General advice on disease prevention and a healthy lifestyle can be found in the library article "General Advice - for healthy as well as for ill ones" in the VitaHealth section under Focus Articles. You can also test your health by taking our "Health Check".
It is possible to diagnose blood sugar problems based on a questionnaire where the most important symptoms are listed. The most reliable method is to take a glucose tolerance test.
However, many people use iris diagnosis, kinesiology, and reflexology and, in many cases, this works well in practice.
Since stress and malnutrition are the primary causes for fluctuating blood sugar, it is important to eliminate stress in your everyday life, avoid pollution and infections, and to focus more on foods that stabilize your blood sugar.
Following the advice below will have a stabilizing effect on your blood sugar:
- Eat smaller but more frequent meals during the day instead of a few large ones.
- Avoid foods that contain lots of sugar, cornflakes, breakfast cereals, alcohol, coffee, tobacco, desserts, white flour, light crispbread, white rice, pasta made from white flour, and fatty and very cured cheese.
- If you want, you can replace coffee with grain coffee, herbal tea, mild green tea, or vegetable juices.
- Minimize or avoid using marmalade, large amounts of fruits, dried fruits, sugary fruit juices, carrot juice, grapefruit juice, fruit yoghurt, deep-fried food and food thickened with roux, salty-, smoked-, and spicy meat and fish fried in fat, duck, goose, mayonnaise, lamb, pork, fish- and delicatessen, ketchup, and salt. You can use salt with potassium chloride and eat marmalades sweetened with apple pectin.
- Eat whole meal bread, brown rice, and be cautious with vegetables containing starch, such as carrots, potatoes, and parsnip.
- Eat more fibres – millet, rye, barley, oats, and especially all greens.
- Make sure to have your protein need covered by animal and/or vegetable sources. Vegetable protein can be found in soya, legumes, almonds, nuts, and most greens – they can with benefit be eaten as raw food at the beginning of a meal. Moreover, proteins can be found in lean cheese and eggs. Soft-boiled eggs are recommended as they are more easily digestible than hard-boiled ones.
- Use cold-pressed oils made by maize, sunflower, thistle, or olives and take fish oil.
- Avoid dietary or environmental influences that you cannot tolerate, e.g. wheat, milk, cheese, eggs, or meat – and exhaust gas, chemicals, perfumes, passive smoking, etc.
- Exercise moderately.
As it can be difficult to have all your needs for vitamins and minerals covered by your diet alone, you can supplement with dietary supplements. Heavy smokers and people who consume large amounts of aspirin and other preparations with acetylsalicylic acid, in particular, are at risk of being deficient in vitamin C. Research indicates that the consumption of the amino acid L-Tryptophan has beneficial effects on the blood sugar level.
Herbs such as blueberry leaves, juniper berry, liquorice root, dandelion, milk thistle, mistletoe, and peppermint have beneficial effects on the pancreas, the liver, and the production of bile. Oats, Avena sativa, supports the nervous system and is beneficial against stress, sleeplessness, and general weakening. Tormentil, Potentilla tormentilla, can be used as an extract – it has beneficial effects on the pancreas.
Reflexology and other kinds of reflex stimulation of the pancreas, adrenal glands, and pituitary gland have proved to be useful in the treatment of low blood sugar.
Regarding essential fatty acids (EFA):
Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (EPA) can be found in flaxseed, cod-liver oil, fatty fish, walnuts, rape, purslane, pumpkin seeds, greens, and wheat germ. 1 tbsp. of cod-liver oil a day or 1 tsp. of ground flaxseed or walnut oil every morning is cheaper than fish oil capsules.
Omega 6 fatty acids (GLA) can be found in blackcurrant, borage, cold-pressed maize-, rape-, sesame-, sunflower-, thistle-, and evening primrose oil plus seeds.
