Blood Sugar 101: What They Don't Tell You About Diabetes

Diabetes Books from Amazon

Blood Sugar 101: What They Don't Tell You About Diabetes

List Price: $14.95
Amazon Price: $12.11

Average Customer Rating:

(6 reviews)

Editorial Review: Based on the award winning Bloodsugar101.com web site, this book explains what peer-reviewed research published in top medical journals has to say about: What is a normal blood sugar? How does diabetes develop? What really causes diabetes? What blood sugar levels cause complications? Must you deteriorate? What diet is right for you? How can you make that diet work? What medications are safe? What supplements lower blood sugar? Written in clear and understandable language, this book provides all the tools needed to understand how blood sugar works and achieve blood sugar health.

Customer Reviews:

2 of 2 found this review helpful:

Must have book for diabetics, 2008-07-03
I recently took a diabetes class offered by my HMO and their current hb1ac target is 6.5. That would mean that the average glucose would be about 154 as seen on your meter. This book confirms my suspicion that that number is still too high if you want to avoid complications from the disease. The research cited in this book says that you need to stay below 140 or a below 6.0 hb1ac to retain ones health. Once again, my HMO and the ADA have let me down with faulty recommendations. I plan to follow the book rather than the HMO and confound the predictions of inevitable deterioration.

The authors that actually have the disease seem to do their due diligence when writing these books in getting the real facts. I think that you should get this book along with Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. Both authors have the disease and can be trusted to tell the truth about the disease. Keep your hb1ac below 6.0 and stay alive. Very good book!

2 of 2 found this review helpful:

ROCKS!, 2008-06-05
I was diagnosed as a T2 twenty years ago while a biochemistry PhD candidate. I spent *hours* in the library learning about my disease. Today, people can do similar research online if they can read and interpret the scientific literature.

If you don't have the background or time to do the research yourself, there's Jenny. Jenny has been translating the current research for laymen for years and years, on usenet, on forums, on her web site and in blogs. Jenny's writings have helped hundreds and thousands of folks even before the book.

I am *thrilled* that her work is available in book form for gift-giving to all the diabetics and prediabetics I know.

5 of 5 found this review helpful:

Makes sense to me! , 2008-04-14
Having a diagnosis of diabetes for less than two years now has made me more than a little skeptical about the adivce and directions I've been given by the doctors, nurses & dieticians. It seemed as if they set the bar too low so I began to look for information that would help me avoid the ravages of diabetes. I found this book to be exactly what I needed to give my efforts a boost in the right direction.

I like that it speaks to all the major factors (food, exercise & medication) in a way that is simple to understand and specific with numbers that will help us live with this disease and I mean live without damage.

Thanks Jenny - everyone with diabetes should read this book and best case would be all those newly diagnosed would be handed a copy and told - This book will keep you on the right track and allow you to do what it takes to stay healthy with this disease.

8 of 9 found this review helpful:

Outstanding and for everyone, not just people with diabetes, 2008-04-13
This book is simply outstanding, highly recommended if you have diabetes, prediabetes, or just want to know more about how to keep this from happening to you.

The core message of the book is (1) that blood sugars over 140 are damaging, and that you should keep your blood sugar below this level all the time, and (2) that keeping your blood sugar below 140 is something that everyone can do.

The problem with blood sugars over 140 is that they cause diabetic complications: increased heart attack risk, nerve problems, eyesight loss, kidney problems, blood vessel and circulation problems that can lead to amputations, etc. High blood sugars also accelerate damage to your pancreas, so that you get ongoing higher and higher blood sugars, a vicious circle. Not fun stuff.

The best early warning sign that your blood sugars are spiraling out of control is your peak blood sugar after a meal. If your blood sugar spikes to over 140 after eating, you need to start working on it. The best way to check it is to buy a low-cost over-the-counter blood sugar meter at your local pharmacy, and check your readings at 1, 1.5, and 2 hours after a typical meal.

The problem with fasting blood sugar as an indicator is that this is the last to go. You can have normal fasting blood sugars and high after-meal peaks for a long time, then "overnight" have very high fasting blood sugars when your system loses the ability to recover. Only when you show high fasting blood sugars will your doctor start treating you.

The best solution for high peak blood sugars is to reduce carbohydrates, which lowers the amount of blood sugar that your metabolism has to cope with.

One interesting piece of information is that carpal tunnel syndrome is often an early warning for blood sugar problems. Since I had carpal tunnel and other RSI problems years before I realized my blood sugar was not well-managed, this certainly fits for me.

This book is a great summary of what I've learned for myself, with enough new info and good ways of looking at things to make it extremely worthwhile. Thanks, Jenny!

4 of 4 found this review helpful:

Excellent!, 2008-04-10
Wow, this book made a huge difference in my understanding of how blood sugar works and the effects it has on your body. I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy of the manuscript and even helped a little on the copy edit. I had picked up a lot of the information already through reading the internet forums, from my doctor and from the [...] so the topics were already very familiar to me. But Jenny Ruhl really lays it out here in a nice linear way that is easy to understand. There's something about having it all spelled out in book form that makes these complicated issues easier to digest than when you get it in bits and pieces.

What's equally impressive is the overall quality of the scholarship and the careful research that went into the book. By taking a smart engineering approach Ruhl really provides a fresh perspective on the subject and gives readers the problem solving tools to take much better and informed control over their health. I think doctors will embrace the effects of this as well because readers will have a much better idea of what is going on and give them the ability ask intelligent questions as they manage their diabetes.

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