before and one hour after. Before, it was 82mg/dl. After? 67 mg/dl. I tested this again the next day with a few tacos, which would have normally shot my blood glucose numbers in the 100′s and it produced the same effect.
One concern that I have is that my pancreas is producing excessive insulin, which is a problem for us diabetics who have been abusing our pancreas for so many years. However, I believe that I have recovered some insulin sensitivity by giving my pancreas a rest and keeping my insulin levels low. Does that mean that I’m cured and I should start gorgeing on pizza, cakes, sodas, french fries, mashed potatoes, pancakes and fried chicken like I used to? (I know, I brought diabetes on to myself) The answer is no. But it is a good idea to preserve our existing working beta cells by giving it a rest.
Good advice, as usual.
I was wondering if you could plan a future post around Microvascular Disease, particularly in women. I understand the symptoms are different, and was hoping that you may be able to shed light on which lifestyle factors are most effective. I’m seeing more and more thin, active women (many younger than 65) with “perfect” lipids in cardiac rehab.
I have been taking metformin for polycystic ovarian syndrome. I have been low-carb/primal for a year now. Blood work (sugar and trig/hdl) look great. Any idea what I am doing to my pancreas by continuing the metformin? I have already decreased the dose since my blood sugar was getting too low. How do I know if I don’t need to take it anymore? I am not taking metformin to control blood sugar.
Thank you for the valuable information Dr. Davis. I am using much of it.
Another way to baby your pancreas is to avoid, where possible, dysglycemic drugs–two examples include: quinolines (antimalarials) and fluoroquinolones (FQs, e.g. ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, moxifloxacin). Bactericidal antibiotics produce more oxidative stress than do bacteriostatic antibiotics. FQs produce a lot of oxidative stress, probably more than others and they are handed out like candy. FQs also deplete and mutate mammalian mitochondria.
Interestingly, B-cells in the pancreas have very low levels of antioxidant enzymes (glutathione peroxidase and catalase both mop up reactive oxygen species) comprising only 1% of the levels in the liver. This favors H2O2 accumulation which can mess up H2O2 signal transduction.
I wonder why our pancreas B-cells do not have more antioxidant protection than do cells in the liver? Maybe the difference is the amount of zinc and iron between the pancreas and liver? Zinc is a potent antioxidant by itself and a cofactor for the third major antioxidant enzyme of our bodes–super oxidase dismutase. Iron is highly risky for oxidative stress particularly in combination with a hydroxyl radical–this is an explosive combination.
How much the rapid increase in diabetes is associated with the overuse of prescription medications that are tough on the pancreas?
I have references for all of the above if anyone is interested.
Hi Redd,
You may be interested that it is MnSOD (manganese superoxide dismutase) which makes risky super-oxide molecules into molecules of H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide); the net effect of having more MnSOD activity is lower levels of super-oxide but more H2O2.
“I ate half of a large pizza, and tested my blood glucose before and one hour after. Before, it was 82mg/dl. After? 67 mg/dl. I tested this again the next day with a few tacos, which would have normally shot my blood glucose numbers in the 100′s and it produced the same effect.”
Hope you have previously tested those same foods at 30 minute intervals because blood glucose peak timing can vary greatly depending on specific food/meal and individual physiology. Pizza is one of the worst for long delayed but very high peak