Top 10 Worst Diet Choices If You Have Diabetes

Top 10 Worst Diet Choices if You Have Diabetes

If you have diabetes, in many ways your diet is your medicine. As diabetes educators, we help patients understand what food and beverage choices are best to avoid. When foods are high in carbohydrates, fat and sodium, they increase your risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain, heart disease and uncontrolled sugar.
Top 10 offenders
Sweetened drinks. These include regular pop/soda, fruit punches and iced teas. These are loaded with sugar and calories, and they usually have little or no nutritional value. Instead, try infusing plain water with different berries and fruits so you can enjoy the natural sweetness.
“Designer” or specialty coffee drinks – including frappuccinos or cappuccinos. That “once a day special treat” can add up to lots of extra sugar, calories and saturated fat. Instead, go for straight java, either black, with artificial sweetener or a small splash of skim milk.
Whole milk. It has too much fat, which can lead to weight gain. Switch to 2 percent, 1 percent – or even better: skim milk. Keep in mind that one cup of skim milk has 12 grams of carbohydrates. If you don’t like milk or are lactose intolerant, you can drink almond milk, rice milk or soy milk instead—but remember to get the low sugar varieties.
Hot dogs. These grilled little favorites are still high in saturated fat and sodium—yes, that even includes turkey dogs! Try to avoid them or eat them only occasionally.
Packaged lunch meats. These are also high in saturated fat and sodium. Check your deli for low sodium meats—or better yet use sliced meat that you’ve Continue reading

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Why does my breath smell like acetone?

People often associate strong smelling breath with the food someone has eaten or poor dental hygiene. But it may reveal much more than that.
If a person's breath smells like acetone or nail polish remover, it could indicate health conditions, including diabetes.
The way a person's breath smells can be an indicator of their overall health. This article explores why a person's breath might smell like acetone and what this might mean about their health.
Contents of this article:
How diabetes can affect breath
Diabetes can affect the way a person's breath smells and can cause bad breath, or halitosis. In a 2009 study, researchers found that analyzing a person's breath helped to identify prediabetes when diabetes is in its early stages.
There are two conditions associated with diabetes that can cause bad breath: gum disease and a high ketone level.
The proper name for gum diseases in periodontal disease, and its forms include:
Diabetes can be associated with an increased risk of gum disease, which may cause a person's breath to smell bad. However, gum disease does not cause a person's breath to smell like acetone.
If a person has diabetes and their breath smells like acetone, this is usually caused by high levels of ketones in the blood.
Diabetes and acetone breath
When diabetes is not managed well, the body does not make enough insulin to break down glucose in the blood. This means that the body's cells do not receive enough glucose to use as energy.
When the body cannot get its energy from sugar, it switches to burning fat for fuel instead. The process of breaking down fat to Continue reading

SGLT2 Inhibitors: A New Class of Diabetes Medications

Sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are a new class of diabetic medications indicated only for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. In conjunction with exercise and a healthy diet, they can improve glycemic control. They have been studied alone and with other medications including metformin, sulfonylureas, nizagara 100, pioglitazone, and insulin.
Editor’s Note: Since we first looked at this new drug class in April 2013, numerous studies have been done on the benefits and risks of the SGLT2 inhibitors. See below for a roundup of the new information, including the latest investigational drug in this class, Ertugliflozin.
How SGLT2 Inhibitors Work
SGLT2 is a protein in humans that facilitates glucose reabsorption in the kidney. SGLT2 inhibitors block the reabsorption of glucose in the kidney, increase glucose excretion, and lower blood glucose levels.
SGLT2 is a low-affinity, high capacity glucose transporter located in the proximal tubule in the kidneys. It is responsible for 90% of glucose reabsorption. Inhibition of SGLT2 leads to the decrease in blood glucose due to the increase in renal glucose excretion. The mechanism of action of this new class of drugs also offers further glucose control by allowing increased insulin sensitivity and uptake of glucose in the muscle cells, decreased gluconeogenesis and improved first phase insulin release from the beta cells.
It is proposed that in prehistoric times, we developed an elegant system for maximizing energy conservation and storage, due to lack of consistent food supplies. This system included reducing the activ Continue reading

7 Ways Diabetes Affects Your Body

Diabetes is being called an epidemic for a reason. With more than 29 million Americans suffering from the disease, and diagnoses on the rise, the disease has quickly become one of the most common reasons for a visit to the doctor in the U.S. The most common form of the disease, type 2 diabetes can be a byproduct of modern lifestyles (think: more eating, less moving). This can result in the body becoming unable to use insulin, the hormone that normally regulates blood sugar, normally. When insulin function is out of whack, you can end up with sky-high blood glucose levels. While smart eating and exercise can both help to keep diabetes under control, many patients require oral medications or insulin injections as forms of treatment, too. That’s because type 2 diabetes can wreak real havoc on your health. Curious how? Watch the video to learn more about the seven ways type 2 diabetes can affect the body.
Diabetes is being called an epidemic for a reason. With more than 29 million Americans suffering from the disease, and diagnoses on the rise, the disease has quickly become one of the most common reasons for a visit to the doctor in the U.S.
The most common form of the disease, type 2 diabetes can be a byproduct of modern lifestyles (think: more eating, less moving). This can result in the body becoming unable to use insulin, the hormone that normally regulates blood sugar, normally. When insulin function is out of whack, you can end up with sky-high blood glucose levels.
RELATED: More Aggressive Type 2 Diabetes Treatment May Lead to a Longer, Healthier Life
While smart eati Continue reading

Diabetes and Sleep Apnea: How Sleep Affects Blood Glucose and Diabetes

Treat Apnea to Control Diabetes?
Sleep apnea can affect diabetes control in many ways. Struggling for air may put your body into fight-or-flight mode, releasing stress hormones that can raise blood glucose levels. If you're tired, you won't want to take that walk around the block after lunch. While you're at work, you might keep snacking to stay awake.
But can treating sleep apnea lead to better blood glucose control? Arvind Cavale, M.D., an endocrinologist in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, refers about 60 percent of his patients with type 2 diabetes for sleep studies. Cavale says treating sleep apnea reduces insulin resistance, improves alertness and motivation, and leads to more stable blood glucose levels. "We use correction of sleep apnea as a tool in controlling diabetes," he says.
Does This Sound Like You?
This is not a happy scenario: You're soooo tired. As soon as your head hits the pillow, you're asleep. But a little while later, someone nudges you awake. You go back to sleep. Just as you get into a deep sleep, you're nudged again. Sleep ... nudge ... sleep ... nudge. All night long.
The next day, you might wake up with a headache, snap at your family over breakfast, have trouble concentrating at work.
Irritability. Car accidents. Depression. High blood pressure. All because of those nightmarish nudges throughout the night.
If you have obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA), you're getting those nudges. It's your body fighting for air. And sleep apnea may be one explanation for difficulty in controlling blood glucose and blood pressure levels.
With OSA, something part Continue reading