“What we eat profoundly affects both our physical and mental health”. This is according to Wolfram Alderson, MS. He, along with Dr. Robert Lustig founded the Institute for Responsible Nutrition. This organization was eventually merged with EatReal.org. This month you will meet him along with Roberta Ruggiero, the founder of the Hypoglycemia Support Foundation (HSF). As President, Roberta along with Wolfram, HSF’s CEO, are working from the grassroots-up. Through advocacy and education, they have impacted the health and wellbeing of tens of thousands of people.
This journey began for each of them as a personal one. Roberta explained, “no matter what avenue of treatment I tried, nothing worked, I was still sick”. Her healing finally began when she found a physician who explained that she had “a severe case of functional hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), and all I needed was a change in diet. A simple glucose tolerance test and a proper diagnosis finally led me on the road to recovery.”
Wolfram explained, “less than 30% of medical doctors are required to take just one course in nutrition in medical school, so it is easy to understand why doctors don’t talk about food as medicine. In the last 10 years, the impact of what we eat is showing up even in infancy, with babies diagnosed with diabetes. Roberta explained, “children as young as two are being diagnosed with reactive/functional hypoglycemia”. Our sugar-laden diet combined with an exorbitant amount of processed food is affecting children in ways we’ve never seen before.
Roberta explained, “with an ever-growing body of scientific studies and findings, Hypoglycemia is proving to be one of the most confusing, complicated, misunderstood, and often misdiagnosed conditions”. But HSF’s own ongoing research suggests that reactive hypoglycemia can be a red flag or call-to-action to intervene with diet modification and prevent diabetes from developing.”
Wolfram admitted that even if you are “woke” about food, we are bombarded. Even for him, getting rid of sugar and processed food was like “getting rid of old friends”.
Wolfram suggested “there is no single bullet or magic pill, just buckshot – in other words, many solutions are working at once. We don’t have to throw out modern medicine. But we do have to flip the paradigm so that healthy food is the foundation of health care. The current model is really “disease – care”, with our resources dedicated to chronic diseases that are mostly avoidable. There’s only one way out – real food – plant and animal-based foods with minimal processing and no additives”.
The HSF has solutions. They are offering free “Beta” access to the “Perfact” Solution to help you separate real (healthy) foods from unhealthy ones.
Or “we can cook our way out of this mess”. Wolfram said, “cooking actually cultivates healthy social connections and makes it easier for you to resist the ever-present marketing of processed and so-called fast food”.
“Next level” would be to grow your own food. Wolfram suggested, “even just some sprouts or herbs on the windowsill can make a difference. Other options include community gardens, or Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s), local farmers market, food co-ops, or neighborhood markets. The closer you get to the source of the food, the happier and healthier you will be”.
Roberta summed it up, “There is no quick fix but when it comes to hypoglycemia. Healing of any kind takes time… it involves education, commitment and then loving oneself enough to take the final step: application. The question remains… Are you ready for the journey?”
Go to https://hypoglycemia.org to access their many resources and to learn more. Or to https://psydsolutions.com/email-interview-with-wolfram-alderson-ceo-hypoglycemia-support-foundation/ and https://psydsolutions.com/email-interview-with-roberta-ruggiero-founder-of-the-hypoglycemia-support-foundation/ for their complete interviews and shared links.
