Chinese herbs prevent diabetes: As effective as drugs.

A recent study found that an herbal formula used in TCM can reduce the risk of people with prediabetes from developing Type 2 diabetes by 32 percent. In other words, simple, inexpensive and safe herbs are as effective in preventing Type 2 diabetes as the prescription drugs acarbose and metformin.

If you are concerned about your risk of diabetes, my suggestion is to start with the safe and proven methods that have been in use for centuries.

Beyond Avandia: Diabetes Treatment Without Drugs

Even if you don't follow health news closely, it would have been hard to miss the recent headlines as the diabetes drug Avandia went "on trial" before the FDA.

The problem was simple: Avandia tends to kill the people who take it by giving them strokes and heart attacks. So some intelligent people thought it should be taken off the market.

Before all was said and done, it was revealed Avandia's maker GSK had manipulated  risk analysis data, one of the panel's scientists was on the payroll of a GSK competitor, and in the end the FDA figured that killing off some people with diabetes wasn't so bad after all and let Avandia stay on the market.

Missing from the whole discussion was the idea that you don't need Avandia or any other drug to treat type II diabetes!

Type II diabetes is a nutritional and lifestyle disease. The best way of combating any disease, whether it is cancer or the common cold is by addressing it at the source, not by tossing drugs at the symptoms. And the best way of addressing diabetes is by the selective use of foods that help your body naturally regulate your blood sugar, and through exercise routines specifically designed to keep blood sugar levels within a target zone.

Which is how my patients with diabetes improve their health. Of course, I can't say that anything but a drug can cure diabetes, even though the research clearly demonstrates effective diabetic management through exercise and nutrition. I'll leave the quack claims of "cure" to the makers of drugs like Avandia, who are quite willing to sacrifice your health for their profits.

But here's the key fact: It can be more effective, safer, and less expensive to use non-drug therapies to improve the health of people with type II diabetes. And even if you are already taking drugs for diabetes, alternative therapies can still assist your health.

Thus, if you are one of the many thousands of Americans with no health insurance, you have a choice: You can pay a considerable percent of your monthly income on Avandia and its brethren (a one-month supply of Avandia typically costs $170), or you can see me (New patient examination and in-house labs: $150) and I'll help you develop a plan that will allow you to manage your diabetes. You will be in control of the treatment and its costs.

Even if you have insurance that would cover the costs, would you prefer to run the substantially increased risk of death by treating the disorder with drugs? Or would you prefer to take a safer path to better health?

Everybody deserves a choice. The problem is, there aren't many doctors offering one.

I am offering you a choice. A safer, more cost-effective choice. If you want to talk to me about diabetes, click here.

How To Reduce Your Risk of Chronic Disease By 78%

What would you say if health scientists had discovered a way to reduce your risk of chronic disease by almost 80 percent? If it were a pill -- one with no side effects -- would you take it? How much would you pay for it? $50/month? $100/month?

In fact, health improvement of this magnitude was one of the goals of the billions of dollars spent on gene therapy research. Billions which were wasted, as I noted in a previous post. Even had genetic manipulation proved successful, you would still have paid through the nose to avail yourself of its solutions.

But because you are one of the five dedicated readers of this blog, I will tell you how to significantly reduce your risk of chronic disease for free.

A 2009 study involving over 23,000 Germans found that taking the following steps reduces your risk of diabetes by 93%, reduces your risk of heart attack by 81%, cuts stroke risk by 50%, and drops your chances of developing cancer by 36%.

Here's how you do it:

• Don't smoke.
• Keep your BMI under 30.
• Exercise 3.5 hours every week.
• Eat a diet rich in vegetables, fruit and grains, and low in meat.

That's it. No gene-manipulating drugs, no daily aspirin, no useless statins, no anti-osteoporosis drugs, none of the other unscientific nonsense daily fostered  on an unsuspecting public as "prevention."

Just "good, clean livin'," as my Ohio ancestors would have described it.

Now, that doesn't mean that even within those guidelines, additional nutritional or other resources might not be necessary, to combat the imbalances created by a frequently-toxic environment and food supply, or the vagaries of communicable diseases. Nor does it mean that you won't need some assistance to put your lifestyle on that healthy path. But once you are there, and the longer you are there, it will get increasingly difficult to knock your health off balance or to knock your lifestyle out of whack. But adhering to those four principles is the foundation for all of the rest.

That, of course is where my profession comes in. If you can't say yes to each of those four guidelines, I or one of my colleagues is likely to have the tools to help you get there. In fact, I can rather comfortably say that chiropractic physicians are the health care professionals best equipped for the prevention of chronic disease.

It was the great American inventor, Thomas Edison, who once said:

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."

I think I know which profession represents Edison's ideal doctor. And we're here right now.