Diabetes is a chronic disease that affect how your body uses blood sugar, otherwise known as glucose. It is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
A child is more at risk for type 1 and/or 2 diabetes if he or she has any of these risk factors:
- A family member with the condition
- Is age 4 to 6, or 10 to 14
- Family history of diabetes
- Being overweight
- Not exercising regularly
- A low level HDL cholesterol
- A high triglyceride level
- Being female
- Having slightly high blood sugar levels (prediabetes)
Herbs have traditionally been used to assist a person to come back to a healthy state of well being. Individual herbs, specifically prescribed for a particular situation may assist the body to come back into balance, thereby allowing a healthy homeostasis to be reinstated as nature intended. The herbalist looks to the whole person, their values and attitudes as well as their circumstances and physical condition along with other aspects of their individuality. This is in marked contrast to the allopathic medicine approach.
Herbal support can take a variety of forms and combinations, so it is vital that each person consult directly with a qualified holistic practitioner to gain the full benefit of immunity and health building support.
We all know about the pancreas because we know it is involved in diabetes and that it is somehow responsible for managing blood sugar through producing a substance called insulin.
While the liver and kidneys are crucial organs and we cannot survive without them working, there are all sorts of other member organs involved in our metabolism which don't seem to be so critical. These include the Pituitary, Thyroid, Spleen and Adrenals as well as the Pancreas.
Life can continue, even with serious damage to one or more of these organs, as the other partners share amongst them some of the load but these secondary organs are by no means unnecessary and perfect health cannot be experienced without all member organs being healthy, supported and working well.
Pancreatic conditions seem to develop in individuals more from emotional causes, than most. In particular, an emotional deficit best described as a lack of sweetness in their lives, and I don't mean a lack of candy.
Childhood onset diabetes can be sudden and severe and these cases are very difficult to rectify and I believe more likely to be due to environmental poisoning than anything else. These cases need urgent support and energetic healing as well as blood cleansing and diabetic support herbs.
More commonly, the childhood onset is preceded by a pattern of overactive thyroid and far too many sweets in an otherwise unhealthy diet.
Dietary changes and the inclusion of the two most effective herbs into the new diet, offers a real chance of curing this sort of diabetes. So rather than have a child look forward to a lifetime of insulin injections, it is worth a great deal of effort to make the changes required no matter how unpopular they might be with the child concerned.
The two common herbs supportive of the pancreas are oats and fennel. Oats as in rolled oats porridge, which used to be a breakfast staple before the introduction of a myriad of less healthy, highly sugared and processed breakfast cereals. Fennel as in fennel seeds which can be eaten a pinch at a time as is common practice after meals right through Asia and the Middle East.
I see the pancreas as a more sensitive organ than most and when treating it, I rely on herbs to support the associated systems as much as those supporting the pancreas itself. This approach seems to work well and the pancreas seems to function best when all its metabolic partners are happy.
For any child showing any signs at all of diabetes which can spells of low energy or excessive thirst I immediately recommend my Childhood Onset mix given as a tonic and it can head off the development of fully developed Diabetes.
The herbs I include in my diabetes (Childhood Onset) mix are: Chamomile, Oats, St Mary's Thistle, Bladderack, Rosehips, and Fennel. To this mix I add the Bach Flower Remedies Walnut, Scleranthus, Red Chestnut, Pine and Rescue Remedy.
