Diabetes: The best herbal medicine for lowering high blood sugar

Hi Dr. Renée, I have been on metformin tablets for about a year now and they have not brought my blood sugar down. Are there any herbal or Ayurvedic medicines you can recommend? I have high standards and am eager to find an alternative. I will greatly appreciate your guidance

Sorry to hear this. The first thing you need to understand when talking about metformin does not work when it comes to lowering blood sugar is the body’s process that causes sugar to rise.

Diabetes is a long-term condition, where high levels of glucose (sugar) are found in the blood. A hormone called insulin allows sugar to travel from the blood into the body’s cells. Insulin is made by the pancreas and diabetes occurs when the body does not respond well or does not respond well to insulin or when there is not enough insulin from the pancreas to do the job properly.

When you have type 2 diabetes, your body is resistant to insulin, so treatments are aimed at “helping” the body’s cells to respond to that insulin and help them deal with the blood sugar that causes it. problem. Unfortunately, if it is not possible to use a lifestyle in the form of weight loss, exercise and diet, to supplement that process, over time, the cells will eventually lose their ability theirs to do the work. Or the pancreas will stop producing insulin due to overworking as it tries hard to produce more insulin and lower blood sugar. Often, before you reach this point, your diabetes team will add other medications that will help the pancreas produce more insulin and include medications such as gliclazide, glimepiride, alogliptin, sitagliptin or pioglitazone. If these do not work, then at this time, unfortunately no amount of medicine will change the situation.

So I’m afraid to say that when this point is reached, the only real solution is to go ahead and replace the insulin that your body desperately needs. This is done with regular insulin injections.

I completely understand that this is not the point that you want to reach, so I would say that it is important that you ask your team about other medications and if there is a role for them to deal with health conditions. It’s always important to follow Michael Mosely’s eight-week blood sugar diet.

As you know, I am a person who likes to treat many things with natural remedies, and I forgot this for you, although I sleep this with the following; persistent high blood sugar damages the body in every way and most of the damage is irreversible. This can include the kidneys, heart, blood vessels and nerves and I would only try herbal remedies along with the above meds until you start to see a change and then carefully titrate the meds down with your doctor .

This systematic review discusses many herbs that have been shown to have anti-diabetic activity by regulating insulin production and insulin sensitivity to improve blood sugar control. It refers to garlic, ginseng, cinnamon, olive, soy, fenugreek, mango, holy basil to name a few. I will leave the study for you to read carefully as it is long and detailed but please talk to your doctor about adding more medications before the damage becomes permanent. It is important to be guided by your doctor’s advice.

Hi Dr. Renee, my daughter recently passed away from Ohtahara’s – the worst form of epilepsy. Sadness is eating inside. I hope you can help. He connected me to online resources and gave me medication but it didn’t help. Is there any type of counseling you would recommend? My doctor wants me to take pills or talk on the phone but I’m eager to try a special kind of treatment. I will appreciate the help.

First let me say how painful your question is. As a Mom, I can’t imagine what you are going through, burying a child is not the right order of things, so please accept my thoughts and best wishes.

In the first case, what you are experiencing is completely normal, you have been through the most stressful events and only one real thing will change the way you deal with these normal feelings, and what you should expect, is time and more. bereavement assistance. You don’t mention how long ago you lost your beloved daughter, and this will play a role in what you are doing now. The recommendation is to wait six weeks before trying counseling so that you can get over the strange feelings and be ready for the discussion that will be part of any treatment.

In terms of what to do, I always suggest professional bereavement counseling and I often refer patients to other good charities that work in this area and CRUSE is always a good place to start and they have a free helpline 0808 808 1677.

Sue Ryder also provides excellent advice specific to bereavement and can direct you to communities where you can discuss your loss in a safe and secure environment.

I would say anti-depressants are not the answer, you don’t have a chemical imbalance that can be corrected with medication, you have an understandable green hole in your heart and you have been taken away. This is to be expected and you need to be able to talk to people who understand and sometimes do this with a trained counsellor, face to face, perhaps using CBT to help you deal with the thoughts that are eating you up. CBT is a good form of counseling for this.

I hope this helps you, and you find a way out of this unimaginable loss and that these resources help. In the meantime, if things seem too bleak to continue, please call the Samaritans, they are wonderful and always there.

Hi, this may be a weird question but are clubbed toes really a sign of lung cancer? I read that this is when the tips of the fingers grow and the nails bend the most from front to back. I notice this in myself but I just want reassurance more than anything since I have no other obvious symptoms. Thank you!

Let me start by explaining what nail clubbing is!

Nail clubbing is a change in the appearance and shape of the nails, hand or fingers, and can be due to health conditions. The nails may change over time and this is a critical feature because the penetration of the nails to a small degree can be a normal type and it is important to notice if it has been present at that time does not indicate an underlying disease.

As the toes grow older, they can become enlarged, swollen and spongy at the tips. These changes gradually straighten the natural dip where the finger meets the nail bed and then create a pronounced convex curve and hyperextension at the end of the finger. Swelling of the toes can make them feel warm and appear enlarged and red.

Although clubbing can be normal if it is present regularly, its development can indicate an underlying disease and these can include those that fall into four categories: infectious, inflammatory, cancer and blood vessels.

To give a few examples as there are too many to list, clubbing can occur through:

• Lung cancer
• Lung infection (abscess, empyema)
• Cystic fibrosis
• Sarcoidosis
• Pulmonary fibrosis
• Asbestosis
• Ulcer disease
• Infective endocarditis

As for your specific question, you almost answered it yourself: you have no other symptoms. There are often other symptoms of lung disease severe enough to cause clubbing, you may have some or all of the following:

• Shortness of breath (shortness of breath/shortness of breath not only due to exercise)
• Chronic cough
• Chest pain, especially when you breathe in and out
• Excessive mucus production
• Coughing up blood

However, I would advise you to show your GP your nails and discuss your fears as a few quick tests can put your mind at ease and make sure there is no primary cause (chest X-ray is positive. start).