All posts by Vijay

Recession around the corner ?

Uncategorized

When I read about recent layoffs and lack of funding for startups I feel that we are slowly getting into slow down or into recession , let me tell you why , according to https://layoffs.fyi/ the data speaks pre covid vs up to date data.

Every stock and fund is going down, thousands of people have lost their fortunes into various things which they don’t have control over it , everything that used to be a profitable method to invest is now collapsing.

After looking around for the indicators found a great article to sense whether we are in recession or not https://marker.medium.com/what-champagne-rvs-and-underwear-can-predict-about-the-next-recession-6889e939a50d

If you have been victim of a recent Layoff, I offer you my most sincere condolences.

PS: Don’t let yourself be eaten by anxiety.

IF YOU

Are currently employed, think twice before moving out and where to go.
Have just been fired, look for opportunities in non traditional way as well.
Are thinking about joining any tech career, wait for the dust to settle.
Are thinking about doing startup, Best wishes from me 🙂

Time teaching important lessons

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Hello folks ,

Last few months its been very hard for me on personal and professional level which is why there was no blog post from me.

On personal level I have lost my father for colon cancer even we have tried our best to treat him unfortunately his condition got spread on other parts of the body and passed away 🙁

Catching up on recent events on healthcare and covid , looks like still covid at large and Tamilnadu CM also got covid positive as I write.

Take care guys , I will try to write posts now often 🙂

Biology dictates reality – Covid

India Healthcare

Really sadden to see how this covid pandemic affecting peoples lives and surrounded lives , in my close family relations my uncle and my aunty, both of them aged 60+ died few weeks ago due to covid , both of the were retired teachers and both of them got admitted to same hospital ,most hurting part was that my aunty died and got cremated, due to my uncle condition we are not able to inform that his wife no more , three days later my uncle also died without even knowing his wife also died , on those 3 days he keep asking about my aunt condition and did she also getting the same treatment etc , its so much pain …. no words to write.

This pandemic affects on all levels i.e. family , kids, financial you name it , people lost their jobs , not able to feed their family , no vaccine available etc , this pandemic puts growing countries economy and their peoples lives back to 3 decades back which is really hurting and makes me unhappy.

Things which are in our hand and what we can do to prevent ourselves

Wear mask and sanitize every time you come back home , keep distance , get vaccinated
Buy only the things you need and allow for others to buy as well i.e. don’t create scarcity
Give things back to community which ever way possible
If you are not able to help, don’t criticise who does
Everyone going through this hard time so understand the same , don’t argue with street vendors for bargain
Spread awareness about covid and break the myths
Help your neighbours and get to know them after all this is the right time to build solid community
Stay safe and be well , god bless us

Managing diabetes during Covid-19

HbA1C, India Healthcare, T2DM, Type 2 Diabetes

Due to various reason I was not able to write posts regularly, especially on this pandemic people lost jobs, lost dear ones and their day to day activities got severely affected on all front i.e. financially , emotionally etc.

As we all know that diabetes is chronic illness and very vulnerable to infections due to compromised immune system, what we can do about it and how do make sure that we can keep ourself safe and make people around us safe ?

Wash hands thoroughly and regularly.
Try to avoid touching your face before you have washed and dried your hands.
Clean and disinfect any objects and surfaces that are touched frequently.
Don’t share food, glasses, towels, tools etc.
When you cough or sneeze, cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or use the crook of your arm if you don’t have a tissue to hand (dispose of the tissue appropriately after use).
Try to avoid contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing.
Think whether you can make changes that will help protect yourself or loved ones. For example, can you avoid unnecessary business travel? Can you avoid large gatherings? Can you avoid public transport?
If you are ill with flu-like symptoms, stay at home.
Please look at the treatment protocol issued by AIIMS https://covid.aiims.edu/protocols-for-management-of-people-with-diabetes-in-covid-facilities/

Stay safe and be safe 🙂

Dietary guidelines for Indian’s by National Institute of Nutrition

Diet, Diet Advice, Fat, Non Communicable Diseases, Type 2 Diabetes, Weight Loss

Few weeks back I got a chance to download and start reading dietary guidelines for Indian’s  provided by NIN , click here to download (P.S : its about 126 pages document) some of the recommendations were blindly followed from AHA from USA.  Given below were my review and they should have better done the research and written the final draft.

for example on page 14 for fats

Adults need to be cautioned to restrict
intake of saturated fat (butter, ghee and hydrogenated fats) and cholesterol (red meat, eggs,
organ meat). Excess of these substances could lead to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular
disease and cancer.

on page 17

Adults should choose low-fat, protein-rich foods such as lean meat, fish,
pulses and low-fat milk.

on page 45

Diets that provide excess of calories, fats and cholesterol elevate blood lipids
(cholesterol and triglycerides) and promote blood clotting.
Excessive fat in the diet increases the risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke and
cancer.

on page 48

Saturated fatty acids are known to increase serum total and LDL cholesterol
levels, reduce insulin sensitivity and enhance thrombogenicity and increase CVD
risk.

 

cholesterol intake should be maintained below 200 mg/day. One
can reduce both saturated fat and cholesterol intake by limiting the consumption of
high-fat animal foods like butter, ghee, meat, egg and organ meats and consuming
low fat (skimmed) milk instead of whole milk. However, consumption of eggs (3
eggs/ week) is recommended in view of several nutritional advantages

on page 61

High intake of salt (sodium chloride) is associated with high blood pressure
and stomach cancer.

on page 62

There is a strong association between salt intake and blood pressure.
Prevalence of hypertension is low in populations consuming less than 3 g salt per
day. The usual increase in blood pressure with age is also not seen with such
intakes. The amount of salt consumed is reflected in urinary sodium. Drastic
restriction of dietary salt decreases the risk of hypertension. However, this effect is
not uniform as only 20-30% of population are salt sensitive

Most of the above points from the draft has not been proven and in some places they were contradict their statement itself for example above they were asking people to reduce intake of salt but not sure that taking more salt directly co-relates to  get blood pressure. In my honest opinion they should have done better job by spending more time on research and validate their assumptions and write the guidelines and publish to public

Book review – Freedom from diabetes manual & recipe handbook by Dr.Pramod Tripathi

Diet, Fat, India Healthcare, Insulin Resistance, Non Communicable Diseases, T2DM, Type 2 Diabetes, Weight Loss

I have recently bought the ebook released by Dr.Pramod tripathi on manual & recipe handbook of freedom from diabetes , given below were some of the notes from the book.

· Dr Neal Barnard for bringing to the forefront the role of fat in insulin resistance and publishing his research papers that reversal is possible

· Type 2 diabetes happens because

o Excess fat interfering with the action of two major hormones – Insulin & leptin

§ Major cause of diabetes is not sugar but FAT

§ Excess fat inside muscle cells causing insulin resistance

§ Leptin hormone produced by fat cells

· Responsible for communicating with brain to give a signal to stop eating food

· Making the fat move from storage

· Tell the brain to start burning fat whenever there is more fat cells there is more leptin and consequently the body becomes leptin resistance

o Acidic and inflamed system interfering with repair mechanisms

o Lack of micro nutrients interfering with energy production and repair

· More fat = more insulin resistance = more work for pancreas and exhaustion of pancreas = blood sugar raise = Diabetes

· Diabetes is primarily not a disease of carbohydrate metabolism but fat metabolism

· Our blood and most body bards are alkaline and continuously being in a sea of acid doesn’t help the system to recover so shit to diet which will be more on alkaline i.e. low on fat , acid and high on micronutrients

· Our body is largely alkaline so when you through the diet [tea is acidic, milk is acidic, all animal products are acidic] supply a regular dose of acid there is subtle inflammation continuously present and this advances the diabetic disease

· The inner lining of stomach is totally new every 3-4 days, the top layer of tongue is totally new in 7-10 days, red blood cells are totally new in 120 days , liver is totally new in 5-6 months, 90% bone is new in 1 year and 100% in 3 years

· First kill the fat entering your system

o Stop taking milk, curd, ghee, oil, egg, poultry, and meat.

o Food items that are high in acid and ruthlessly cut them off

§ Cheese, red meat, poultry , fish, eggs

§ Milk and dairy products

§ Tea , coffee

§ Wine, alcohol

§ Vinegar, salt

§ wheat

o Once you stop milk blood sugar start falling within 2-3 days and we have to reduce the medications / insulin immediately

§ Milk is 49% fat so it adds to the fat load increasing the intramyocellular lipid [inside muscle cell fat] thus increasing insulin resistance

§ Milk contains IGF [insulin like growth factor] which blocks the insulin receptors and consequent rise in sugar levels

§ Homogenization of milk reduces the size of fat globules and its gets more readily absorbed in the intestines

§ If you are serious on reversal quit milk immediately and completely

· People wake to a hot cup of tea or coffee , it is acidic , kills natural enzymes doesn’t supply the minerals and vitamins the body would love to have first thing in the morning and shoots up your stress hormones which work against insulin we start diabetics on a special juice / smoothie first thing in the morning and they start reversing .. its alkaline gives wonderful vitamins, minerals, enzymes.

· A low in Glycemic index , low glycemic load and low insulin index diet ensures optimal sugar levels and space for healing pancreas , liver, kidneys , mobilization of fat and reduction of fat from muscle cells

· A diabetic who gets convinced of our approach and follows it diligently actually gets free of all medicines / insulin within 4-8 weeks

· Chlorophyll is your greatest friend in reversal since chlorophyll and hemoglobin have same molecular structure expect that magnesium is at the Centre of chlorophyll and iron is the at the Centre of hemoglobin

· Fruits are never to be had with cooked food or after meal

My Feedback:

1. Excess carbohydrate will be converted into Fat and stored inside our cells so eating FAT doesn’t get stored as FAT. So fundamentally wrong hypothesis which will lead into one wrong assumptions to another etc

2. More fat = more insulin resistance = more work for pancreas and exhaustion of pancreas = blood sugar raise = Diabetes it should be More carbs=more IR=Beta cell destruction=BS raise = diabetes

3. To simply promote vegan don’t throw unproven and wrong things on FAT, Milk etc but in recipes you were telling people to use VCO or VOO even coconut gratings so its contradicting what has been written and what has been actually asking people to take so lot of flaws , unproven assumptions not sure how do we take this book ?

More salt or fat is Ok

Diet, Insulin Resistance, Type 2 Diabetes

As I started writing blog post about the research on fat & salt , the food industry and regulatory houses keep advising people with out evidence that if you have more salt or more fat in your diet you will get hypertension (aka blood pressure) and Heart disease but they don’t have clinical evidence to prove the same but there were no of clinical studies which contradict the same.

Salt

Recently  A new study published in the American Journal of Hypertension analyzed data from 8,670 French adults and found that salt consumption wasn’t associated with systolic blood pressure in either men or women after controlling for factors like age.

the authors write, is that the link we all assume between salt and blood pressure is “overstated” and “more complex than once believed.” It should be noted, however, that even though the study found no statistically significant association between blood pressure and sodium in the diet, those patients who were hypertensive consumed significantly more salt than those without hypertension—suggesting, as other research has, that salt affects people differently.

As for the factors that did seem to influence blood pressure, alcohol consumption, age, and most of all BMI were strongly linked to a rise. Eating more fruits and vegetables was significantly linked to a drop.

yet another big study indicates that the fear of salt is highly exaggerated, When they examined the salt habits of over 100,000 people, it turned out that people who salted more than the recommended amount had the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease. Those who salted a lot less – according to official guidelines – had a higher (!) risk of disease.

Fat

TIME-600x800

I have written more about fat is good for our health in my previous posts so here I am going to leave two links from time’s magazine.

The paradigm shift continues and the outdated fear of fat is on its way out faster and faster.

Its perfectly Ok to have fatty and salt foods in raw nature not from processed food though.

Obesity documentary Fed UP

Diet, Fat, India Healthcare, Insulin Resistance, Non Communicable Diseases, Type 2 Diabetes

Have you seen the movie? What did you think?

Fed Up

The blame is clearly put on the real culprit: sugar and addictive junk food. Here’s the movie’s strengths… and its fatal weakness: Among the experts who get the most exposure in the movie are noted, Robert Lustig, science journalist Gary Taubes and author Michael Pollan – and former president Bill Clinton.obesity is not about calories, it’s about sugar and addictive junk food.

The movie mainly focus on vegetables but forgot to add proteins and other good stuff while eating fat and meat , looks like they don’t want to get into controversial items of fat

Insulin resistance causes type 2 diabetes–part 2

Insulin Resistance, T2DM, Type 2 Diabetes

This is the follow up post of my previous post about insulin resistance ,  much inner detailed view of insulin resistance that insulin itself causes insulin resistance i.e. the levels of insulin resistance goes up and up. This is a protective mechanism and a very good thing, which is why the body does it.

not-functioning-insulin-receptor1

If the body did not develop resistance to insulin, the high levels of insulin would rapidly lead to very, very low blood sugars.  This severe hypoglycemia would quickly lead to seizures and death.  Since we don’t want to die, the body protects itself by developing insulin resistance.  This is a good thing but the bottom line is – high levels of insulin cause insulin resistance ,Taking away the high insulin levels reverses the insulin resistance

What is driving up insulin?

insulin levels are way up the body gains weigh, reducing calorie intake doesn’t matter since the body only further reduce caloric expenditure to match and make the body gain weight. The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis assumes that carbohydrate intake drives insulin but insulin itself will drive insulin resistance which will increase insulin in a self reinforcing cycle which will be like fat get fatter

vicious-cycle2

 

central part of treating diabetes should be more on how do we reverse that patient from insulin resistance. lets see insulin reaction to macronutrients as follows

glucose-insulin-reaction-to-macronutrients

as you can see clearly when we take carbohydrate insulin spikes which is not we want all we want was to reduce the resistance and utilize the insulin.  Based on the above both insulin and carbohydrate are toxic to the body but dietician will prescribe 1500 calorie diet to Type 2 diabetic patient what a strange.

HbA1C test reliable enough to diagnose T2DM

Glycated Hemoglobin, HbA1C, Type 2 Diabetes

Red blood cell was the most common type of blood cell , its principal work was to delivering oxygen to body tissues via blood flow through the circulatory system, its structure as shown below

cell-structure-and-organisation-23-728

 

Life time : 100 to 120 days after that new cells will be developed from bone marrow

Hemoglobin : iron containing oxygen transport protein in red blood cells

Glycated Hemoglobin:  Due to non-enzymatic glycation pathway  by hemoglobin’s  exposure to plasma glucose . As average amount of plasma glucose increases  the fraction of glycated hemoglobin also increases in predictable way so to measure average glucose level over 3 months this will be useful to find out the control of blood glucose level in type 2 diabetic patients.

Hb_HbA1c_Comparison_2

 

Is HbA1C is good candidate to diagnose T2DM ?

The answer might be sometimes false positive due to various reasons or other conditions people might face that might require additional test such as Post prandial blood sugar might be needed to confirm.

Given below were some of the cases HbA1c may be spuriously elevated or depressed

  • Recent transfusion
  • Hemolysis or blood loss
  • asplenia
  • Anemia
  • Hemoglobin C disease
  • Chronic alcohol [Skew]
  • ingestion of large amount of vitamin C & E [Skew]

since HbA1c measurement was crucial one so its good to be familiar with factors affecting the test  in general and limitations.

HbA1c was the gold rule to find out the control mechanism of diabetes in that no one has doubt but when it comes to diagnose new diabetic patients that test might interfere with other conditions which will falsify the test result so if there was skewed / elevated result of HbA1c its worth to measure PPBS to confirm or diagnose Type 2 diabetes.