4 Easy Ways To Take Control Of Your Diabetes

4 Easy Ways to Take Control of Your Diabetes

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By Lori Zanini, RD
Receiving a diabetes diagnosis can be both difficult and surprising. However, type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that can be self-managed successfully. This means that there are many factors in your control that you can improve upon daily in order to help lower your blood sugar and prevent complications from diabetes. With a few simple changes, you can start to see improvements in your blood sugar right away. Try these four easy strategies that will make an immediate difference.
1. Hydrate Properly
One of the first changes to make is to look at what you are drinking throughout the day. When you are properly hydrated, your blood is well-diluted and your blood sugar levels decrease. Reducing, and ideally eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages can make an instant improvement in your blood sugar. This includes avoiding sodas, fruit juices, and sports drinks and taking a close look at what you put in your coffee. Try to replace your sweetened beverages with healthier options. While water is always the number-one choice, you can also switch to flavored seltzer water; unsweetened almond milk; low-sodium, broth-based vegetable soups; herbal teas; and hydrating vegetables that contain more than 90 percent water such as cucumbers, radishes, green bell peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes.
2. Make a Move
There’s no need to run a marathon or hit the gym every day of the week. Slight improvements in your daily movement can start to improve blood sugar right away. Start with small, realistic changes, like taking 10- to 15- minute walks after one Continue reading

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Amputations, depression and feeling judged: What it can be like to live with diabetes

Every day last year, it is likely that someone with diabetes in Wales woke up in a hospital bed without a toe, foot or leg.
A total of 404 amputations were carried out in 2016, according to Diabetes UK.
Amputations result from nerve damage, ulcers and infections.
Only a small fraction of diabetes patients have to undergo such procedures but their impact is lifelong.
Gwyneth Price, of Swansea , was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a 10-year-old and has now had both lower legs amputated.
Gwyneth recalled bouts of extreme thirst before she was diagnosed many years ago.
“Then you start the journey — it was all glass syringes, steel needles and urine testing back then,” she said. “You had to be admitted to hospital to be stabilised.
“I did my insulin injections — one a day — myself, usually in my thighs, occasionally my arms. I went through a phase when I hated it, but you just to learn to cope with it.
“My parents kept me close. They wanted to shelter me, more than anything. But I wanted to take the bull by the horns!”
Gwyneth’s complications surfaced in 2008, with a lack of feeling in foot nerve detector tests. Her fourth toe in her right foot became gangrenous and was amputated.
The following year she noticed her right foot had started shrivelling.
“The surgeon said they were going to have to do a lower leg amputation,” said Gwyneth, who lives with her partner in Wallace Road, St Thomas .
“It was that, or not living much longer — you don’t really have a choice at the time.”
Six weeks later Gwyneth was wearing a prosthetic leg and was back at h Continue reading

Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Through Fasting

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By Dr. Edward Group
Guest writer for Wake Up World
Type 2 diabetes, sometimes referred to as adult-onset diabetes, doesn’t have to be permanent. Fasting and calorie restriction can help you get control of your blood sugar, lower your blood pressure, and even help reverse type 2 diabetes. But, before we get into how fasting can undo the damage of type 2 diabetes, we first need to understand how type 2 diabetes affects the body.
How Does Type 2 Diabetes Develop?
Diabetes develops when fat accumulates in areas of the body that shouldn’t accumulate fat. It all starts with an abundance of fat in your muscle tissue. Typically this is caused by a family history, poor diet, or sedentary lifestyle. This fat is called intramuscular fat. It’s like the marbling on a steak, only it’s inside your muscles, and it causes insulin resistance — the characteristic that distinguishes type 1 diabetes from type 2.[1, 2] Even worse, intramuscular fat causes muscles to produce toxic fat metabolites like ceramide and diacylglycerol (DAG). These toxins also contribute to insulin resistance.[3]
High Insulin Levels Lead to a Fatty Liver
When blood sugar is high, the pancreas produces insulin to lower blood sugar. However, insulin resistance causes the liver to stop responding to insulin.[4, 5] In fact, the liver keeps producing sugar despite a high level of sugar in the blood. Consuming food that’s high in sugar is like throwing gas on the fire, and the abundance of sugar is converted to fat and stored in the liver.[4]
When the liver accumulates fat, non-alcoho Continue reading

Solera Health and the American Diabetes Association® Collaborate to Help Prevent and Delay Type 2 Diabetes for Millions of Americans

Relationship Will Facilitate Access to CDC-Recognized Diabetes Prevention Programs for Eligible Consumers
PHOENIX, AZ – October 18, 2017 – Solera Health (Solera), a preventive care benefits manager, today announced that they have joined forces with the American Diabetes Association (Association) to connect at-risk Americans to a Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The initiative seeks to help millions of Americans prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes by providing a streamlined process for adults at risk for type 2 diabetes to enroll in a community or digital DPP.
The National DPP is a partnership of public and private organizations working together to reduce the growing number of Americans with and at risk for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. There are currently more than 1,500 DPPs, including brick-and-mortar locations such as community non-profits, health systems, retail pharmacies and faith-based organizations, as well as virtual DPPs that deliver content to mobile devices, computers and/or telephones. All programs are working to make it easier for people at risk for type 2 diabetes to participate in affordable and high-quality lifestyle change programs to reduce their risk and improve their overall health.
According to the CDC’s National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2017, more than 84 million American adults are estimated to have prediabetes and are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Nearly 90 percent of American adults who have prediabetes are not aware they have it. Through this colla Continue reading

17 Tips to Manage Diabetes in Hot Weather or on Vacation

Summer brings special challenges for people with diabetes. These tips can help you safely manage diabetes in hot weather and when you’re on vacation.
The effects of heat are more strongly felt by people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes for several reasons:
Complications that are common for people with diabetes include damage to nerves or blood vessels. This damage means sweat glands cannot effectively cool the body. When the humidity is also high, sweat doesn’t evaporate and the body cannot cool itself. It’s easier for people with diabetes to develop heat exhaustion or heat stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Consider this to be a medical emergency and get help quickly.
They more quickly lose water from their bodies (become dehydrated) when it’s hot, compared to people without diabetes. They need to drink more fluids to keep blood sugar levels from increasing. High blood sugar increases the need to pee, making dehydration worse. Also, “water pills” (diuretics) used to treat high blood pressure can worsen dehydration.
Insulin use can change because hot weather changes how the body uses insulin. The CDC recommends testing your blood sugar more often, adjusting the insulin dose, and adjusting what you eat and drink.
Top tips for summer if you have diabetes:
Drink more fluids, especially water, even if you’re not thirsty. Waiting until you’re thirsty means you’re already dehydrated. Avoid alcoholic beverages and those with caffeine, including coffee, tea, energy or sports drinks and cola drinks. They can make you lose more Continue reading