Once your body falls onto the rollercoaster of high and low blood sugar levels, hypoglycemia is not far off. Once you have developed hypoglycemia the odds do not favour you from being taken down with one of the major illnesses. The trick is to contain it by naturally balancing blood sugar levels, based on

understanding how your body works.

Nuts, researchers have found, seem to build a healthy "skin" around cells, which allows blood sugar to enter easily. The minerals, vitamins and antioxidants help regulate blood sugar levels, while the fiber and magnesium help insulin levels.

Nuts also keep the appetite under control being made up of mono-unsaturated fats,the good essential fats. This is a special advantage for hypoglycemics who often have wild uncontrolled cravings for low fibre foods like cakes or sweets.

It is the daily replacing of refined foods with nuts that helps balance the sugar levels. This in turn slows or stops the body's march to more serious illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.

Researchers studied 84,000 women for 16 years who ate ¼ cup of any type of nuts or the equivalent of a tablespoon of peanut butter. These women had between 20-30% less chance of developing diabetes, than those who seldom ate nuts.

Peanut butter, pistachios, almonds and walnuts all show a similar nutritional make-up and so hypoglycemics react in a similar way, namely, balancing of the blood sugar levels.

The chief drawback of all types of nuts is that they will quite simply put weight on faster than almost anything else that is good for you.

Each ounce of nuts contains 165 calories and a tablespoon of peanut butter contains 95 calories. This is very important because no one ever brought hypoglycemia under control while putting on weight. Besides, excess weight increases your chances of diabetes, which is already super high if you are

hypoglycemic.

The best way to put nuts in your diet programme is to substitute them for the calories you are taking up when eating refined foods. For example, switch 1/3 cup of low fiber cereal for one tablespoon of walnuts. Or swap ¼ cup of croutons on salad for a

tablespoon of chopped mixed nuts.

The good news is that with careful diet planning hypoglycemia need not develop into a debilitating disease - and gaining a sound understanding of what is required should not be complicated or expensive.