Essential Foods For Seniors With Diabetes

Essential Foods for Seniors with Diabetes

One in 10 Americans have diabetes and another 84 million adults in the United States are at high risk of developing the disease, according to Health.gov. One of the best ways for people with diabetes to lower their risk, is to eat right and live a healthier life.
November is American Diabetes Month and to recognize the month, we’ve compiled a list of must-have foods, shopping tips and resources for seniors with diabetes.
Foods for Seniors with Diabetes
Making healthy food choices can be challenging — particularly for seniors with diabetic restrictions — but it’s a critical part of managing diabetes without health complications. Simply by controlling portion size, eating right and sticking to regular mealtimes, it’s possible to help keep blood sugar and body weight within the target range. That’s the core of a diabetes diet.
A diabetes diet, according to A Place for Mom Senior Nutrition experts, is also naturally rich in nutrients and low in calories and fat, with an emphasis on fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
But what does that mean for your shopping list?
Foods That Diabetics Should Avoid
If you or a loved one has diabetes, there are a handful of foods whose intake must be limited. It doesn’t mean you have to go through your kitchen and pitch every grain of sugar you see, but it does mean paying attention to how much of these items you consume.
Seniors with diabetes should avoid or limit:
Alcohol intake
Cholesterol: The Mayo Clinic suggests no more than 200 mg per day
Fat: In particular, avoid foods containing saturated fat or trans fat
Salt: Canned, pac Continue reading

Rate this article

Total 1 ratings

Best Diabetes Apps

Diabetes management largely centers on monitoring and managing blood glucose levels. This is done by controlling what you eat and knowing how foods affect your blood sugar. For many people with diabetes, it also involves taking medications that help manage blood sugar levels.
One thing diabetes apps have in common is that they help to simplify diabetes management.
BG Monitor Diabetes
Android rating: Free
Interface: Slick and elegant, BG Monitor is a breeze to navigate.
Usability: Track everything, calculate how much insulin you need, set reminders, and create spreadsheets and graphs of your data. You can also organise all of your entries with tags.
Favorite thing: There’s a lot to love about this app, but we particularly like being able to create a photo log of your meals. It’s great for when you’re out with friends and don’t want to take the time to record your food.
BlueLoop
iPhonerating:Free Androidrating:Free
Interface: Made for children and the adults in their life, the interface is simple and intuitive.
Usability: Perfect for children with diabetes and the many people who care for them, BlueLoop allows for everyone to connect and share updates on food intake, insulin, and blood sugar levels.
Favorite thing: You can receive text messages at work when your child or the school nurse enters new information.
Calorie Counter PRO
iPhonerating:US$3.99 Androidrating:Free
Interface: Comprehensive and text-focused without being overwhelming.
Usability: A weight loss app that can help you track your daily eating can be extremely useful when you’re managing your diabetes Continue reading

Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Through Fasting

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-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can develop. When non-alcoholic fatty liver disease Continue reading

How to Deal With Nerve Pain If You Have Diabetes

If you have diabetes, you know it well: Too much sugar isn’t good for you. People whose blood sugar is too high or difficult to control are more susceptible to cardiovascular disease, kidney damage, eye problems and other complications, including nerve damage (diabetic neuropathy).
“High blood sugar is toxic to your nerves,” says Robert Bolash, MD, a specialist in Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Pain Management. “When a nerve is damaged, you may feel tingling, pins and needles, burning or sharp, stabbing pain.”
Diabetic neuropathy typically starts in your toes, feet or ankles and creeps up your body as the condition worsens, he says. However, nerve damage also can affect your hands and wrists as well as your heart, digestive system, sex organs and more.
How to avoid it
Up to 70 percent of people with diabetes have some kind of neuropathy, reports the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
“Anyone with diabetes can get nerve damage at any time,” says Dr. Bolash. “It’s most common in people whose blood sugar is poorly controlled and those who have had diabetes a long time.” According to the NIDDK, the highest rates of neuropathy are among people who have had diabetes 25 years or longer.
To avoid getting diabetic neuropathy, control your blood sugar, keeping it as close to nondiabetic levels as possible, advises Dr. Bolash.
Bad news, good news
The bad news about diabetic neuropathy is that it’s tough to reverse. It also can cause serious problems, especially in your feet. If you don’t feel blisters, sores or other f Continue reading

How type 2 diabetes can be reversed with a low-calorie diet

Recently, the idea that type 2 diabetes might be reversible has been gaining traction in the research community. But until now, the mechanisms driving this remission have not been known. A new study sheds light.
Earlier this year, Medical News Today reported on a paper published in the BMJ that urged doctors and patients alike to acknowledge the possibility that type 2 diabetes is reversible through weight loss.
Another study we reported on showed that caloric restriction helped 40 percent of the participants in the study to achieve remission. And now, researchers unravel the mechanism by which caloric restriction leads to the reversal of this chronic condition in rats.
The team was led by senior investigator Dr. Gerald I. Shulman, the George R. Cowgill Professor of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University in New Haven, CT, and the first author of the paper is Dr. Rachel J. Perry, from the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale's School of Medicine.
Dr. Perry and her colleagues investigated how 3 days on a very low-calorie diet (VLCD) reversed type 2 diabetes markers in the rodents, and the findings were published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Speaking to MNT about the motivation for her research, Dr. Perry said, "We became interested in this work because [type 2 diabetes] is increasingly being considered a surgical disease."
"[B]ariatric surgeons are able to generate a rapid reduction in plasma glucose concentrations within days of weight loss surgery, such that patients are often able to leave the hospital off all their diabetes drugs," she add Continue reading