DIABETES AND FOLK REMEDIES


I guess you already know that the three pillars for diabetic remedy are the thrapies of diet, exercise, and drugs, among which the diet therapy is the most basic one.

However various folk remedies are used in different places from time to time such as "Pumpkins are effective for the diabetic remedy", "Drinking such and such tea reduces the level of sugar in the blood", etc.

It's easy to find many kinds of health food advertisements in newspapers or magazines, such as -extract, -rela, vitamin-. We often find some users' personal experiences along with their picture, in those advertisements: "I became well by drinking this, "or" My complication was cured by using this," etc. We are led to believe that they are cures for diabetes, but there is no evidence to say that drinking this or using that are remedies for the disease, that is only the opinion of those who have used them.

If they really are effective, the medical society will accept the fact only after researchers have tested them to make sure they are effective. Then they will be admitted as formal remedies. To tell you the truth, most of the folk remedies have no eddect on diabetes at all, but are actually harmful instead.

One of my patients kept a sake-like bottle under his bed. When I asked him about it, he told me that he had been taking it for a few years, having heard that it had a good effect on diabetes. It was a drink that people thought to be healthy and a cure for the disease. Furtherore to my surprise, it was awfully expensive. I tried to persuade him not to take it, because it was ineffective, and might actually raise the level of sugar in the blood, but he did not seem to understand. After that I did not see him again, so I do not know how he is. Probably he continues to drink it even now. It may have been difficult for him to accept that hte way which he was used to was in fact, nonsense. It may hame been similar to those people who thought that the earth was flat, then one day they were suddenly told that the earth was round. They probably couldn't believe that immediately, either.

The same thing applies to diabetes: To understand diabetes correctly, the first-step-education about it is most important.


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