Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a fat that circulates in the blood. your body needs some cholesterol to manufacture some harmones and certian kinds of cells. Too much cholesterol can lead to clogged arteries and heart problems.

But you body (specifically your liver) can manufacture all the cholesterol you need. We get additional cholesterol directly from eating animal products -- meat, milk, eggs, etc.

Decreased response inhibition in middle-aged male patients with type 2 diabetes

The abstract:

Background

This study was performed to examine whether patients with type 2 diabetes have cognitive deficits associated with the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
Methods

Twenty-seven middle-aged patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes and 27 healthy controls underwent physical measurements and neuropsychological tasks. Response inhibition, reward prediction, and executive function were assessed by the Go/NoGo task, the reversal and extinction tasks, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). To examine the interactions of being overweight with diabetes on cognitive performance, performance data were analysed by two-way ANCOVA with diabetes and overweight as factors and age as a covariate.
Results

Patients with type 2 diabetes showed significantly decreased response inhibition in the Go/NoGo task (discriminability index: P=0.001). There was an interaction of being overweight with diabetes on reaction time in the Go trials of the Go/NoGo task (P=0.009). Being overweight was related to retained responses to the presentiment of reward in the extinction task (P=0.029). The four groups showed normal cognitive performance in the WCST.
Conclusions

Our results showed that middle-aged, newly diagnosed and medication-free patients with type 2 diabetes have a particular neuropsychological deficit in inhibitory control of impulsive response, which is an independent effect of diabetes apart from being overweight.

The full article.

Diabetes plus other stuff

I have diabetes. I also have high blood pressure, bi-polar disorder, kidney failure, and had recent heart by-pass surgery. And I recently turned 60 so there's every reason to expect such a basket of health issues to continue. So this blog post on patient, doctor disagreements about the importance of different treatments caught my interest.

Newly diagnosed diabetics and their doctors don't always agree on which aspects of the disease are the most important to treat.

It prompted me to do some further reading on the subject. I'll try to get to some of that tomorrow.

Cream of Hot Pepper Soup

I'm on a low sodium, low phosphorus (which means no milk or nuts), and low protein diet. Here's a recipe that fits into that well and also gives me something to do with the abundance of peppers from the garden I have this time of year.

1 medium onion, finely chopped

about 10 peppers, jalapeno's, Serrano, hot bananas, maybe even throw in a habanero

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

4 teaspoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 cup chicken stock (I make my own without salt and keep it in the refrigerator)

1 cup soy-milk

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese.

1/2 cup dried macaroni (I like the low carb Dreamfields Elbows
)


Saute the onion in the oil.
Put peppers and soy-milk in a blender and liquefy
When onion is translucent add garlic, turmeric, vinegar, and chicken stock. Stir and simmer.
Add remaining ingredients with 2-3 cups of water.
Simmer for about another 20 minutes.

Some okra dishes

Here's some tasty ways to cook okra dishes.

Dreamfield pasta and blood sugar

The other day I reported on my blood sugar effects of a large Asian-syle noodle salad made with Ramen noodles. It wasn't good.

Last night I tried a similar salad made with Dreamfields Linguine instead of the Ramen noodles.

One other difference was that instead of pork I topped it off with a coconut breaded fried shrimp (pre-breaded from the frozen food section). That would add some carbs.

My blood sugar before eating was 91. Five hours later (after a long nap) it was 190. Since blood sugar usually peaks 2-3 hours after eating that suggests that the peak was a little too high.

As a partial check as to whether the spike was caused by the pasta, the next day I had the same dish without the breaded shrimp. My blood sugar was 166 when I ate, and two hours later (after doing some vigorous work in the yard) it was 143.

My overall conclusion: 1. Stay away from the Ramen noodles.
2. A noodle salad made with the Dreamfields Linguine is okay if it's the mid-day meal eaten before doing some walking or yard work. It probably not a good choice for an evening meal.

Noodles and blood sugar

One of my favorite dishes is an Asian style noodle salad. I'll make one with whatever's in the kitchen or garden -- here's a typical recipe.

I'll start with a base of Ramen noodles (or any Japanese style noodle). I just boil a package of them without the seasoning. The little packs of sodium they come with is just loaded with sodium and not very good for you.

Put the cooked noodles in the bottom of a large bowl. According to the package, that's two servings, but I use the whole thing. That's a lot of carbohydrates, which I'll get to later.

One of the keys to this dish is to create pockets of flavor, not one mish-mash blend. So don't spread the noodles out. Just put them in a pile in the middle of the bowl. That's what you'll do with all the ingredients, just put them in individual piles rather than spread them out. They'll get blended together as you eat.

Next a handful of finely chopped cabbage. Just put them in a pile next to the noodles.

Then a large handful of mixed lettuces -- torn into small pieces.

Then some fresh, finely chopped, parsley, mint, and basil. About a handful in total. Just whatever fresh herbs are available.

Then a small handful of nuts or seeds -- chopped walnuts, sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, anything. I used some roasted sesame seeds mixed with a few chopped pecans.

I keep a jar of thinly sliced carrot marinating in some vinegar. Add a healthy spoonful of those carrots.

One boiled egg, sliced.

A small handful of cooked pork cut into small chunks.

Top it off with some flavored vinegar and maybe some Thai style peanut sauce.

That's what I had for dinner today. Before I ate my blood sugar was 112. Three hours later my blood sugar was 313.

No more noodle salads for this diabetic. That's just too many carbs for me, even if I ate a more rational sized serving like a half package. The peanut sauce has some sugar in it also, but the carbs in the Ramen noodles is just over the top. The package says that a package has 52g of carbs, none of which is sugar but only 6g of which is fiber.