Top 5 things all diabetics must do

As you are aware, diabetes is an increasingly common problem not only in adults but with children and young people too. Preventing or delaying diabetes is possible with a few lifestyle changes. And for those who have been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes, changes in lifestyle can prove beneficial to keep it under control. This is important and should not be taken lightly as diabetes can lead to other serious health complications. There are few simple things which if done regularly can keep you safe and absolutely fine.

5 ways to combat diabetes.

1) exercise - do minimum 45 to 30 minutes of exercise like brisk walking (for people with heart ailments make sure that you have done stress test/tmt). Keep yourself physically active all the time this will help you in losing weight, controlling blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol. It will also improve insulin sensitivity in your body. 
2) high fiber diet - include high fiber foods like fruits, vegetables, leafy vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, cinnamon, green tea in your diet. This will improve your blood sugar level and also reduce your risk of developing diabetes and helps you to lose weight. Do not get into fad diets and tv commercials as they are often misleading.
3) reduce stress - tension and worry releases certain chemicals (stress hormones) which can increase your blood sugar level. Try relaxation therapy like meditation, yoga, music and soundful sleep.
4) restrict intake of alcohol - alcohol increases body weight, triglyceride (cholesterol) level and blood pressure. They may make you unaware of symptoms of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar which may be dangerous). They are empty calorie with no nutritional value. Permissible limit is 2 drinks (60ml) a day for men and 1 drink (60ml) for women, it is also not advisable to smoke.
5) regular check-ups - make sure that you regularly check your blood sugar levels and modify treatment from your diabetologist doctor (if required.) your body and your friend/ relative / colleague's body are different, so is your need of medicine for diabetes as well. What works best for them may not be right for you. So it is my sincere request is to avoid any self medication as it can be dangerous. Regularly undergo screening for early detection of diabetes complications like eye, nerve, heart, foot, kidney.

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Top 5 Things All Diabetics Must Do

13 Wonder Foods to Fight Diabetes

Nutritious and healthy food is capable of arresting or even reversing diabetes. Here is a list of 13 such wondrous foods that, if eaten consistently, will ward off diabetes -

1. Sweet potatoes: Unlike regular potatoes, sweet potatoes are rich in fiber and Vitamin A along with a low Glycemic index.

2. Tomatoes: Tomatoes offset diabetes with its nutrients like Vitamin C, E, and iron. They can be eaten raw as well as cooked.

3. Fish: Consume fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, and halibut etc that are rich in omega 3 fatty acids. Cook them in a simple way rather than deep-frying.

4. Apples: Apples are full of fiber and low in calories. Thus, they are able to effectively fight bad cholesterol and diabetes. It is best to eat them with their skin.

5. Avocado: This fruit comes packed with monounsaturated fats and balances blood sugar level. It also contains good fat that is capable of reversing insulin resistance.

6. Berries: Almost all kinds of berries are rich in antioxidants and fiber. They boost the production of insulin and lower down blood sugar.

7. Broccoli: Broccoli contains chromium that stabilizes levels of blood sugar.

8. Carrots: Carrots are extremely rich in beta-carotene that is known to lower the chances of diabetes.

9. Flaxseed: These are rich in fiber, protein, magnesium and good fats. They are known to helps cells in absorbing insulin.

10. Yogurt and Skim Milk: These dairy products are rich in calcium and protein for fighting against insulin resistance that leads to diabetes.

11. Oatmeal: Oatmeal comes loaded with soluble fiber that helps in delayed conversion of consumed carbohydrate into blood sugar.

12. Almonds: Regular intake of 4-5 almonds daily reduces the risk of diabetes as well as cardiovascular disease.

13. Garlic: Garlic is known to elevate the insulin level in the blood. It is rich in Allicin and vitamin B thiamine that activates pancreas for the production of insulin.

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13 Wonder Foods to Fight Diabetes

At this point of time, diabetes is one of the most chronic, fastest growing lifestyle disease in the world. Also known as diabetes mellitus, the condition is basically a metabolic disorder, wherein the human body cannot store and use fuel for the energy. This fuel or glucose is the one that powers all our bodily organs and ensures that we have the energy to carry out activities throughout the day.

And while diabetes is a popular medical condition, a lot of people don't have much information about it. Although, they know the major types of diabetes, they have no clue about the difference between them. Here we outline type I vs type ii diabetes-

***Type I diabetes- Formerly known as juvenile onset or insulin dependent diabetes, type I diabetes is the one in which your body's immune system destroys all kinds of cells that release insulin. Over a period of time, this results in elimination of insulin production from the body, because of which the cells cannot absorb glucose or sugar and produce energy. Type I diabetes have episodes of low blood sugar level and it cannot be problem. Symptoms usually start from childhood or young adulthood.

***Type ii diabetes- The adult onset or non-insulin dependent diabetes can develop at any age, particularly after the 30s, although the cases of same are rising rapidly among children. This type of diabetes involves production of insulin, but not in a right way, a condition known as insulin resistance. For this kind of diabetes, the person usually might not have symptoms before the diagnoses and there are rarely any episodes of low sugar level. It can be easily prevented or delayed by following a healthy lifestyle and indulging in regular exercising.

If you have any of the above symptoms or have more questions related to diabetes, click on consult privately to ask me.

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You Surely Know About Diabetes. But Do You Know Its Various Types?

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?

Diabetes refers to the condition when there is an excess of glucose in your body. Though glucose is beneficial for the proper functioning of the body, an excess can lead to serious consequences. Over the years, diabetes has over the years emerged as one of the fatal diseases, one that once developed has no known cure. This condition is preceded by various perceptible symptoms, some of them are-

1. Insatiable thirst

The onset of diabetes is almost always accompanied by a nagging thirst, one that refuses to be quenched despite drinking plenty of water.

2. Frequent tendencies of urination

A frequent tendency of urination is one of the primary precursors of diabetes.

3. Acute hunger

Having bouts of acute hunger is one of the most predominant premonitions of diabetes.

4. Exhaustion and fatigue

In case you are suffering from diabetes, you will inevitably feel tired and exhausted all the time.

5. Blurring of vision

Diabetes is one of those rare conditions that threaten to affect and damage the eyesight. The blurring of vision comes hand in hand with the onset of diabetes.

6. Sores which take a long time to heal

One of the most fatal symptoms of diabetes is when the sore that you have suffered from takes a longer time than necessary to heal.

Some of the complications which diabetes invite are-

1. Cardiovascular problems

Diabetes considerably increases the risk of a host of cardiovascular problems and ailments like heart attacks, chest pain, and stroke.

2. Damage to the kidneys

The pair of kidneys that human beings are endowed with has the responsibility to remove the toxins from the body. An excess of diabetes in the body unsettles the purging ability of the kidneys.

3. Damage to the eyes

The onset of diabetes, among other things, puts your eyes at great risks. The condition tends to damage the blood vessels of the retina and can even cause blindness in some.

4. Skin disorder

Diabetes puts your skin at great risks. You may suffer from various bacterial and fungal infections among other ailments, due to an excess of glucose in your body.

Symptoms and Complications of Diabetes

Diabetes is probably one of the worst enemies of human health. Why? That is because unlike many other diseases which make you aware of their presence in your body instantly, diabetes is a silent attacker. So, you may continue to be unaware of the disease for a very long time, before you suddenly realize that something is wrong with your body one day. And then tests reveal that you are afflicted with diabetes.

In order to make sure that this doesn't happen to you, you have to keep an eye on the symptoms of diabetes because prevention, no matter how tedious it is, is always better than the cure. Here is a look at the usual but often ignored signs which indicate that you might be suffering from diabetes.

If you are taking more bathroom breaks than usual, and if the rate of going to the loo is increasing gradually with time, it can well be a sign of diabetes. When you are suffering from diabetes, your body becomes less efficient in breaking down the consumed food into sugars and utilising it. Therefore, a lot of sugar gets saturated in your bloodstream and your body gets rid of it by flushing it out through urination.
If you urinate a lot, it is self-evident that you would also feel very thirsty all the time. In some cases, the patients don't realize their problem and drink chocolate milk or aerated drinks which have sweet flavours. This leads to excess sugar in your body again, and the problem continues. So all in all, if you feel very thirsty all the time, get yourself checked.
You might lose weight, and it may really seem like a great thing in the beginning but it is not. When a person has diabetes, he is likely to lose his weight because of the decreasing water level in his body as well as the inability of the body to break down food into more suitable forms.
If you are tired all the time, and by all the time we mean even after getting up from a long and good night's sleep, you may have diabetes. The reason for this is that fatigue comes to you when your body cannot produce enough energy from the food you consume, and this happens only when you have diabetes.
If your cuts and bruises heal slower than ever, you definitely are a victim of diabetes. This is because the immunity and clotting system of your body don't work well when there is a saturation of sugars in your body.

5 Signs That You're Suffering from Diabetes

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