back...

i'm back from a long wedding weekend....we had lots of fun, lots of rain, and lots of good friends to hang with....now i have LOTS of work to do (and a sick child to take care of)....happy monday.

* images courtesy of flickr, where the sidewalk begins

wedding weekend.

we are off to a wedding for our great friends lee and keri...their first date was our rehearsal dinner a little over 5 yrs ago...(wow, we have been married for a long time warren). lee and keri live an exotic life in costa rica and have for many years....so they decided to bring the wedding stateside...we are excited to see them (although going back to costa rica would have been a lot of fun too). have a wonderful weekend :)

*images courtesy of a cup of joe and v.

Diabetics on a Low-carbohydrate Diet

Diabetes is a disorder of glucose intolerance. What happens when a diabetic eats a low-carbohydrate diet? Here's a graph of blood glucose over a 24 hour period, in type II diabetics on their usual diet (blue and grey triangles), and after 5 weeks on a 55% carbohydrate (yellow circles) or 20% carbohydrate (blue circles) diet:


The study in question describes these volunteers as having "mild, untreated diabetes." If 270 mg/dL of blood glucose is mild diabetes, I'd hate to see severe diabetes! In any case, the low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet brought blood glucose down to an acceptable level without requiring medication.

It's interesting to note in the graph above that fasting blood glucose (18-24 hours) also fell dramatically. This could reflect improved insulin sensitivity in the liver. The liver pumps glucose into the bloodstream when it's necessary, and insulin suppresses this. When the liver is insulin resistant, it doesn't respond to the normal signal that there's already sufficient glucose, so it releases more and increases fasting blood glucose. When other tissues are insulin resistant, they don't take up the extra glucose, also contributing to the problem.

Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), a measure of average blood glucose concentration over the preceding few weeks, also reflected a profound improvement in blood glucose levels in the low-carbohydrate group:

At 5 weeks, the low-carbohydrate group was still improving and headed toward normal HbA1c, while the high-carbohydrate group remained at a dangerously high level. Total cholesterol, LDL and HDL remained unchanged in both groups, while triglycerides fell dramatically in the low-carbohydrate group.

When glucose is poison, it's better to eat fat.

Graph #1 was reproduced from Volek et al. (2005), which re-plotted data from Gannon et al. (2004). Graph #2 was drawn directly from Gannon et al.

rustic...

these pics are preparing me for my weekend in the mountains....hopefully, that won't be the only way to shower....although, it is quite cute...i'm just more of an indoor shower kind of girl :)

*images courtesy of absolutely beautiful things, my home ideas, atlanta home, and decor pad

soooo pretty.

sometimes a picture stops me dead in my tracks....hence the beautiful stairwell with that amazing soft blue wall....it was the inspiration for this post and one of my favorite color palettes. i think all of these pics combined would make one heck of a house....i'd move right in.

*images courtesy of aimee herring, lime in the coconut, just beachy, tori golub interior design, ada and darcy