Diabetes And De-stressing: Three Easy Yoga Poses

Diabetes and De-stressing: Three Easy Yoga Poses

All illnesses, including diabetes, are exacerbated by stress and muscular tension, so we need simple ways to incorporate relaxation into our lives.
Here is a series of three calming yoga poses that can easily be sandwiched between tasks at home, or in the office.
Three Relaxing Yoga Poses
The first pose calms and balances the mind. The second gets our energy moving and releases tension in the shoulders, spine, and heart area. The third pose melts away anxiety and stress.
Naturally, you will check with your doctor before engaging in a new type of exercise if you are out of shape, have spine or joint difficulties, or chronic illnesses.
1. Equal Standing Pose (Tadasana)
Stand tall with toes pointing forward, and feet hip-distance apart - your weight distributed evenly.
Unlock your knees by bending them - very slightly; put the palms of your hands together in front of your heart area.
Close your eyes; take five slow, deep breaths.
2. Hands To Sky (Urdhva Hastasana)
From the Equal Standing pose, inhale and stretch your arms straight up from the shoulders, palms facing each other, and fingertips pointing to the sky.
Spread the fingers wide; look straight ahead, or slightly upward if it feels comfortable.
Hold the pose as you take five slow, deep breaths.
3. Forward Fold (Uttanasana)
From the Hands To Sky position, exhale as you bend forward from your hips, keeping a slight arch in your back as you fold to avoid lower back strain.
Rest your hands on the floor, or on your shins, or the backs of your thighs, or clasp opposite elbows with your hands. Let the tension drain from your h Continue reading

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Treat Your Diabetes with Green Tea

If you are a human being and you’ve been awake at any point for the last decade, you probably know all about the health benefits of green tea.
This stuff is touted as the omnipotent cure for just about everything – probably because, due primarily to its high levels of antioxidants, it nearly is. Studies have found that green tea holds the potential to fight cancer, heart disease, and dementia, burn fat, and help with diabetes management and prevention.
But just how can green tea help, you ask? Well, here are two major ways that green tea can work with your body to help manage your diabetes, and they will have you clamoring for your next cup:
An Insulin Boost – No Needle Needed
As we all know, diabetes is characterized by improper functioning of insulin in the body. It’s because of this that diabetics need insulin pumps, regular blood tests, and to monitor the amount of sugar they take in. But green tea could help to set a diabetic mind at ease; the polysaccharides in tea can regulate blood sugar in the same way insulin does. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, green tea can boost insulin activity in the body by more than 15-fold!
Drink Your Glucose Levels Down
Blood sugar levels are almost always being monitored when you have diabetes, which contributes to a restrictive diet (which usually involves limiting your starch intake). However, studies have indicated that green tea extract reduces the normal elevation of glucose and insulin, even when 50 grams of starch are ingested. A single cup of green tea inhibits amylase activity by up to eighty-s Continue reading

Important Health Tests for People with Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease that can affect many areas of the body, but most of the potential problems can be treated effectively when detected early.
To assure early detection of diabetes related health issues, there are several tests diabetics should have either annually or a few times each year. Regular testing facilitates better long-term health and peace of mind.
Annual Tests
Your doctor may recommend you have these tests more or less than once a year, depending on your health status.
Dilated Eye Exam. An eye doctor will determine if you have any retinal damage caused by high blood sugar. Eye drops are used to dilate (widen) the pupils, so the doctor can better examine the back of your eye. Diabetic eye complications can often be controlled, and possibly reversed, with good glucose management. Some individuals require surgery to preserve their vision.
General Health Exam. A yearly general health checkup is a good idea for everyone. Although you may see your diabetes care professionals regularly, they are focused on helping you manage your blood sugar. Your overall well-being is equally important.
Kidney Tests. Kidney health is typically measured using two tests: micro-albumin and creatinine. Micro-albumin tests detect the presence of protein in urine. This can occur if high blood sugar damages small blood vessels in the kidneys. Untreated, it may lead to kidney failure. Measuring creatinine levels lets your doctor know how effective your kidneys are a filtering waste.
Lipid Panel. Abnormal lipid readings are associated with the development of cardiovascular disease, a seriou Continue reading

A Call to Action for the CDC: Don’t Treat Diabetes as One Disease

Earlier this month, the CDC published a statement that had a lot of people talking. The data reported the number of new cases of diabetes decreased from 2009 to 2014. What many of us have found so frustrating is that the CDC doesn’t distinguish between type 1 and type 2, and in fact, type 1 is on the rise. The Glu team worked with our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Henry Anhalt, and Executive Director/Founder Dana Ball to respond in a statement of their own:
T1D Exchange, a nonprofit focused on driving better, faster research to improve care and speed development of new therapies for people and families living with type 1 diabetes, calls upon the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to clarify its recent statement about a significant decrease in the incidence of new cases of diabetes from 2009-2014.
Strikingly absent from the CDC statement was the statistical breakdown by diabetes types. In particular, the report comingled data collected from people living with type 2 diabetes and people living with type 1 diabetes.
Comingling of the data, particularly from the leading national public health institute of the United States, perpetuates the myth that diabetes is one disease sharing a name, while the reality is that type 1 and type 2 diabetes are actually two different diseases in the diabetes family. Among key differences is that unlike type 2 diabetes, type 1 diabetes is not lifestyle-dependent; it is the result of relentless autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Once insulin cells are destroyed, individuals spend their lifetime closely monitoring Continue reading

AMAZING! Daughter Cures Dad’s Type 2 Diabetes At Age 8!

Haile Thomas, from Tucson, Ariz., may be young, but she is mighty powerful. When she was just five-years-old she began her cooking career, helping her mother prepare the family meals — but not the ordinary chicken-fingers-and-grilled-cheese kid fare. “My parents are from Jamaica, so I grew up eating oxtail and jerk chicken,” she says. With her adventurous palate and knack for wielding a whisk, it wasn’t long before Thomas was helping plan the weekly menu.
The cooking started out of love for her dad.
“When I was 8 years old, my dad was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes, a disease caused by unhealthy lifestyle choices,” explains Thomas. “This diagnosis opened the eyes of my entire family. We started to learn about the importance of exercise and how food really effects the body, and realized that we were consuming way too much FAKE, FAST, & CHEAP foods with NO nutritional value.”
“We started to cook even more often at home, eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and exercise more. Within a couple of years my dad’s diabetes was completely reversed with no medication, only healthy lifestyle changes.”
“And while these amazing changes were happening for my family, I discovered that kids my age and younger were being diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, and many other lifestyle related diseases,” continues Thomas. “I couldn’t help but notice that my friends at school or people I knew weren’t really aware of issues with food & exercise. And that made me wonder if a majority of American kids and families were just like those in my community. And I qui Continue reading