Simple sugar is also known as monosaccharide, is the basic unit of carbohydrates. The simplest forms of sugar are usually colourless and crystalline and exist in forms of glucose, fructose and galactose. Simple sugar is deemed to be a major concern according to all health nutritionists.

Here are five reasons why you should avoid them:

Sugar is the biggest cause of obesity: Sugar present in all kinds of junk food is considered to be the biggest cause of obesity as fructose easily converts into fat inside your body. Consuming too much sugar can put too much pressure on your liver as it is responsible for converting fructose into fat. Large amounts of sugar are directly converted into fat, thus, putting you at a very high risk of becoming obese.
Increases risks of contracting heart diseases: Consuming too much sugar throughout the day causes a hike in your insulin levels which can further affect your nervous system. An excess of sugar in your blood stream also causes your blood pressure to rise which makes you more likely to get a heart stroke. Thus, to avoid cardiac problems at a young age, you must cut down your sugar intake.
Weakens immune system: Sugar is a major reason for inflammation which affects the central immune system adversely. With an excess intake of sugar, the body becomes less effective in dealing with infection and common cold because phagocytes (white blood cells) cannot do their job properly of engulfing dangerous bacteria. Thus, you should aim at boosting your immune system by cutting down on sugar completely.
Sugar can make you age faster: The sugar content in your body creates molecules known as AGEs (Advanced glycation end products) which attack the fibres in elastin and collagen (the building blocks of the cells on your skin). A study also proved that consuming too much sugar can result in acne as the collagen in your skin weakens. Thus, to maintain youthful looking skin for longer, you should remove sugar from your diet completely.
Sugar can be addictive: Most people who consume too much sugar get addicted to it. According to a study, the addiction to sugar is very similar to addiction to tobacco and drugs. You might start craving sugar and depending on it to change your mood more often than required.

Sugar - 5 Reasons to Avoid It

Exercise has a considerable number of benefits to offer people who have diabetes. As a result of doing exercise on a regular basis, the blood sugar level stays in check. Managing diabetes without indulging in any physical activity is near to no good as exercise is the backbone of diabetes treatment. Here are the ten exercises that prove to be great for people with diabetes.

Walking: Walking is considered to be one of the best exercises for treating diabetes and the most prescribed physical activity for people with Type 2 diabetes. A daily brisk walking of at least 30 minutes can be the easiest way of increasing one s physical activity level.
Running/jogging: By jogging or running daily, people can control their blood pressure and ensure good heart condition. It proves to be extremely beneficial for diabetes people who often develop risks of heart attacks or high blood pressure.
Weight training: As regular weight training helps in building the muscle mass, opting for this becomes necessary for people with Type 2 diabetes. Because losing muscle mass means difficulty in maintaining the blood sugar levels.
Tai Chi: Tai Chi helps in relaxing the body and mind as well as ensures trouble-free body movements. Tai Chi plays a crucial role in reducing stress and nerve damage, which is a common complication in diabetes.
Swimming: Swimming helps in relaxing and stretching the muscles, without exerting any pressure on the joints, which is why it is a great exercise for diabetic people. Often diabetic people lose sensation in their feet, which makes swimming the best option for them.
Yoga: Helping in lowering the body fat, improving the nerve function, and fighting the insulin resistance, yoga can benefit people suffering from diabetes in a lot of ways. By controlling the stress, it indirectly helps in lowering the blood sugar levels.
Stationary bicycling: A form of aerobic exercise, stationary bicycling ensures a strong heart and well-functioning lungs. Burning lots of calories, it improves the blood flow to the legs, which is important for diabetic people.
Water aerobics: Water aerobics, too, has a lot of benefits to offer to the diabetic people in terms of regaining the right body balance and strengthening the muscles.
Playing: For those who enjoy playing tennis or basketball, treating diabetes with exercise can be an easy job. All one has to do is play rigorously on a daily basis, and the body will stay fit and the blood sugar levels well controlled.
Dancing: Dancing can be a great way of doing exercise for the diabetic people as it helps in improving the flexibility of the body, reducing stress and lowering the blood sugar levels.
By including exercise as a regular part of their daily life, people with diabetes can not only experience positive effects on their diabetic condition but can also achieve an overall good health with desired fitness.

10 Exercises That Will Surely Help Diabetic Patients!

There was an era where we had deadly infections like plague and polio causing death of thousands of people. We still have occasional outbreak of swine flu, but by and large, infections are quite controlled. The new killer diseases are caused because of the lifestyle we have adapted and the damage we have done to the environment. High intake of processed foods, artificial chemicals in our foods, sedentary lifestyle with very minimal to no physical activity, couching over the computers; the list is quite long. All these have led to diseases like diabetes and cancer that were not so common about say few decades ago.

Detailed observation has revealed that both these new epidemiologic diseases have a close correlation. There are factors, which induce diabetes and diabetes in turn and in some cases, diabetes inducing agents, can cause cancer also. It has also been observed that mortality is severely increased if diabetic patients are diagnosed with cancer. There are two types of diabetes. While type 1 is mostly hereditary, type 2 is lifestyle induced and the age at which this is being diagnosed is taking a severe plunge. Adolescents and teenagers are being diagnosed for diabetes. Cancer, on the other hand, is of various types (leukaemia, melanoma, etc.) and can affect various organs (lung, breast, prostate, stomach, liver, etc.).

The medical community is yet to decipher the disease pattern of both these conditions. While there is no definite correlation between diabetes and all types of cancer, some types of cancer are definitely correlated with a definite reason identified, pancreatic and liver cancer for instance. The high amounts of insulin that diabetic patients are exposed to causes changes in liver and pancreas including fatty liver and cirrhosis, here the incidence of cancer is higher. The linkage is not very clear in lung and intestinal cancers and also there is no link between prostate cancer and diabetes.

Diabetes is considered as a state of chronic inflammation and leads to conditions like hyperinsulinemia (higher levels of insulin in the blood) hyperglycemia (higher levels of sugar in the blood). These are believed to aggravate the neoplastic process of cancer formation, thereby inducing cancer at a greater pace and also increasing the mortality rates.

The following are risk factors that are applicable to both age, physical activity, diet, obesity, drinking and smoking. It is also possible that onset of one can be followed by the other. As noted earlier, more detailed research is awaited to establish a definite linkage, but the correlation cannot be ignored at all.

Both these new epidemics are here to stay and since they have a common set of factors, we need to work on ways to contain them.

Diabetes and Cancer: The New Epidemic?

There are two types of abortion, namely medical and surgical. In case of medical abortion, pills are taken to terminate the pregnancy; whereas, surgical abortion is done if the pregnancy has reached an advanced stage when pills are ineffective. While generally there are no health risks or negative effects of abortion on fertility, there are rare cases of complications, which can give rise to severe symptoms post abortion. Following is the information you need to know about abortion and its effects on fertility:

When to seek medical assistance
It is advisable to seek medical help if you have the following symptoms post abortion:
1. Persistent pain in the lower abdomen, which lingers even after taking medication
2. Excessive bleeding
3. A high temperature

Possible effects of surgical abortion on fertility
1. Infection after abortion: infections post abortion like pelvic inflammatory disease (pid), if left untreated for long can spread and harm your reproductive organs, thereby impacting your fertility. It can cause complications like infertility or ectopic pregnancy.

2. Damage to the cervix during abortion: damage to the cervix during an abortion can cause cervical incompetence and consequently increase the risk of miscarriage.

3. Damage to the womb during abortion: there are chances of damage of the womb (uterus) during abortion, resulting in scarring, which can cause fertility issues if not corrected. This is more likely in case you had multiple abortions.

Apart from the above mentioned complications there are a number of other complications, which can happen due to abortion, preterm birth, vaginal bleeding during pregnancy and low birth rate, etc. Further, infertility can also be a possible side effect of abortion pills, which happens due to scarring of the uterus during the procedure of forcible elimination of the fetus. In all such cases it is advisable to schedule regular check up with your gynaecologist.

Can Abortion Affect Fertility?

Pregnancy brings with it the need to be extra careful about the overall well-being of the mother-to-be. Extreme caution has to be taken in managing health, as antibiotics and a lot of other treatment modalities are best avoided during pregnancy. With diabetes becoming common in the younger ages and women choosing to delay pregnancy, there are multiple women who are diabetic and choose to get pregnant later in life.

With diabetes being a chronic and a lifestyle condition, it definitely has its effects on pregnancy. However, the key is to manage diabetes cautiously in such a way that its effects on pregnancy, both the mother and the developing baby, are minimal. The increased blood sugar levels from the mother pass on to the baby, so keeping a close watch on the blood sugar levels is very important.

The maximum effect of diabetes on the baby is during the first few weeks of pregnancy. It is when the vital organs (brain, heart, lungs and kidneys) are forming, and high blood sugar levels can be harmful. This is slightly tricky as most women realise they could be pregnant only after about 6 weeks. If pregnancy is planned, it is best advisable to keep a check on sugar levels much ahead of the pregnancy.
The baby could be used to high levels of sugar while in the womb, and once delivered, it could have too low sugar levels. This needs to be monitored.
Preeclampsia, which is increased protein in the urine and high blood pressure, can happen during the second trimester. This may require the baby to be delivered prematurely.
Babies born to diabetic mothers are often bigger. The baby s pancreas is used to higher sugar levels and so the extra sugar gets converted to fat, which is the reason for the bigger babies. This may also necessitate C-sections.
Pregnancy can induce the development of diabetic retinopathy, which may prevent vaginal delivery, as the woman may not be able to exert the required pressure.
Abnormal calcium and magnesium levels, which need to be monitored for a while after birth
Most diabetic women reach full term if the sugar levels have been under good control.
Diabetic pregnant women are high at risk. However, with advanced medical care, these risks and complications are managed very well producing healthy babies from normal deliveries with effectively no harm to the mother s health. Once a diabetic woman tests positive, it is advisable to seek medical help to plan diet/meal plan, physical activities, exercise regimen, lifestyle changes, and medication dose adjustments. This is not a one-time activity, but needs to be closely monitored with daily blood sugar levels throughout the pregnancy. 

How Can High Diabetes Affect Your Pregnancy?

Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes where the blood sugar levels of the body increase during pregnancy. When you are expecting, your body is more repellent to insulin so that a larger amount of glucose is manufactured for the baby s nourishment. However, this excess blood glucose can build up within the body which causes gestational diabetes. This can lead to health problems for both the mother and the baby. At the end of the gestational period i.e. once the baby is delivered, blood sugar reduces to normal.

When are you at a risk for gestational diabetes?

Gestational diabetes can also be hereditary. If a family member or a relative has diabetes, you are more likely to develop gestational diabetes.

If you are overweight, you are more susceptible to developing gestational diabetes.

What causes gestational diabetes?

During pregnancy, the placenta connects your baby to the blood supply. This produces other hormones which reduce the levels of insulin. This increases the level of blood sugar in your blood. As your baby develops, your body manufactures more of such hormones which block your insulin levels leading to gestational diabetes. This usually occurs from the 20th week of your pregnancy.

Complications:

Increase in Birth Weight   Extra glucose crosses through the placenta which instigates the baby s pancreas to manufacture more insulin. This can make your baby very large. Sometimes, it becomes difficult for the baby to pass through the birth canal during childbirth as a result.

Premature Birth and Respiratory Diseases   High blood sugar may increase the risk of an early labor. It may make the baby due before the 37th week of pregnancy. This also makes the baby more susceptible to respiratory disorders.

High Blood Pressure   Gestational diabetes also raises your risks for high blood pressure. This can be fatal for you as well as your baby s health.

Treatment:

Book an appointment with a dietitian and follow a healthy eating schedule. Limit the amount of carbohydrates and ensure you have a healthy and balanced meal.

Do light exercises regularly during pregnancy. This helps you to control your blood sugar level. Physical activities which require low levels of energy utilization such as swimming and walking will control your blood sugar level without exerting you too much.

Taking insulin shots and medicine for diabetes will also control your blood sugar levels if you have a pre-existing condition.

Causes and Treatment of Gestational Diabetes

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