The Ultimate Anti-Diabetes Diet

One of America's most common killer diseases, type 2 diabetes, jeopardizes the health, quality of life, and longevity of nearly 24 million Americans, according to the American Diabetes Association, and that number continues to rise. New cases have doubled over the past 30 years, and because the disease occurs gradually and often with no obvious symptoms, many people don't even know they have it. People who are overweight are at higher risk because fat interferes with the body's ability to use insulin, the crux of the disease.
But a solution to the problem is within reach: a groundbreaking eating plan not only helps prevent this chronic disease, but actually reverses it while also promoting weight loss. Focusing on plant-based meals,the revolutionary plan was developed by Vegetarian Times former Ask the Doc columnist, Neal Barnard, MD, and is backed by the results of his long-term study. Your doctor may not tell you about this diet: dietitians generally counsel overweight diabetics to cut calories, reduce serving sizes, and avoid starchy carbohydrates that raise blood sugar levels.
But Barnard's team at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and scientists at George Washington University and the University of Toronto thought this might be the wrong approach, considering that carbohydrate-rich rice, legumes, and root vegetables are staples throughout Asia and Africa, where most people are thin and diabetes rates are low. Barnard and his team studied a group of diabetics, comparing the effects of a diet based on standard recommendations versus a vegan-style diet wit Continue reading

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Diabetes Breakfast Mistakes to Avoid

Mom is still right: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially when you have type 2 diabetes. Your diabetes diet needs to give you a healthy supply of energy to jumpstart your body in the morning.
"Remember that first thing in the morning, you’ve gone many hours without eating and your body needs fuel," says Kelly O'Connor, RD, director of diabetes education at the endocrinology center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. "If you’re not giving it any, it will create its own in the form of stored blood sugar that gets released into your bloodstream — which often results in blood sugar that’s too high."
Healthy breakfast food is also a must when it comes to diabetes control and weight management. “Remember that when your body is fasting, you’re not giving it any energy, so it slows down to conserve what it has left, which is counterproductive," O'Connor says. The trick is to keep your metabolism going all day long at a steady rate. "The simple solution to both of these issues is to eat a good breakfast," she says.
Avoiding Breakfast Mistakes
Breakfast blunders can happen during the week when you wake up late and try eating breakfast while running out the door, or on the weekend when you go out for a big breakfast.
However, the biggest mistake to avoid is skipping breakfast altogether. When you go too long without eating, your body goes into starvation mode. And when you finally give in to hunger later in the day (and probably overeat), your body will grab all the fat from your meal and store it. That's bad for anyone, especially for someone with Continue reading

Diabetes-related amputations up significantly in California — and San Diego

Clinicians are amputating more toes, legs, ankles and feet of patients with diabetes in California — and San Diego County in particular — in a “shocking” trend that has mystified diabetes experts here and across the country.
Though they often prolong lives, diabetes-related amputations deprive patients of independence, increase the need for social services and add to disability and medical costs.
Statewide, lower-limb amputations increased by more than 31 percent from 2010 to 2016 when adjusted for population change. In San Diego County, the increase was more than twice that: 66.4 percent.
Losing a foot, ankle or especially a leg robs patients of their independence, hampers their ability to walk and makes them more vulnerable to infection. It also can shorten their lives.
This trend, which inewsource documented with state hospital data, is one physicians, surgeons and public health officials are at a loss to explain, though many have theories.
Edward Gregg of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the California numbers are worrisome.
Public health officials consider amputations to be an important indicator of a region’s diabetes care because diabetes and its complications can be prevented, said Gregg, chief of epidemiology and statistics for the CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation.
“If we see it going down, then it’s a good sign, because so many aspects of good diabetes care are in theory affected. And when you see it going up, that’s a concern,” he said.
The CDC has noticed an increase of 27 percent nationally in the rate of amputations Continue reading

How many carbs should people with diabetes eat?

Recently here on Diabetes- What To Know, I have seen readers asking: “How many carbohydrates should I eat?”
I remember nine years ago when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, my doctor handed me a few pamphlets and set up an appointment for me at the diabetes clinic attached to a local hospital. The pamphlets showed pictures of how to “guess” at the size for portions and gave me a suggested amount of carbohydrates to eat for each meal.
Label reading and checking nutritional information became the new normal for me. Nine years later, I am still doing both. I do a little less checking on nutritional information simply because after all this time I know the carbohydrate values for most of the fresh foods I use for my meals. I still do a fair amount of label reading, but since I use less and less packaged foods, even that has decreased. What is still part of my life is my carbohydrate budget. In my opinion, all of us with diabetes (type 2 especially) should have a carbohydrate budget.
Those original pamphlets suggested having 45 grams for breakfast, 60 grams each for lunch and dinner and two snacks of 15 grams each. I decided immediately that those suggestions were too high. Back then I had NO reason other than if that was the suggestion, I would do better with less. I can be very competitive. As it turned out, for my size, weight, and level of exercise, I was right. But that made me right, ONLY FOR ME.
For some people with diabetes the amounts I choose to eat are too little, for others, they are too much. I must have written this phrase a gazillion times over the yea Continue reading

Study Finds Link Between Gluten-Free Diet And Type 2 Diabetes Risk

contrary to popular belief, gluten is not actually the devil. Teri Virbickis/Shutterstock
Most dietitians and doctors will tell you, a varied diet is key to being healthy. And seeing as they are actual qualified experts and not Instagram or blog-based advocates, you should be listening to them and not the latter. A new study has found that adopting a gluten-free or low-gluten diet can enhance your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The major study from Harvard University, which was presented yesterday at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Portland, reviewed 30 years’ worth of medical data from 200,000 participants, and found that those who limited their gluten intake or avoided it completely actually had a 13 percent higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes.
"We wanted to determine if gluten consumption will affect health in people with no apparent medical reasons to avoid gluten,” explained Dr Geng Zong of Harvard’s School of Public Health. “Gluten-free foods often have less dietary fiber and other micronutrients, making them less nutritious and they also tend to cost more."
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and other related grains. It is the protein that gives baked goods that chewy texture and elasticity in the baking process. Those who are genuinely intolerant have an autoimmune condition known as celiac disease, where their immune system responds to the gluten protein by attacking the small intestine. Only about 1 percent of the population is diagnosed as celiacs.
In the study, researchers used data from the Nurses Health Study, Continue reading