Category: Diabetes

There are many different diseases that people get that because the genetic material for those diseases are passed down from generation to generation. Alzheimer’s is one such disease.

If you had a mother or father diagnosed with the disease, then your odds of getting it would be increased. However, some diseases will not automatically develop in the next family member – even if there is a history of the condition.

The reason for this is because at the root of some diseases is the ability to stop the condition from occurring. Diabetes is one of these conditions. It doesn’t matter if you had grandparents, parents or siblings diagnosed with diabetes.

You’re not doomed to get the condition if you’re proactive about it. That’s the key to preventing getting diabetes. Being proactive with your health. That means that you must take steps to do what you can so that the risk factors that go hand in hand with the disease don’t take control in your life.

The biggest risk factor for getting the disease is how much weight that you carry. For each pound that you are overweight, it impacts your risk level for developing diabetes. The reason that this happens is because of how the body’s cells are impacted by the fat.

People who are overweight struggle to be able to properly use the insulin their body produces. The cells become resistant toward insulin rather than having the sensitivity that you would normally have.

When your cells become insulin resistant, the glucose can build up in your bloodstream and lead to high sugar readings. This leads to organ damage, a higher risk of heart attacks, blindness, amputation and even premature death.

So if you are carrying extra weight and you have a family history of diabetes, lose weight so that you’re in the healthy zone for your height and frame. The second biggest risk to developing diabetes is the kind of foods that you eat.

If you eat a diet that’s high in calories and loaded with sugar, then your odds of getting the disease will increase. One thing about eating sugar is that it triggers a feel good hormone in the body, which can lead to craving even more sugar.

To keep diabetes at bay, it’s best to have a low carb, healthy meal plan. The third biggest risk to getting diabetes if you have a family history of the disease is being inactive.

If you spend more time sitting around watching television than you do being active, your chances of getting diabetes will increase. Exercise allows the body to be able to use the glucose properly and it keeps the cells from becoming insulin resistant. It also helps keep the extra weight off.

Diabetes has often been called a progressive disease. When you hear the word progressive, that can discourage anyone and it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that there’s nothing that you can do to stop the disease.

But this simply isn’t true. Yes, diabetes is a progressive disease – but only for those who don’t fight back. If you fight back against a diagnosis of diabetes, not only can you reverse the condition, but you can end up in better health that you’ve ever been in before.

When it comes to reversing the disease, there will be both immediate and long term actions that will make the difference. It all starts with control. You must control the disease or it will control you.

To topple the disease, you first have to gain control over your lifestyle. This will give you immediate help toward reversing the disease. Most people end up with diabetes because they’re overweight.

Obviously, you can’t change how much you weigh immediately because that’s a change that will have to take place over time – especially if you have a lot to lose. However, you can change what you eat now so that you’ll feel the benefits of a new eating plan immediately.

Your short term reversal benefit will be that you won’t need as much medicine if you’re already on pills for your diabetes. If you’re eating in such a way that it’s to control your glucose readings, you’ll be able to come off the medications faster.

You do this by eating only healthy foods. For faster results with reversing the disease, choose a low carb diet. That means that you’ll switch out the high carb items for low carb.

Use decadent treats only occasionally instead of several times a week. Stop drinking your calories in sugary drinks. Switch to water, unsweetened tea or other low calorie drinks.

Change your white flour foods for wheat flour. Make two thirds of the foods on your plate vegetables and fruits while the other portion is some type of protein. As you eat right, you’ll see immediate results in your blood sugar.

This can happen in a matter of hours or days. Reversing diabetes by taking off the weight will depend on how much you lose. Some people can reverse their diabetes diagnosis in a matter of weeks.

For others it takes several months or a year. What you’ll notice immediately though, when you change the way that you eat is that your A1c numbers are coming down. You can easily go from a reading of almost 9 to a normal A1c reading just by controlling the foods that you eat.

Since the A1c numbers are based on the average of your readings over a three month period, you can easily reverse your diagnosis in three months. However, you can immediately improve how sensitive your cells are to insulin in as little as 7-10 days.

Sometimes, you can get a nagging suspicion that something isn’t quite right with your body’s health. Instead of going to the doctor, what some people do is ignore it. People ignore symptoms out of fear.

They imagine the worst possible outcome and they don’t want to think about it or get a diagnosis because they’re afraid that their worst fears will come true. Others don’t want to know what’s going on with their body because they’re accustomed to their lifestyle.

They know that a diagnosis might shake up their comfort zone. That’s what happens to a lot of people who have all the classic symptoms of diabetes. Some of these symptoms are excessive thirst, frequent urination and slow healing wounds.

Other not so common signs of diabetes are numbness and tingling – especially around the lips. A lot of people live in fear of being tested for diabetes – especially if they have a family history of it.

Maybe they’ve seen some pretty poor examples of how diabetes has been managed among the people they care about. It could be that a relative had the disease and continues to live exactly as he or she pleases without any changes.

That attitude can be passed down in a family and diabetes can be thought of as a family disease that one can’t do anything to change. This resistance to change not only keeps a lot of people from being properly diagnosed, but it also keeps people who are diagnosed from making the changes that they really do need to make.

It’s easier to eat what you’ve always eaten than to change your diet. It’s easier to sit on the sofa in front of the television than it is to exercise. It’s easier to cope with stress by overeating and battling anxiety than it is to take steps to eliminate stress.

So what ends up happening is some people decide that they’d rather not know if they have diabetes or not so that they can continue living just as they always have. But what they don’t realize is that they’re shaving many years from their lives.

They’re limiting the time that they have left and they’re also gambling with the consequences of diabetes that’s not properly managed. Diabetes is like any other condition.

If you do your best to take care of it, you can live a long, healthy and happy life. But on the flip side, if you do nothing to take care of it and you don’t make the necessary changes, you will end up paying the price.

You can end up losing sight in one or both eyes. This can lead to a loss of independence. You can end up losing a limb to the disease due to poor blood circulation.

Some people end up with more than one limb amputated. You can have a stroke or a heart attack or you can die much younger than you should have, due to the toll diabetes takes on the body.

While change can be hard, you deserve a beautiful life with the people that you care about. It’s easier to get tested and make changes than it is to suffer the consequences and wish that you had after it’s too late.

Whenever most people hear about diabetes, they assume there are just two forms of the disease. Type 1 is the kind you get as a child, while Type 2 develops over time. But there are actually eleven variations of diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is a severe form of the disease that’s rooted in an autoimmune background. The body actually kills off the cells within the pancreas. In an autoimmune disease, the body’s immune system can often mistake healthy, necessary cells as a foreign invader and attacks them. When this happens in the pancreas, the body can’t make insulin. Anyone can have this form of diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is what can develop when your cells are insulin resistant. In this type of diabetes, the body struggles to use the glucose properly. This can lead to high levels of glucose in the blood stream and damage to the organs. This form of diabetes can be reversed through diet and exercise.

LADA or Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood is another form of diabetes. This form means that there will be higher than normal levels of autoantibodies in the pancreas.

People who have this type of diabetes usually have some kind of autoimmune disease. Doctors suspect this form of diabetes when the patient’s age and weight don’t fall into the same parameters as what’s considered to be normal Type 2 symptoms.

MODY means Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young is a form of diabetes that has a stronger genetic component. This is due to one gene and if the parent has MODY, then the child has a high probability of getting it as well. It can be found in young people who have a healthy weight and can strike before the age of 25.

Double diabetes is when a person has a mixture of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. When someone has type 1, it’s not related to being overweight. But someone with type 1 can develop type 2 diabetes if they become obese. This leads to insulin resistance and complicates the ability to use insulin.

Type 3 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance – but rather than dealing with the pancreas, this type is due to how insulin is affected in the brain. Studies have shown that this type of diabetes can lead to Alzheimer’s.

Steroid-induced diabetes is caused by steroid use when the person taking them already has a genetic propensity or other factors that give them a high risk level. Long term use of steroids – 3 months or longer – can cause diabetes.

Brittle diabetes is Type 1 diabetes that’s very difficult to control. This can be due to problems absorbing nutrients, trouble absorbing insulin, hormonal issues, medications that don’t work well together or problems with food leaving the stomach. Stress and depression can be factors of this type of diabetes.

Secondary diabetes is diabetes that occurs as a result of having a medical condition. Some of these other conditions that can cause secondary diabetes include polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), pancreatic cancer, Cushing’s or other autoimmune diseases.

Diabetes insipidus isn’t as common as the other types of diabetes. This rare form of diabetes has nothing to do with high levels of blood sugar or insulin resistance. One of the hallmarks of this form is the frequent urination but this frequency is due to vasopressin.

Diabetes insipidus is when you have to urinate more than usual and complications erupt from this, which are the result of a particular antidiuretic hormone known as vasopressin, which is a hormone that’s found in the brain. When there’s not enough production of vasopressin, it’s harder for the body to hold onto water. This form of diabetes causes the kidneys to work harder than they should.

Juvenile diabetes is diabetes that young people have. It can be found in children and in young adults. It is a metabolic disease and has a hereditary component as well as an autoimmune component.

Getting a diagnosis of diabetes can be a shock – especially if you don’t know much about the disease – or if you do know about it but what you know is pretty negative.

Being told that you have diabetes doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that you can do. Contrary to the popular belief that diabetes is permanent, you can not only stop the disease, but you can reverse your diagnosis of it as well.

However, it will take a strong mindset on your part and the willingness to keep focused on the end goal. You don’t live a certain lifestyle that causes diabetes to occur and then change it in a day.

It might take several days or weeks to get your glucose levels under control, but you can do it. You can lose weight and change your health for the better by following a 3-step plan, which will take you off the diabetes medication and keep you off of it for good.

Step 1 is engaging in nutritional awareness. Nutrition is the key to coming off of diabetes medication. When you’re taking medicine for the disease, the reason is because your cells can’t properly use the insulin that your body makes.

They’ve become resistant and part of the reason is because there’s too many fat cells. But altering the way that you eat can change all of that. You need a diet that’s based on whole grains, moderate intake of fruits, with vegetables and lean protein.

The best diet for you to not need your medication is a low carb diet. Some people choose to follow a vegetarian diet and that works well also. What you want to do is to choose a diet that leaves the starches and sugary foods behind. These can trigger a desire to overeat and they’re just not that healthy for you.

Step #2 is to get moving! Exercise is another key to reversing your diabetes to the point where you no longer need to take medication. You’ll want to engage in aerobics exercise along with some type of strength or resistance training.

If it’s been awhile since you exercised, you can start out with brisk walking. But you’ll want to exercise for at least 20 minutes to half an hour every day. Get a pedometer, join an exercise group, or find buddy support system to help you stay motivated to work toward your goal. Every pound that you lose is helping you reserves diabetes and exercise can do that for you.

Step #3 is to get stress under control. Besides nutrition and exercise, keeping the stress you have to deal with to a minimum is also one of the key factors to getting off diabetes medication.

There are two types of stress that can affect someone with diabetes. Those are mental and physical stress. When you’re under stress, it can be harder to have the mindset that you want to control or reverse the diabetes.

When you’re under stress, it can trigger a hormone release. These stress hormones then raise the glucose levels higher than what they normally are. Keep the stress in your life as low as possible.

The Glycemic Index is a concept developed in the University of Toronto in 1981. The purpose of the Glycemic Index is to measure the effect carbohydrates have on blood glucose levels. The Glycemic Index is imperative for anyone who needs to monitor their glucose level due to diabetes or hyperglycemia. With diabetes reaching epidemic levels in the United States, the development of the Glycemic Index could not have come at a better time. Each year, more people are diagnosed with this potentially life threatening disease that can cause many serious complications. It is important for anyone with this condition to familiarize themselves with the Glycemic Index so they can empower themselves and learn which foods should be avoided.

Carbohydrates are a diverse group of foods and all have different ways of breaking down in the system. People with diabetes have a difficult time breaking down certain foods, particularly those high in carbohydrates, in their system. Digestion is slow and sugars and starches are absorbed into the blood stream, causing an excess in blood glucose. Diabetics are often warned to limit their carbohydrate intake because it takes such a long time for most carbohydrates to digest. However, this is easier said than done and it is difficult, if not impossible, for many diabetics to eliminate carbohydrates from their diet. This is one of the reasons many diabetics are non-compliant in their treatment. Because diabetes does not often cause serious complications at onset, many patients refuse to take their medicine and continue eating foods that are high in sugar and starch.

The Glycemic Index is very helpful because it rates different carbohydrates based upon their effect on the different levels of blood glucose. Those foods that digest rapidly cause the less harm to the system and have a low glycemic index. The carbohydrates that take a longer time to digest have a higher rate as they cause more harm to the blood glucose level.

The Glycemic Index ranges from one to one hundred. A low food in the glycemic index has a rating of below 55. These include fruits, vegetables, whole grains and some pastas. Foods that fall between the 56 to 69 range are considered “medium” in the Glycemic Index. They include candy bars, croissants and some rices.

Surprisingly, although a candy bar scores in the medium classification of the glycemic index, it is not as harmful as those carbohydrates that score in the high glycemic index range. These include corn flakes, white rice, white bread and baked potato. In other words, it is easier for a diabetic to digest a candy bar than a baked potato.

Knowledge of the glycemic index is imperative for anyone who has diabetes or who has been diagnosed as borderline diabetic. To be able to understand which foods have the most impact on blood glucose levels is crucial for anyone fighting this potentially life-threatening condition.

If you or a loved one suffers from diabetes, become familiar with the Glycemic Index so that you learn about the different categories of carbohydrates and which groups should be avoided. There are many substitutes for carbohydrates that rate high in the Glycemic Index and are available at most grocery stores. While diabetes is currently without a cure, there are many different ways that people with this disease can life long, productive lives.

Why is blood sugar so important for your body? Energy. That’s right. Blood sugar provides the body with energy that your body needs to function properly. Glucose (comes from sugar) helps fuel and replenish the body so that it processes like it should. Besides giving your body energy and stabilizing it, you may ask, “Why is blood sugar really important?” Here’s why: High or low levels of blood sugar can actually be hazardous to your health. Unusual amounts of blood sugar can lead to sweating, dizziness, confusion, shaking, seizures, a fast heart rate, and other complications.

A couple of well-known blood sugar disorders are Diabetes and hypoglycemia.

Blood sugar – levels can depend on

(1) overeating
(2) unhealthy eating
(3) lack of exercise
(4) stress
(5) medication and
(6) by disease or infection.
Now you’re probably thinking, “What’s the best way to combat all that?” A healthy diet and exercise will help you maintain normal blood sugar levels. Choosing the right foods to eat and exercising regularly will balance your blood sugar levels so they don’t skyrocket on you. This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy all the foods you’ve loved your whole life. There are natural and safe substitutes that will allow you to keep the “sweet” in your diet.

Xylitol, a common sugar alcohol, is a naturally occurring substance that looks and tastes like sugar, but is healthier for you. Sugar alcohols, also known as polyols, are commonly used as sweeteners and bulking agents. Table sugar and other carbohydrates can elevate blood sugar to unhealthy levels or cause reactions to the insulin that is subsequently produced. The great thing about xylitol is that it’s absorbed into the bloodstream much slower than table sugar and other carbohydrates and that means it carries 40% less calories.

Sugar alcohol comes in a variety of forms (e.g., xylitol, mannitol, sorbitol, and others). These can be found in an assortment of foods such as soft drinks, candy, chewing gum, cookies, and many other “sugar-free products.”

Xylitol is crystalline in form and a normal substance found in everyday metabolism. The FDA has given xylitol its safest rating as a food additive which means it’s perfectly healthy and safe for human consumption. It’s even safe to consume for those with diabetes and hypoglycemia.

Blood sugar and sugar alcohol are closely related to stabilizing, maintaining, and helping the body process and function properly. If not closely watched, blood sugar levels in the body can cause serious health issues. Sugar alcohols can help reduce calories and keep blood sugar levels in areas that they need to be so that you can live a healthier and more energetic life.