Can People With Diabetes Eat Peanut Butter?

Can people with diabetes eat peanut butter?

Peanut butter may help people to manage diabetes, a condition that affects blood sugar levels. How exactly does this popular snack help to control the condition?
A diet high in magnesium is thought to offer protective benefits against the development of diabetes. Peanuts are a good source of magnesium.
Natural peanut butter and peanuts are also low glycemic index (GI) foods. This means that they have a lower effect on blood sugar levels.
This article explores research into the impact of peanut butter on diabetes, to help people with diabetes decide whether eating it could improve their condition. It also considers any risks involved and looks at other healthful snacks for people with diabetes.
How GI affects blood sugar
GI is a 100-point scale applied to foods. This scale measures how blood sugar and insulin spike after eating specific food types.
Foods that are digested slowly and release sugar gradually into the blood stream have a lower GI. Peanuts have a GI score of just 14, making them one of the lowest GI foods.
Foods high in GI cause blood sugar and insulin to spike severely after eating them. This is followed by a crash in blood sugar that can result in hunger, cravings, and tiredness.
These cycles of spiking and crashing blood sugar and insulin levels are not good for the body. They can contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes.
Research into peanut butter and blood sugar
By contrast, low-GI foods can help people to better control their blood sugar levels.
For example, a 2012 study looked into eating peanut butter or peanuts at breakfast. This helped obese w Continue reading

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Watching TV three hours a day linked to type 2 diabetes in children

INDYPULSE
Watching TV three hours a day linked to type 2 diabetes in children
Children who spend more than three hours a day in front of the TV or a computer may be at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Increased levels of body fat and insulin resistance in children were linked to regular extended periods of screen time in a new study published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Diabetes risk factors including blood fat and glucose levels, blood pressure and resistance to insulin were measured in 4,495 children aged nine and ten from primary schools in London, Birmingham and Leicester.
Children who said they spent the most time watching TV or using electronic devices each day were found to be more likely to exhibit physical risk factors for diabetes.
“Our findings suggest that reducing screen time may be beneficial in reducing type 2 diabetes risk factors, in both boys and girls and in different ethnic groups from an early age,” wrote the researchers from St George’s, University of London.
The scientists said their findings were of “considerable potential public health interest” but emphasised further research was needed to prove the link between diabetes risk and screen time.
“This is particularly relevant, given rising levels of type 2 diabetes, the early emergence of type 2 diabetes risk, and recent trends suggesting that screen time related activities are increasing in childhood and may pattern screen-related behaviours in later life,” they said.
Previous research has suggested a link between time spent on screens and heightened type Continue reading

10 Fiber-Rich Foods for Your Diabetes Diet

Focus on Fiber, Balance Your Blood Sugar
Ready to give your health a clean sweep? Then consider fiber — nature’s broom, says Toby Smithson, RDN, LDN, CDE, spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and author of Diabetes Meal Planning and Nutrition for Dummies.
Found in plant-based foods, fiber is a carbohydrate that the body can’t digest, which helps slow the rise in blood sugar following a meal. There are two types of fiber — soluble and insoluble, and they’ve both got big benefits. “Foods high in soluble fiber become gummy or sticky as they pass through the digestive tract, helping to reduce the absorption of cholesterol,” Smithson explains. Insoluble fiber doesn’t dissolve and promotes bowel regularity.
Other benefits include weight management, because fiber can help you feel more full and satisfied, and better regulation of blood sugar levels. And since people with diabetes are at double the risk for cardiovascular complications, fiber’s ability to lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels is a great way to improve heart health. To get the recommended 20 to 35 grams per day, include these fiber-rich gems in your type 2 diabetes diet. Continue reading

Type 2 diabetes, once considered a disease for adults, is increasingly common in tweens and teens

For years, health experts have bemoaned the rise of childhood obesity in the United States. About 17 percent of kids and teens in the U.S. are now considered obese, a figure that has more than tripled since the 1970s, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A report in the New England Journal of Medicine lays out one of the consequences of all this excess weight: a corresponding increase in childhood cases of Type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when extra body fat makes it hard for cells to use insulin, a hormone that turns sugar into energy. Over time, blood sugar levels rise and cause blood vessels to become stiff, increasing the risk of life-threatening conditions like heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure, among others. More than 75,000 Americans die of diabetes each year, the CDC says.
Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes, because it would take years to develop. (That's in contrast to Type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile diabetes, which occurs when the immune system destroys the cells that make insulin.) But these days, doctors are diagnosing Type 2 in school-age kids, and occasionally even in toddlers.
After reviewing data on 10- to 19-year-olds in primarily five states (California, Colorado, Ohio, South Carolina and Washington), researchers determined that 12.5 out of every 100,000 of them had a bona fide case of Type 2 diabetes in 2011 and 2012. That compares with nine cases per 100,000 youth in 2002 and 2003.
After accounting for age, gender, race and ethnicity, the study authors found that the inciden Continue reading

Real Talk With Dave: Sleeping Through The Night

One thing that we as Type 1 Diabetics often worry about is going to sleep. I have experienced myself, as well as heard other Diabetics discuss how sleeping can be one of the most stressful things as a Diabetic because we are always unsure what to expect. What we worry about is not waking up in the morning as a result from a severe low blood sugar, ripping our pump sites out as we toss and turn in bed, then waking up with a high blood sugar due to no insulin going through all night, or just about anything else you can think of relating to Diabetes in the night. But that shouldn’t be the case. Sleeping at the end of the day should be a time to unwind and rest from the busy day prior. Everyone has their days when they are constantly on the go and working so hard that when they come home at night, sleep is an essential to healthy living. There are things that we can do, to the best of our ability, to ensure a peaceful sleep and a restful night.
After living with T1D for so many years and knowing your own unique and individual sleeping pattern and Diabetes routine, going to bed is much more relaxing and you are able to worry less. It just takes time and practice. I can remember countless times in which I would wake up from a low blood sugar at 4 AM and run downstairs, practically eat the whole kitchen as it is a common feeling to be so hungry and in a state of panic, to bring me back up from that horrific low. That is just me, but some others may not be responsive to lows in the middle of the night, as well as highs. In that case, having different ways to ensure you’ll wake Continue reading