Guest Post: "I Know Better"

Today I have a quick holiday greeting for you (and a laugh!) from our friend Seth, a VMG patient with type 1 diabetes.

This year I've got 10 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Exercise

2. Exercise

3. Exercise

4. Exercise

5. Exercise

6. Exercise

7. Exercise

8. Exercise

9. Exercise

10. Exercise

And I figure I'll be able to keep some of these.

Happy Holidays!

Recipe of the Week - Pumpkin Cranberry Applesauce!

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving weekend!

I love the seasonal flavors of fall - apples, spices, pumpkin... but I am already getting sick of rich holiday food. 

I made up this recipe this weekend just to use up some apples, but I think it has already become a new favorite dessert in my house! And it uses no sweetener at all - just the natural sugar in the apples.

PUMPKIN CRANBERRY APPLESAUCE

Ingredients: 

8-10 apples (macintosh or cortland type work best)

1 bag of fresh or frozen cranberries

1 sugar pumpkin

Spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, ginger...

First, I microwaved the pumpkin to soften it and make it easier to chop up. In my microwave, this took about 5 minutes on high. 

Slice the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Slice off the outer rind and dice the pumpkin flesh up into big chunks. 

Core and slice the apples and add them and the diced pumpkin all to one large stock pot. Add cranberries. Cook on medium heat until juices are released and the whole mixture starts to bubble, then cover and let simmer on low until everything starts to soften and blend together when you stir it. 

Options: This recipe is super flexible. Instead of a pumpkin, you could use a butternut squash, some leftover sweet potato puree from thanksgiving dinner, or a can of prepared pumpkin. Be creative and use what you have! 

This recipe is nice and tart the way I like it - but if you have more of a sweet tooth, I think adding some stevia would sweeten this up nicely. When I made it for company, I put a tablespoon of butter in the bottom of the pan before I added the apples. 

Feel free to experiment - and enjoy!

Thoughts from a Doc: Why do my sugars DO that?!? (Part 3)

Today's post comes from Dr. Stuart Chipkin, Valley Medical Group's Endocrinologist and Diabetes Program Director

This is Part 3 of 3 of this series from Dr. Chipkin. So far we have heard his thoughts on exercise, food, insulin, and counter-insulin hormones. This week - his thoughts on a few remaining factors that can  influence your numbers. 

 Insulin-sensitizing hormones: these are sometimes called “incretins” because they increase the action of insulin.  There are now medications based on these incretin hormones which help to lower blood glucose levels and also have modest benefits on weight loss.  Examples are exenatide [Byetta] and liraglutide [Victoza].  Other medications inhibit the enzymes that break down the body’s own incretin hormones- these medications generally don’t help with weight loss- they include sitagliptin [Januvia], saxagliptin [Onglyza] and linagliptin [Tradjenta]

 Factors x, y, and z:  These are the wild cards that sometimes make it really hard to either predict or understand why glucose values do what they do.  Most of these won’t change blood glucose values by large amounts but can contribute to not having them be exactly on target.  Examples can include: hormonal changes during phases of the menstrual cycle, the efficiency or inefficiency of how food is absorbed from the intestines, emotional stresses, antibodies that some people make against insulin, etc. 

With all these different factors, and the ways that each of these factors can change blood sugar values, it’s pretty impressive we every get things close to being on target!!   This is where each individual has to learn their own personal diabetes and some of the “quirks” of how their body responds.