Is there an army of ants parading in your rest room? If there is, chances are you or someone in your family has diabetes. Ants in the bathroom, most physicians claim, are an effective diabetes indicator.
Considered as a “disease of affluence,” diabetes is now taking its place as one of the main threats to human health in the 21st century. According to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO), the world will be home to 366 million people with diabetes by 2030. Most of those diabetics will be from developing countries. In the Philippines, some 500 Filipinos are being diagnosed with the condition every day.
Currently, there are 4 million diabetics in the country today, with more than 3 million not knowing they have the disease. “Many people still do not know that they have diabetes,” said Dr. Tommy Ty Wiling, president of Diabetes Philippines.
The Department of Health listed diabetes as the ninth leading cause of death among Filipinos today. In 20 years the Philippines is expected to be among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest numbers of people with diabetes.
“Diabetes has no cure,” said Dr. Ricardo Fernando of the Institute for Studies and Diabetes Foundation in the Philippines. “What doctors can do is just minimize the complications or push its onset a little later because the disease is more manageable among older people.”
The Medical News Today (MNT) considers diabetes as “a metabolism disorder.” Metabolism refers to the way your bodies use digested food for energy and growth. Most of what you eat is broken down into glucose. Glucose is a form of sugar in the blood—it is the principal source of fuel for our bodies.
“When our food is digested, the glucose makes its way into our bloodstream,” MNT explains. “Our cells use the glucose for energy and growth. However, glucose cannot enter our cells without insulin being present—insulin makes it possible for our cells to take in the glucose.”
Insulin is a hormone released from the pancreas. “After eating, the pancreas automatically releases an adequate quantity of insulin to move the glucose present in our blood into the cells, as soon as glucose enters the cells blood-glucose levels drop,” MNT notes.
A person with diabetes has a condition in which the quantity of glucose in the blood is too elevated (hyperglycemia). “This is because the body either does not produce enough insulin, produces no insulin, or has cells that do not respond properly to the insulin the pancreas produces,” MNT says. “This results in too much glucose building up in the blood. This excess blood glucose eventually passes out of the body in urine. So, even though the blood has plenty of glucose, the cells are not getting it for their essential energy and growth requirements.”
Like most diseases, diabetes has symptoms. Among the most common signs are excessive urination and abnormal thirst. Other symptoms include unusual hunger, rapid loss of weight or excessive weight, nausea and vomiting, blurred vision, drowsiness, itchy skin and skin disorders, cramps or numbness in the limbs, and abdominal pain.
‘Ampalaya’: An ally
Ampalaya is touted to be an ally of those with diabetes. During the time of Dr. Francisco Duque as health secretary, a circular was issued reinstating ampalaya as a scientifically validated herbal medicinal plant that can lower elevated blood sugar levels. In 2003 then Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit classified ampalaya as a “folklorical-validated herbal medicinal plant.”
The reclassification came about in view of recent clinical evidence on the efficacy of ampalaya in capsule or tea form as a useful dietary adjunct in the treatment of type 2 (non-insulin dependent) diabetes.
The health department cited a 10-year study that found out that the vegetable can effectively regulate blood sugar in the same way as a regular anti-diabetes drug. Results of the study conducted by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development elevated the ampalaya from a mere nutritional supplement to a real medicine. The study was certified by the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care (PITAHC).
“We compared ampalaya leaves with an anti-diabetes drug, and we found out that ampalaya has the same effect on the patient. It means the action of ampalaya on blood sugar is equivalent to the action of the medicine,” PITAHC said in a statement.
The study revealed that a 100 milligram per kilo dose per day is comparable to 2.5 milligrams of the anti-diabetes drug Glibenclamide taken twice per day.
In a separate clinical research, Dr. Reynaldo F. Rosales and Dr. Ricardo E. Fernando found that ampalaya fruit, prepared as a tea “is well tolerated and maybe a useful dietary adjunct in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.” The two physicians, who are both specialists on diabetes, added: “It has minor gastrointestinal side effects of increased bowel frequency, but beneficial to those diabetic patients who are constipated.”
A research showed that this plant has insulin that triggers the production of beta cells in the pancreas that could, therefore, lead to development of insulin. That said inulin is known as polypeptide-P. Together with another agent called charantin that enhances the blood glucose uptake, both are beneficial in lowering high sugar level in the body, thereby making it a good agent in managing type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Guia Ciria Abad, immediate past president of the Association of Municipal Health Officers of the Philippines, said she has been actively promoting ampalaya as a supplementary medicine for diabetes since 1981. “Diabetes is a lifetime disease. I come from a family with diabetes. I know that medication is draining the pockets of patients or their relatives. And here’s a supplement that effectively helps control diabetes,” she told a media forum.
However, Abad advised patients to consult their doctor before stopping the intake of their regular prescribed medicines and just take ampalaya. “Even if you feel good after taking ampalaya, go to your doctor for regular checkup and it is up to your doctor to reduce the dosage of your prescribed medicines,” she said. “Ampalaya can be potent, but it can also give you a shock.”
Rice for diabetics
Almost always, diabetics are advised to eat less rice. The reason: the starch-rich staple can potentially release high amounts of sugar into the blood when digested.
A 2007 study of Chinese women in Shanghai found that middle-aged women who ate large amounts of rice and other refined carbohydrates were at increased risk for diabetes compared to their peers who ate less.
In the United States, Americans who eat white rice on a regular basis— five or more times a week—are almost 20 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who eat it less than once a month.
But diabetics may now worry less. Researchers at the Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have already identified the key gene that determines the glycemic index (GI) of rice.
The findings of the research, which analyzed 235 types of rice from around the world, is good news because it not only means rice can be part of a healthy diet for the average consumer. It also means people with diabetes, or at risk of diabetes, can select the right rice to help maintain a healthy, low-GI diet.
“It is an important achievement that offers rice breeders the opportunity to develop varieties with different GI levels to meet consumer needs,” IRRI said in a statement. “Future development of low-GI rice would also enable food manufacturers to develop new, low-GI food products based on rice.”
GI is a measure of the rate at which carbohydrates as glucose enter the blood stream. “The GI also indicates the rate at which carbohydrates break down during digestion in the small intestine into the simple sugars glucose, fructose and, sometimes, galactose,” explains Dr. Virgilio M. Ofiana in his weekly column for a national daily.
“The glucose is the sugar that is rapidly absorbed and has a reference GI of 100 or greater,” Ofiana writes. “Both fructose and galactose enter the circulation at a slower rate and need to go to the liver for conversion into glucose: both, therefore, have lower GIs.”
Dr. Melissa Fitzgerald, who led the research team at the IRRI, found the GI of rice varies a lot from one type of rice to another, ranging from a low of 48 to a high of 92, with an average of 64. “Low-GI foods are those measured 55 and less, medium-GI foods are those measured between 56 and 69, while high-GI foods measure 70 and above,” IRRI explained.