Smoking And Diabetes: Risks, Effects, And How To Quit

Smoking and diabetes: Risks, effects, and how to quit

Smoking and diabetes: Risks, effects, and how to quit
Reviewed by Natalie Olsen, RD, LD, ACSM EP-C
The health risks of smoking are well known, and most smokers already know the risks they are taking.
For people with diabetes , however, smoking is a serious risk factor for numerous health issues they may face. Smoking may even cause diabetes.
Quitting is the best course of action smokers can take for their health. However, some strategies may reduce the health effects for some of those with diabetes.
Smoking and diabetes: Can smoking cause diabetes?
Smokers are more likely to develop diabetes than non-smokers.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, accounting for at least 90 percent of cases worldwide.
Type 2 diabetes is also closely linked to certain lifestyle factors, including smoking. In fact, smokers are 30-40 percent more likely than non-smokers to develop diabetes. People who have diabetes already and who smoke are more likely to have uncontrolled diabetes.
Smoking damages cells and tissues, increasing inflammation . It also causes oxidative stress , which is when molecules called free radicals damage cells. Both these conditions are linked to an increased risk of diabetes. They can cause other health problems, as well, including cardiovascular disease.
Research further suggests that heavy smoking increases abdominal fat . Even in people who aren't obese or overweight, excess abdominal fat is a risk factor for diabetes.
The health risks of smoking are numerous, and researchers are constantly uncovering new health concerns associated with smo Continue reading

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Smart Snacking With Diabetes

When you feel the urge to snack, its easy to satisfy your cravings with something sweet and salty. A box of cookies or bag of chips quenches that hunger. But with a little creativity and determination, snacking can be a healthy quest that helps keep your blood glucose steady while adding important vitamins and minerals to your diet.
When we think of snacking, we usually think of it as something unhealthy or a mini-meal, said registered dietitian Angela Ginn-Meadow, CDE , senior education coordinator at the University of Maryland Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology in Baltimore. The purpose of snacking is to get us from one meal to the next. It shouldnt be a full-course meal, but a tiny meal that contains carbohydrates and protein.
Ginn-Meadow, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, recommends following the 80-20 rule for snacking: 80% of snacks should be healthy to maintain your weight and blood glucose levels and 20% can be slight indulgences. Snacking is driven by both physical and emotional impulses and its the mindless snacking that gets us all into trouble, she added.
In the past, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommended three meals and three snacks a day. Currently, the ADA recognizes that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to eating and therefore recommends three meals a day and allows more flexibility on whether people choose to eat snacks.
Driving past fast food to instead opt for healthy snacks may seem impossible. If you add quick and easy to that list, it can feel downright overwhelming. Where to start? Check with yo Continue reading

Choosing What To Eat If You Have Diabetes

Living with diabetes does not have to mean feeling deprived. Though diabetes is on the rise, yet most cases are preventable with healthy lifestyle changes. Some can even be reversed. Taking steps to prevent and control diabetes means eating healthy, tasty, balanced diet that will also boost your energy and improve your mood. You do not have to resign yourself to a life time bland foods.
Once you get the hang of eating a healthy diet, you can relax and dig in to wide variety of delicious meals and snacks. But what does eating right for diabetes mean? You may be surprised to hear that your nutritional needs are almost thesame as everyone else.
” A diabetes diet is simply a healthy eating plan that is high in nutrients, low in fat and added sugar and moderate in calories. ” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietician. This is a healthy diet for anyone. The only difference is that you need to pay more attention to some food choices you eat,notably the carbohydrates. However, you have to be smart about what type of carbohydrates you eat. Visit, www.shopdiabetes.org
The Glycemic Index
The glycemic index ( G. I. ) gives information about how different foods affect blood sugar and insulin levels. High GI foods have the least effect on blood sugar. Many scientific researches however, have proved that the true health benefits of using the G.I.remain unclear. The G.I. is not a measure of a food healthfulness.
Making healthy food choices
Knowing what to eat can be confusing. But a few basic tips have weathered the fad diets and have withstood the test of time.
1. Choose high- Continue reading

Hack Your Diabetes (type 2)

For most people with type 2 diabetes, having this disease is a CHOICE you make: you can choose to have it, you can choose to not have it.
Just dont expect your doctor or the drug industry to help you choose, because they will choose to keep you diabetic. For the drug industry, type 2 diabetes is the gift that keeps on giving, driving extraordinary revenues from the growing list of (quite costly) diabetes drugs and the expanding number of people with the disease caused by conventional dietary advice and Big Food.
But the majority of people can become non-diabetic with just a few simple efforts, Undoctored, undrugged, unstoppable.
I discuss this and other health strategies in my new book, Undoctored.
Available in all major bookstores and on Amazon .
I call this discussion Hacking Your Diabetes (your Type2 diabetes); how to get rid of, or at least substantially minimize, your Type2 diabetes or prediabetes.
These are the kinds of conversations I have in my Undoctored book (Undoctored Why Health Care Has Failed You And How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor) and also in the Undoctored website programs. This is all about empowering you to get rid of health conditions on your own, and be as freed of the healthcare system as possible. And you know what, the results you obtain by doing it on your own are superior to the kind of health that the healthcare system would have provided which is a health only through drugs and procedures. Thats not what health is about. Health is about being healthy, right, feeling good, looking good, and doing it with as little help from m Continue reading

So Now Apparently I Dont Have Gestational Diabetes

So Now Apparently I Dont Have Gestational Diabetes
Back from my consultants appointment at the hospital and Im more confused than ever though, it has to be said, slightly elated. Before I go into what the consultant said, I must once again just stress the benefits of having gone to see a private obstetrician for a second opinion on everything. Twice. I know that this isnt a possibility for everyone, because it is expensive or, at least, more expensive than the NHS, which is free but for me it was one of the best 150 I have ever spent. OK, 300 in total, but for the extra insight into my pregnancy it gave me, worth every penny. (Im not knocking the NHS by any means they are overstretched and could never have given me the time and attention I got privately. Call itan enhancement to the service.)
Because by the time I went into the consultants office, he had pored over the scan results and the baby measurements (which I was surprised by, because for some reason I assumed that he would be sniffy about me having gone for a second opinion) and almost instantly recommended I have a c-section due to the size of the baby and my previous emergency section. I could hardly believe my ears! Firstly, because I had been told last time that I wasnt having a big baby and secondly because I had also been told that women gave birth naturally to huge babies all the time and so it wasnt a valid reason for elective section.
What a relief. Not to have to put my case across, or argue about induction rates and VBAC success rates and so on and his recommendation also took any decision-making Continue reading