Have A Family History Of Diabetes? 6 Things You Need To Start Doing Immediately

Have A Family History Of Diabetes? 6 Things You Need To Start Doing Immediately
Type 2 diabetes is a common, serious disease that can harm many organs of the body. Currently, 40 percent of people in the United States are expected to develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. There are ways to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. This article will look at six of them.
Overview of Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus, or diabetes, refers to a group of metabolic diseases where the body does not adequately produce insulin or use insulin properly. Insulin plays a crucial role in delivering glucose, or sugar, into the cells. This glucose is then used for energy.
People with untreated or poorly managed diabetes have abnormally high levels of glucose in their blood. This can lead to organ damage and other complications. Too much glucose in the blood is called hyperglycemia. Symptoms include fatigue, blurry vision, hunger, increased thirst, and frequent urination.
Have A Family History Of Diabetes? 6 Things You Need To Start Doing Immediately
Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, accounting for about 90 to 95 percent of all diagnosed cases. In type 2 diabetes, the body develops a resistance to insulin.
This means the body cannot use insulin to absorb blood sugar into the cells so that it can be utilized for energy. Some people with type 2 diabetes may stop producing enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels within normal ranges.
Treatment of type 2 diabetes involves diet, exercise, and sometimes medications. Lifestyle changes can also help to prevent t Continue reading

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Reverse your diabetes: You can stay diabetes-free long-term

A new study from Newcastle University has shown that people who reverse their diabetes and then keep their weight down remain free of diabetes.
In addition, the team found that even patients who have had Type 2 diabetes for up to 10 years can reverse their condition.
The study, published in Diabetes Care, is the latest research from Professor Roy Taylor, Professor of Medicine and Metabolism at Newcastle University, who also works within Newcastle Hospitals.
The research is part of a growing body of evidence showing that people with Type 2 diabetes who successfully lose weight can reverse their condition because fat is removed from their pancreas, returning insulin production to normal.
Reversing diabetes
A previous study led by Professor Taylor showed that diabetes could be reversed by a very low calorie diet.
This caused international interest, but the study was very short as it was only eight weeks and the question remained whether the diabetes would stay away.
In this new study, 30 volunteers with Type 2 diabetes embarked on the same diet of 600 to 700 calories a day.
Participants lost on average 14 kilograms — just over 2 stone. Over the next 6 months they did not regain any weight.
The group included many people with longer duration diabetes, defined as more than 8 years and ranging up to 23 years.
Overall, 12 patients who had had diabetes for less than 10 years reversed their condition. 6 months later they remained diabetes free. In fact, after 6 months a thirteenth patient had reversed their diabetes.
Though the volunteers lost weight they remained overweight or ob Continue reading

Diabetes Food Advice You Should — and Shouldn’t — Follow to Manage Your Blood Sugar

Building a good diabetes diet can be tough. Not only can the new food restrictions be difficult to cope with emotionally, but the often-conflicting advice you might find online about what food is good for diabetes and bad for diabetes can complicate matters even more.
That confusion ends now. We turned to registered dietitians across the country to collect the very best and worst advice out there. This way, you’ll know exactly what constitutes the best diet for type 2 diabetes.
Though you should think of this as your guide for creating a type 2 diabetes diet, if you still have any questions or concerns about what you should be eating to best manage your blood sugar, you can always connect with a registered dietitian who’s a certified diabetes educator. You can find such a person at EatRight.org.
“Talk to a registered dietitian to create a personalized nutrition care plan to help manage your blood sugar throughout the day, prevent further health complications, and feel your best,” says Samina Qureshi, RDN, who is in private practice in Houston.
Now, the truth about what you really should be eating for diabetes — and more.
Good Advice: Fill Half Your Plate With Veggies
When it comes to managing diabetes, eating your vegetables is key. “By making half your plate vegetables, you are naturally consuming more dietary fiber,” says Emily Kyle, RDN, who is in private practice in Rochester, New York. “We know fiber is good for regulating blood sugar and keeping us fuller for longer.”
Bad Advice: Check Your Blood Sugar Once a Day
When you have diabetes, regularly che Continue reading

Aromatherapy and Essential Oils for Diabetes

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Aromatherapy and Essential Oils for Diabetes
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , 8.3% of the population in the United States has diabetes, and the percentage is predicted to increase dramatically. Of those that have diabetes, 27% of these individuals aren't even aware that they have this life-threatening disease. [" Diabetes - At a Glance " CDC.gov. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web: Accessed 23 June 2013.]
The statistics on the CDC's site are alarming and indicative of a growing diabetes epidemic in the United States and throughout the world.
Effectively stabilizing and controlling blood sugar levels as closely to "normal" is a key goal to ensure the minimization of diabetic complications like diabetic peripheral neuropathy, diabetic retinopathy/blindness, heart attack and kidney failure.
According to a number of online sources and books, the misinformation given to diabetics by well-intentioned doctors and diabetes associations may contribute to diabetic complications --even when diabetics are doing their best to follow the medical advice they are given by their doctors and health practitioners.
It's no wonder that a number of diabetics and pre-diabetics are frightened, discouraged and outraged and are considering holistic aromatherapy as a possibility. Diabetes routinely ask me (a) if there are essential oils or holistic aromatherapy practices that are beneficial to pre-diabetic and diabetic indivi Continue reading

HbA1c, a diabetes marker for the past and for the future?

HbA1c, a diabetes marker for the past and for the future?
Ever since large clinical outcome studies in the 1990s demonstrated that tight blood glucose control, as measured by glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), is able to slow down the progress of diabetes-related complications, HbA1c is regarded as the gold standard to evaluate the clinical efficacy of new anti-diabetes compounds in clinical trials as well as the most important biomarker to guide the individual treatment of patients with diabetes. Furthermore, much more recently (since 2010), various diabetes societies and the World Health Organization (WHO) have accepted the use of HbA1c in screenings to diagnose diabetes, mainly type 2 diabetes (T2D). Despite its long-time status as gold standard parameter to assess diabetes therapy, many limitations of the HbA1c-value have been discussed in literature and experts in the field of diabetes are now saying that HbA1c alone is not enough and other parameters have to be considered for drug approval and treatment success. In this text the strengths and limitations of HbA1c and its role in future diabetes therapy are discussed.
Discovered by Iranian doctor Samuel Rahbar in 1968, HbA1c is a minor component of human haemoglobin formed by condensation of glucose to alpha- and beta-chains of the haemoglobin Hb A variant. In principle, the higher the blood glucose concentration, the more haemoglobin will be glycated. As the lifespan of red blood cells in which the haemoglobin is present is 120 days, HbA1c provides an estimate of the average glucose control in a human being over that p Continue reading