Re: blood sugar, adrenal gland and allergies

April 29, 2002

At 02:05 PM 4/29/2002 -0400, you wrote:

>I was reading about allergies on the WAP site and found it interesting that

> " when the adrenal cortex ... is weak or underactive, then a variety of

>symptoms occur. Besides inflammation, which can manifest as asthma, weeping

>skin or hay fever, depending on the site of the inflammation, these adrenal

>hormones also regulate such functions as sugar balance (via

>glucocorticoids)...it seems as if the adrenal cortex is very sensitive to

>blood sugar levels and that consumption of refined carbohydrates is at the

>bottom of many cases of allergies for both humans and in animal studies. "

>

>It goes on to say: " The diet should be rhythmical, that is you should eat

>three meals a day with no snacks in between. "

>

>Due to my hypoglycemia, I am hesitant to just eat 3 meals a day. Because of

>the relationship between blood sugar levels and adrenal function might it

>cause a problem, if I do not eat 6 small meals a day, as I have been doing,

>to keep my blood sugar level from dropping?

>

>I look forward to reading your words of wisdom so I may better understand,

>Joy

I used to have rather bad hypoglycemia too, and the small meals work really

well (esp. if each has some carb and some protein and some fat). However,

if you don't eat the simple carbs, or cut down on all carbs, then it's

likely the hypoglycemia will get better and you can cut down to 3 meals a

day. Also the wheat issue seems to have something to do with hypoglycemia

-- since we cut it out I can go half a day without eating, which is REALLY

unusual. The only time I get a real blood sugar drop now is when I eat a

big bowl of popcorn on a splurge (popcorn is not good for an even blood

sugar, that is for sure).

But wouldn't 6 meals a day, on schedule, be " rhythmical " also? It might

depend on what he was thinking of for " snacks " too. It's an interesting

quote and thought.

Heidi Schuppenhauer

Trillium Custom Software Inc.

heidis@...

April 29, 2002

Joy,

My wife and I both used to have signs of hypoglycemia. If we hadn't eaten

for awhile irritability, indecision, grogginess, etc. Since we lowered our

carbs a lot and went on a more or less NT style diet, we can pretty easily

go all day on one meal without any symptoms.

With that said, I'd be extremely leary of anything suggesting that any kind

of rhythmic eating is better. The one dietary constant for our ancesters

was probably that it was never constant. We can be fairly certain that they

skipped many meals while at other times spending the better part of an

afternoon working through a berry patch or nut grove. It's highly unlikely

that we have evolved to have regular meals. People ate when they got hungry

and had food, and they probably didn't eat when they weren't hungry or

didn't have food.

Of course, that's just my opinion...

April 30, 2002