What is carbohydrate intolerance and do i have it

What is Carbohydrate Intolerance and Do I Have It?

Today in America the average person consumes roughly
160 lbs. of sugar per year. This has sky rocketed when
you consider that less than 100 years ago the average
person was consuming about 9 lbs. of sugar. Believe it
or not the average person today is consuming:
 100 - 160 pounds of refined sugar
 300 cans of soda
 200 sticks of gum
 18 pounds of candy
 5 pounds of potato chips
 63 dozen doughnuts
 50 pounds of cakes and cookies
 20 gal ons of ice cream
When your body consumed too much sugar most people
get a condition cal "Carbohydrate Intolerance."
The fol owing article contains a list of symptoms
associated with Carbohydrate Intolerance and how to
assess your own body and fix the problem:
Carbohydrate Intolerance:
Carbohydrate Intolerance, or CI, is a very common problem in many populations, and the diseases associated with this condition are reaching epidemic proportions. CI begins as a functional problem that negatively affects quality of life and which can result in serious illness and disease. Though most people are unaware such a condition even exists in its early stages, a high percentage of the population suffers from CI in its early and later stages. The symptoms of early CI are very common and include sleepiness after meals, intestinal bloating, increased body fat, fatigue and may others. Many health-care professionals call CI many things but it is best viewed as one long progression of the same problem. In the early stages, the symptoms include elusive problems associated with blood-sugar handling, such as fatigue, intestinal bloating and loss of concentration. In the middle stages, the problem worsens and a condition referred to as carbohydrate-lipid metabolism disturbance become more evident. This is the beginning of more serious conditions that include hypertension, elevations of LDL and lowering of HDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, excess body fat and often obesity. In the long term, CI manifests itself as various diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease. These end-stage conditions are part of a set of diseases now well recognized and referred to as Syndrome X, or the Metabolic Syndrome. But from beginning to end, the problem can simply be referred to as CI. Young people with CI are at much higher risk for disease later in life. For example, those with CI have an estimated tenfold greater risk for developing diseases such as diabetes. Some individuals who ultimately become diabetic display symptoms of carbohydrate intolerance 20 years or more before the onset of disease. Like many problems, CI is an individual one, affecting different people in different ways. Only you can determine how intolerant you are to carbohydrates, and to what degree. Blood tests will diagnose the problem only in the later stages, but the symptoms may have begun years earlier. The key to avoiding disease is to be aware of CI in its earliest stage, and to make the appropriate diet and lifestyle changes. This will improve quality of life immediately and prevent the onset of disease later. However, for those already in a disease state, significant immediate improvements in quality of life can still be made with the proper adjustments. It’s up to you to find your body’s limit of carbohydrate foods and determine how much of these foods are excessive. It’s easy to do, and I’ll discuss how it’s done later in this article. Following is a list of common complaints of people with CI. Many symptoms occur immediately following a meal that contains carbohydrates, and others are constant. While keeping in mind that these symptoms may also be related to other causes, ask yourself if you have any of these problems: 1. Physical fatigue – Whether you call it fatigue or exhaustion, the most common feature of CI is that it wears people out. Some are tired just in the morning or afternoon; others are exhausted all day. 2. Mental fatigue – Sometimes the fatigue of CI is physical, but often it’s mental (as opposed to psychological); the inability to concentrate is the most evident symptom. Loss of creativity, poor memory, and failing or poor grades in school often accompany CI, as do various forms of “learning disabilities.” This is much more pronounced immediately after a meal, or if a meal is delayed or missed. The worker who returns to his or her job site after lunch, only to unable to concentrate due to mental fatigue, is a very common example 3. Blood-sugar handling problems – Fluctuations in blood sugar are normal during the day, but may be amplified if meals are not eaten on a regular schedule. Periods of erratic blood sugar, including abnormal hypoglycemia, accompanied by many of the symptoms listed here, are not normal. Feeling jittery, agitated and moody is common with CI, and is relieved almost immediately once food is eaten. Dizziness is also common, as is the craving for sweets, chocolate or caffeine. These bouts occur more frequently between meals or if meals are not eaten on time. These symptoms are not necessarily associated with abnormal blood-sugar levels, but may me related to neurological stress, possibly due to changes in blood sugar and insulin. 4. Intestinal bloating – Most intestinal gas is produced from dietary carbohydrates, specifically the high-starch types such as wheat and potatoes. People with CI who eat carbohydrates suffer form excessive gas production. Antacids, or other remedies for symptomatic relief, are not very successful in dealing with the problem. The gas tends to build and is worse later in the day and at night. 5. Sleepiness – Many people with CI get sleepy immediately after meals containing more than their limit of carbohydrates. This is typically a pasta meal, or even a meat meal that includes bread, potatoes of dessert. 6. Increased fat storage and weight – For most people, too much weight is too much fat. In males, and increase in abdominal fat is more evident and an early sigh of CI (I call this the “carbo belly”). In females, it’s more prominent in the upper body compared to the thighs and legs. In the face, “chipmunk cheeks” may be a telltale sign. 7. Increased triglycerides – high triglycerides in the blood are often seen in overweight people. But even those who are not fat may have stores of fat in their arteries as a result of CI. These triglycerides are the direct result of carbohydrates from the diet being converted by insulin into fat. In my experience, fasting triglyceride levels over 100 mg/dl may be an indication of a carbohydrate-intolerance problem, even though 100 is in the so-called normal range. 8. Increase blood pressure – It is well known that many if not most people with hypertension produce too much insulin and are carbohydrate-intolerant. It is often possible to show a direct relationship between insulin levels and blood pressure as insulin levels elevate, so does blood pressure. For some, regardless of whether the blood pressure is elevated, sodium sensitivity is common and eating too much sodium causes water retention along with elevated blood pressure. 9. Depression – Because carbohydrates can be a natural “downer,” depression is common among people who have CI. Carbohydrates do this by adversely affecting levels of neurotransmitters made in the brain. This may produce a feeling of depression or sleepiness. Many people have been taught that sugar is stimulating, but actually the opposite can be true. This is a significant consideration for children or adults trying to function optimally at school, home or work. 10. Addiction – CI is also prevalent in persons addicted to alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes or other drugs. Often, the drug is the secondary problem, with CI being the primary one. Treating this primary problem should obviously be a major focus of any addiction therapy. In addition to people who eat too many carbohydrates, those most vulnerable for carbohydrate intolerance include people who are inactive, under stress, or taking estrogen, and those with a family history of diabetes. In addition, aging is frequently accompanied by increased carbohydrate intolerance. When a person with this problem lowers carbohydrate intake to tolerable levels, many, if not most, of the other symptoms may disappear. With the stress of CI eliminated, the body is finally able to correct many of it own problems. Syndrome X If the problems mentioned above are not corrected, your symptoms and your health can get much worse. If CI persists, this functional problem can lead to disease, specifically a whole complex of related diseases that include some of the biggest killer of today: heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. These diseases kill more people in the United States each year than died in all our wars combined. As CI progresses it can lead to an entire complex of diseases referred to as Syndrome X. The specific disorders include: ♦ Hyperlipidemia (high blood cholesterol and triglycerides These problems don’t necessarily all develop or even evolve in this order. But all are related to CI. Unfortunately, once some of these diseases develop, many of the changes are permanent and more radical care is needed. However, even these conditions can improve with the right dietary control, which includes solving the problem of excess carbohydrate intake (along with getting adequate exercise). How do you adjust your lifestyle so that carbohydrate intolerance is not a problem? Before you do anything, you need to know just how sensitive, if at all, you are to dietary carbohydrates. Your doctor many do some tests, including checking insulin and glucose levels, to see if the problem can be detected. You could just follow a low-carbohydrate diet, but the better choice is to determine just what your own specific needs are, and modify them as the years go by. Finding your optimal level of carbohydrate intake is the first step to balancing the rest of your diet. For many years I have been using an effective method of finding the optimal level of Carbohydrate intake. It’s called the Two-Week Test The Two-Week Test described in this chapter will provide you with vital information to help you determine if you have carbohydrate intolerance, and if you do, it will get you on the right track to determining your optimal level of carbohydrate intake. First let me stress that this is only a test, and it will only last two weeks. You will not be eating like this forever. The Two-Week Test provides you with a period of time in which your insulin levels remain relatively low because your carbohydrate intake is decreased. Before you start the test, ask yourself about the signs and symptoms of carbohydrate described previously. Write down the problems that you have from this list, along with any other complaints you have. After the test, you will ask yourself again how you feel regarding your weight; weigh yourself before starting the test. This is only instance I recommend using the scale. Before you start the test, make sure you have enough of the foods you’ll be eating during the test. Go shopping and stock up on these items. In addition, go through your cabinets and refrigerator and get rid of the sweets in you house, or you’ll be tempted. Do not go hungry during the test! There are many foods to select from so you don’t ever need to go hungry. Eat as many eggs, meat, vegetables as you need to feel full. Don’t worry about cholesterol, fat or calories, or the amount of food you’re eating. This is balanced in the next steps. The test should not be difficult, although it is probably a big change from the way you were eating previous. Many individuals with CI have been on a high-carbohydrate, low-fat and low protein diet. If you’ve been eating lots of sweets or other carbohydrates, you may experience cravings for sugar for a few days during the test. Some have referred to this as carbohydrate addiction. If you get such cravings, eat something on the acceptable list instead and stick it out. Following the test for less than two weeks probably will not yield valid results. So if after five days you eat a bowl of pasta you’ll need to start over. Avoid all anaerobic exercise, including weight lifting and other more-strenuous activities, during the test. Aerobic exercise such as walking, a slow jog or bike ride can be very beneficial. As for the test itself, you merely want to eat using the following guide-lines for a period of no less than two weeks. Foods to Avoid You may not eat any of the following foods during the Two-Week Test: ♦ Breads, rolls, pasta, pancakes, cereal, muffins, chips, crackers and rice cakes ♦ Sweets, including products that contain sugar such as ketchup, honey, and many other prepared foods (read the labels). ♦ Highly processed meats such as cold cuts, which often contain sugar. ♦ Potatoes (all types), corn, rice and beans. ♦ So-called healthy snacks, including all energy bars and drinks ♦ All soda, including diet, and alcohol, except small amounts of dry wine. Foods to eat You may eat as much of the following foods as you like during the Two-Week Test. ♦ Whole eggs, unprocessed, fully cultured cheeses, preferably goat or sheep ♦ Unprocessed meats including beef, turkey, chicken, lamb, fish, shellfish, and ♦ Tomato, V-8 or other vegetable juices such as carrot juice. ♦ Cooked or raw vegetables except potatoes and corn. ♦ Oils, vinegar, mayonnaise, salsa and mustard (read the label to make sure there are no added sugars or hydrogenated oils). ♦ Sea salt, unless you are sodium sensitive. ♦ Water! During the Two-Week Test and forever after, be sure to drink plenty of water. Most people need at least six to ten 8-ounce glasses of water per day. Generally, the more protein you consume, the more water you will need between meals. Following are some other suggestion for eating, food preparation and dining out which may be helpful during the Two-Week Test. You may find these suggestions helpful after completing the test as well. Meal Ideas Eggs ♦ Omelets, with any combination of vegetables, meats and cheeses ♦ Scrambled with guacamole and salsa ♦ Scrambled with a scoop of ricotta or cottage cheese and tomato sauce. ♦ Boiled or coached with spinach or asparagus and hollandaise or cheese sauce. ♦ Add turkey or chicken slices if appealing ♦ Chef – leaf lettuce, meats, cheeses, eggs. ♦ Spinach – with bacon, eggs, anchovies ♦ Caesar – Romaine lettuce, eggs, Parmesan cheese, anchovies. ♦ Any salad with chicken, tuna, shrimp or other meat or cheese. ♦ Pot roast cooked with onions, carrots and celery ♦ Roasted chicken stuffed with a bulb of anise, celery and carrots. ♦ Chili make with fresh, chopped meat and a variety of vegetables such as diced eggplant, onions, celery, peppers, zucchini, tomato and spices. ♦ Steak and eggs. ♦ Any meat with a vegetable and mixed salad. ♦ Chicken parmigiana (not breaded or deep-fried) with a mixed salad. ♦ Fish (not breaded or fried) with any variety of sauces and vegetables. ♦ Tuna melt on a bed of broccoli or asparagus. Sauces ♦Italian-style tomato sauce helps make a quick parmigiana out of any fish, meat or vegetable. Put this over spaghetti squash for a vegetarian pasta-like dish. Or make “lasagna” out of slices of eggplant or zucchini instead of pasta. Snacks ♦ Celery stuffed with nut butter. ♦ Guacamole with vegetable sticks for dipping ♦ Hard boiled eggs. ♦ Rolled slices of fresh meat and cheese. ♦ Vegetable juices. ♦ Almonds, cashews, pecans, sunflower seeds. Dining Out ♦ Let the waiter know you do not want any bread, to avoid temptation. ♦ Don’t hesitate to ask for an extra vegetable instead of rice or potato. ♦ Avoid all fried foods. ♦ Avoid iceberg lettuce which lacks nutrients. Choose a Caesar or spinach salad instead. Dining Menu Options ♦ Chinese: Steamed dishes or moo shu (no rice, pancakes or sweet sauce) ♦ Continental: Filet mignon or other steak, duck, fish, or seafood. ♦ French: coquille Saint-Jacques, beef a la Bourguignonne. ♦ Italian: Veal parmigiana (not breaded or deep fried), mussels marinara ♦ Vegetarian: Tofu or cheese and vegetables, egg dishes. After the Two-Week Test, re-evaluate your list of complaints. If nothing improved, then you may not be carbohydrate intolerant. But if you feel better now than you did two weeks ago, or if you lost weight, chances are you may have some degree of CI. Some people who have a high degree of CI will feel much better than they did before the test, especially if there was a large weight loss. Some people say they feel like a new person after taking this test. Any weight loss during the test is not due to reduced calories, as many people eat more calories than usual during this two-week period. It’s due to the increased fat-burning resulting from reduced insulin. While there may be some water loss, especially if you are sodium sensitive, there is real fat loss. If your blood pressure has been high, and especially if you are on medication, ask you health-care professional to check it several times during the test. Sometimes blood pressure drops significantly and your medication may need to be adjusted, which should only be done upon the recommendation of your health care professional. Finding Your Carbohydrate Tolerance: If the Two-Week Test improved your signs and symptoms, the next step is to determine how much carbohydrate you can tolerate, without a return of these problems. This is done in the following manner. Begin adding small amounts of carbohydrates to your diet with every other meal or snack. This may be a slice of whole grain bread with lunch, or a half of a potato with dinner. Whatever you add, make sure it’s not a refined carbohydrate: no foods containing sugar, no refined-flour products (like white bread, rolls or pasta), brown rice instead of white, etc. Don’t add a carbohydrate to back-to-back meals, as insulin production id partly influenced by your previous meal. With each addition of carbohydrate, watch for any of the symptoms you had previously that were eliminated by the test. Look especially for symptoms that develop immediately after eating, such as intestinal bloating, sleepiness or feelings of depression. If your hunger or cravings disappeared during the two weeks and now have returned, you’ve probably eaten too many carbohydrates. If you lost 8 pounds during the test, and gained back 5 pounds after adding some carbohydrates for a week or two, you’ve probably eaten too many carbohydrates. Reality Check Once you’ve found your body’s ideal level of carbohydrate intake, it will be relatively easy to maintain your intake. You’ll be able to eat almost anything you want once you know your limit. And you probably won’t want to eat more than your limit because you’ll become acutely aware of how bad your body feels when you eat too many carbohydrates. From time to time, you may feel the need to go through a Two-Week Test period to check, yourself and make sure your tolerance has not changed, or to get back on track after careless eating during the holidays, vacations or at other times. Many people find the loss of grains in the diet leaves the digestive track sluggish, which may make you a little constipated. If you become constipated during the Two-Week Test, or afterwards when a lower amount of carbohydrate in the diet is maintained, it could be due to any or all of three reasons. First, you may not be eating enough fiber. Bread, pasta and cereals are significant sources of fiber for many people. But so are vegetables and legumes, such as lentils, which are low-glycemic. So if you become constipated, it may simply be that you need to eat more vegetables. And once you learn how much carbohydrate you can tolerate in your diet, adding that will also help, especially if you can tolerate some fruit. Adding plain unsweetened psyllium (available in health-food stores) to a glass of water or tomato juice will keep your system running smoothly. Another way to add psyllium to your diet is to use it in place of flour for thickening sauces or in place of breadcrumbs to coat meats and vegetables. If you require a fiber supplement, be sure to use the ones that do not contain sugar. Most fiber products contain sugar, so read the labels. There are many sugar-free psyllium products on the market so you should not have trouble finding one. One teaspoon per day is usually enough to maintain regularity. Another reason for constipation at this time may be dehydration. If you don’t drink enough water, you could be predisposed to constipation. During the Two-Week Test, you’ll need more water – up to three quarts or more per day. For some people, drinking gallons of water still won’t prevent constipation. This could be due to eicosanoid imbalance (the good and bad fats in you body). For now, just remember that if more water does not help a possible reason for constipation is there is not enough oil in you diet. Occasionally, some people will get very tired during the Two-Week Test. This can be due to a number of problems. Ask yourself: ♦ Am I eating enough food? ♦ Am I eating as often as necessary (i.e., sometimes every two to three hours)? ♦ Am I eating carbohydrates without realizing it? ♦ Am I eating enough vegetables? CASE HISTORY Bob was determined to renew his health in a natural way. He was overweight and within a few days he began getting tired and irritable. After talking with Bob for over fat, always exhausted, and his blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides were too high. He took the Two-Week Test and initially felt very good. But In addition, since he thought about how many calories he was eating he became calorie conscious and ate less. To make matters worse, he thought that yogurt was in the cheese group, and was eating two or three containers of fruit yogurt each day. When I told Bob that yogurt had 6 to 7 teaspoons of sugar each container, and to forget about calories for now and force the water, he started his test again. After the first week he was feeling great. Within a month, his energy was being maintained, blood pressure and blood fats were back to normal, and he lost 14 pounds. Maintain Your Balance

Once you’ve finished the Two-Week Test, and add back the right amount of carbohydrates to your diet, you should have a very good idea of your carbohydrate limits. This is best accomplished by asking yourself about your signs and symptoms on a regular basis: energy, weight, sleepiness and bloating after meals, etc. You may want to keep a diary so you can be more objective in your self-assessment. In time, you won’t need to focus as much on this issue as your intuition will take over and you’ll automatically know your limits. A Note about Ketosis When your body starts using more fats for energy, as in the case during the Two-Week Test, the liver produces three substances collectively called ketone bodies. When levels of ketone bodies are higher than about 1 mg/dl, the condition is referred to as ketosis. Only in extreme states will this normal state of ketosis turn into an abnormal condition called ketoacidosis, in which the body has become too acid due to the loss of alkaline reserve. When you severely limit carbohydrate intake, your body may not completely burn all the ketone bodies produced. Another way of explaining it is that you are burning much more fat than you can use for energy. The result is that some fat is not completely burned and ends up being ketone bodies. These are eliminated in the urine and stools, and also by breath via the lungs. Some of these ketone bodies are also used as fuel by many parts of the body, including the brain and heart. Any level of ketosis can be measured by a simple blood test, or by testing urine with ketone sticks, available in drug stores. I do not recommend focusing on ketone-body production as some diet programs do. I don’t feel it is necessary to get into a state of ketosis in order to be successful. In measuring patients following the Two-Week Test, I have found that some produce excess ketone bodies and others don’t, regardless of their success with signs and symptoms If you need help in going from the calorie/gram/percentage-counting game to being intuitive, you can sneak a peek at the carbohydrate levels of foods by looking at food labels. But realize that the amount of carbohydrate in food has two components: one is the part that you absorb and becomes blood glucose, which increases insulin. The other part is the fiber portion, which is not absorbed. So when calculating the carbohydrate content of food or a meal, remember to subtract the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbohydrate to get the actual amount that will affect your metabolism. This is easy to do; look at the food label found on all packaged items. Read the amount of total carbohydrate, and then subtract the amount of fiber. This will equal your usable carbohydrate. This is another reason counting calories, grams or percentages of macronutrients can be very misleading. Once you find your level of tolerance – the amount of carbohydrate you can eat without producing symptoms – you can easily relate that amount to grams or calories of carbohydrates. Most diets have you start with that number, and suggest that you don’t exceed a specified number. But ideally, you want to know your limit by experience and intuition. It’s not hard to do. One you find your level of carbohydrate tolerance, you’re on your way to balancing you whole diet. Remember; don’t be afraid to eat at your level of tolerance for carbohydrates, even if people tell you you’re crazy. Now that you know how much carbohydrate you can tolerate, make sure that the choices you choose for carbohydrates are the healthy ones – Fruits, Vegetables, Beans, and whole grain bread. (Text from Philip Maffetone’s book In Fitness & In Health)

Source: http://www.holisticvisionary.info/Documents/What%20is%20Carbohydrate%20Intolerance%20and%20Do%20I%20Have%20It%20article.pdf