14) "AS YET UNPROVEN" SUPPLEMENTS
j) Alcohol and Coffee
There is some objective research that shows a small amount of wine and alcohol per day is beneficial for your heart, especially if one drinks small amounts at least five times a week. This research suffers from the same confounding factor as green tea. In much of the world drinking wine or a martini is a ritual, a very relaxing slow ritual. Individuals who have this ritual once a day are very likely, as a group, to have much lower stress levels than individuals who cannot do the drinking. And stress levels are known risk factors for a host of ailments, including diabetes.
But alcohol is not a good idea for a person with diabetes. Most persons with type 2 diabetes have some degree of nerve damage from the disease and even small amounts of alcohol will damage the nerves further. Alcohol can also result in very low blood sugar in a person with diabetes. It is also estimated that 10% of the North American population is genetically susceptible to alcoholism, which can be induced by even small regular amounts of alcohol. And alcohol does supply significant calories (the term "beer belly" has been coined with good reason). Coffee is another "vice" which has mixed results in the research. There is some research that indicates caffeinated coffee is bad for blood glucose levels and decaffeinated coffee is good for blood glucose. But it was only one study and did not replicate. Coffee probably has no significant effect either way on a person with diabetes.
Coffee does stimulate the stomach and produce feelings of hunger, something which is not desirable if an individual is trying to lose weight. And a recent University of Toronto study found that people with a genetic variant that makes caffeine linger in their bodies—an estimated half of the population—were 36 percent more likely to have a heart attack if they drank two or three cups a day. That figure went up to 64 percent if they had four or more. "My wife told me I ruined a lot of people's morning," confesses study author Ahmed El-Sohemy, Ph.D., Canada research chair in nutrigenomics. Tea in all its different formats, including herbal teas, seems to have little effect on the disease of type 2 diabetes. Any truly sugar free liquid, such as diet drinks, do appear to help with the progression of the disease simply by supplying fluid, which is somewhat important. But if they contain caffeine they can stimulate the stomach and cause hunger. Vegetable juices are healthy but fruit juices tend to be bad.
Next Chapter: 15) APPENDIX: Data Approach Used In this Web-book
a) Statistics
b) "Good" Research
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