AKA “the Goldilocks Disease”

Have you ever wondered why your preschooler is not hungry at mealtime? Have you felt a sudden “let-down” about two hours after breakfast of cereal with banana and milk and a glass of fruit juice? Do you need/use coffee to keep you alert throughout the day? Do you know people who do NOT need to use coffee to stay awake and alert? Have you ever wondered if that let-down feeling is normal?

One of the first things I tell people who are newly diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes or with pre-diabetes is to avoid fruit juice completely. Their response is generally something like “I thought fruit juice was good for me.”

In comparison to carbonated soft drinks and sweetened, artificially flavored drinks, fruit juices do offer a few vitamins (though fewer than most of us would like to believe). For the most part, fruit juice provides a concentrated form of fructose (fruit sugar) with little or no fiber. Therefore, it is easily and rapidly digested and raises the blood glucose levels very quickly…usually within 15 – 20 minutes. In fact, when a person has a low blood sugar reaction, we in the health field generally will give 4 ounces of fruit juice to the patient by mouth to rapidly bring the blood glucose level back up to the normal range.

The challenge for most of us lies in keeping the blood glucose level relatively even. While we don’t want the blood glucose too low, we don’t want it too high either.

I call diabetes “the Goldilocks Disease.” Blood glucose needs to be …not too high…not too low…but “just right.”

So…what does all this have to do with the person without diabetes? What does it have to do with my preschooler?

Here’s what is going on in your body when you eat or drink anything. You put the bite in your mouth, chew it up, and swallow. Eventually, the food reaches your stomach where it is thoroughly mixed with digestive juices that begin breaking the food down smaller and smaller until it is finally small enough to move from the gut into the bloodstream as glucose (the form that provides fuel to the body.)

The problem with fruit juice is that it breaks down so very easily that there is an almost immediate rise in blood glucose within minutes after drinking it. That sudden rise in blood glucose requires an immediate secretion of insulin from the pancreas. Insulin’s job is to escort the glucose into the cell where it can be used as fuel….or be stored for future use. As long as our pancreas is perfectly normal, the rise in insulin parallels the rise in blood glucose so that in the end the resulting actual glucose level in the bloodstream changes only within normal limits.

When a person has diabetes, either the insulin is completely absent; or the body is unable to use the insulin that is present appropriately.

“But,” you protest, “I don’t have diabetes!”

Yet.

The incidence of diabetes is rapidly rising in our country and in many developed countries all around the globe. There are number of possible reasons for the increase; however, it is inexorably linked to the rise in obesity.

Approximately 75% of people with Type 2 diabetes could prevent diabetes if they just took certain steps to do so…early enough.

What steps? How early? The earlier, the better. Start the preschoolers off with water…not juice or Koolaid.

The steps:

Drink water instead of juice or soft drinks or diet soft drinks.

Be active at least 30 minutes per day.

Eat/drink fat-free dairy products at least three times per day.

Eat five servings of fresh vegetables or fruits daily.

Eat at least half of your grains as whole grains.

Reduce your daily fat intake to no more than 50 grams per day.