What You Need To Know About Exercise And Diabetes

What You Need to Know About Exercise and Diabetes

Exercise is a great way to maintain a healthy body weight, and it can also serve as a safe way to manage diabetes symptoms.
Exercise is an important fitness tool that can help lower blood sugar levels, improve the body's use of insulin, burn excess body fat, improve muscle strength, lower blood pressure, protect against heart and blood vessel disease by lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol, improve blood circulation, reduce risk of heart disease, and even reduce stress. Experts suggest 150 minutes a week of moderately intense physical activities such as brisk walking, swimming laps or bicycling.
Monitor Your Blood Sugar Levels
One of the most important things to do before you exercise is check your blood sugar. If you're going to exercise for more than an hour, check your blood sugar at regular intervals during your workout. You should also check it after you finish exercising as hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) can occur up to five hours after exercising.
Blood Sugar Guidelines for Exercising Safely
If your blood sugar levels are lower than 100 mg/dL, your levels may be too low to exercise safely. If this is the case, you should eat a small snack that contains carbohydrates, like fruit or crackers, before you begin to work out.
When your blood sugar levels are between 100 and 250 mg/dL you are good to go, as this is considered to be a safe pre-exercise blood sugar range.
If your blood sugar levels are 250 mg/dL or higher, you should take some precautions before working out. One thing you should check for are ketones in your urine, which are substances made when your body break Continue reading

Rate this article

Total 1 ratings

Soybean Oil Causes More Diabetes Than Sugar

A diet rich in soybean oil can cause more weight gain and diabetes than a diet rich in fructose - sugar - or a diet high in coconut oil, according to researchers from The University of Riverside (UCR).
For the study, researchers fed male mice four different types of diets that included varying doses of soybean oil, coconut oil and fructose. All four of the diets had the same number of calories and the mice all ate the same amount of food.
What surprised researchers was that mice who ate a heavy soybean oil diet gained about 25 percent more weight than mice on the coconut-oil rich diet and 9 percent more than mice who ate a diet rich in fructose.
“This was a major surprise for us — that soybean oil is causing more obesity and diabetes than fructose — especially when you see headlines everyday about the potential role of sugar consumption in the current obesity epidemic,” said Poonamjot Deol, director of the study and professor of cell biology and neuroscience at UCR.
The obesogenic oil?
Soybean products have become more popular as a plant-based alternative to dairy and meat products that tend to be rich in saturated fats. According to a press release on the study, soybean oil makes up 60 percent of the oil consumption in the U.S. - a number that also mirrors obesity rates.
The study revealed that soybean oil - which is found in foods like margarine and salad dressing - can specifically affect certain genes that metabolize drugs and environmental toxins.
Researchers will next compare the findings against tests done with olive oil.
Source:University of Riverside
Type 2 Continue reading

What Role Does the Pancreas Play in Diabetes?

For many of us, we first learned of the pancreas in a middle school biology class, the name sticking with us because it was kind of funny.
Even in those classrooms of the past, the organ – shaped a bit like an ear of corn – was usually upstaged in those early lectures on the digestive system in favor of bigger “stars” like the stomach or the intestines. It was a disservice because the pancreas is one of the most important organs we have.
The pancreas is also a part of the endocrine system, a glandular organ that is responsible for producing many hormones that allow humans to extract energy from food. It is connected to the rest of the digestive system by the pancreatic duct, where food mixes with the pancreatic “juice,” allowing the body to absorb nutrients from lipids, proteins and carbohydrate.
One enzyme the pancreas is responsible for is the production of insulin, the peptide hormone that is crucial to the body’s ability to metabolize glucose from the blood. Like any part of the human body, however, it can fail.
Type 1 Diabetes
If the pancreas stops producing (or produces very little) insulin, that is type 1 diabetes. Insulin injections replace this necessary enzyme when the pancreas is no longer capable of producing it. In extreme cases, hospitals can transplant a healthy donor pancreas in order to treat type 1 diabetes. The medical community is also working to create an artificial pancreas that can be used in much the same way.
Type 2 Diabetes
With type 2 diabetes, the pancreas is still producing insulin, but the body is not able to use it. Known as insu Continue reading

Genetic risk factor for type 2 diabetes revealed

A new genetic clue into the origins of type 2 diabetes has been discovered by an international team of researchers.
In the largest genetic study done to date in Mexican and Mexican-American populations, the team found a risk gene for type 2 diabetes. Individuals who carry the gene are 25 percent more likely to have diabetes than those who do not, the study found. Moreover, people who inherit two copies of the gene from both parents are 50 percent more likely to develop the blood sugar condition.
"To date, genetic studies have largely used samples from people of European or Asian ancestry, which makes it possible to miss culprit genes that are altered at different frequencies in other populations," said co-corresponding author José Florez, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant Physician in the Diabetes Unit and the Center for Human Genetic Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
The team found that the higher risk type of the gene is found in about 50 percent of people who have recent Native American ancestry - including Latin American genetics.
SLC16A11
The gene sequence is called SLC16A11, and its history dates back to Neanderthal times. It's also present in about 20 percent of East Asians, but it's rare in Europeans and Africans.
The researchers said the findings represent one of the most important advances in diabetes research ever made.
"One of the most exciting aspects of this work is that we've uncovered a new clue about the biology of diabetes," said co-senior author David Altshuler, deputy director and chief academic off Continue reading

Having a Diabetes-Friendly Valentine's Day

Whether your Valentine is your spouse, your child or your best friend, Feb. 14 is synonymous with sugar.
To have a diabetes-friendly Valentine's Day, then, it takes some planning ahead and prep work to make sure you can indulge in the fun without going overboard.
So if you're celebrating as a family or spending some time with your one and only, make sure you do so safely.
Drinks
One perk of Valentine's Day? It pairs well with champagne - which tends to be low in sugar and carbohydrates (depending on the variety).
If you're cozying up to the bar with your sweetheart, avoid chocolate-infused specialty cocktails and stick with beverages like dry white wine, red wine or spirits (just avoid sugary mixers).
Also make sure to eat something (preferably protein paired with some healthy fat) if you're drinking alcoholic beverages - this will keep your blood sugar more stable.
Dinner
A V-Day dinner can be fun to cook together, and luckily it's not hard to make a romantic diabetes-friendly meal. Check out our collection of diabetic recipes.
If you're eating out, say no to the bread basket and opt for a protein-based dish with vegetables (ask your server to replace starches, like rice or potatoes, with an extra serving of veggies).
Dessert
Candy doesn't have to be completely off limits on Valentine's Day, but you should know how much you can safely consume without disrupting your blood sugar.
Read nutrition labels and monitor your blood glucose closely if you are going to indulge.
Homemade desserts can also be a great way to splurge without worrying about counting calories or carbs at a Continue reading