Why Drinking Tea May Help Prevent And Manage Type 2 Diabetes

Why Drinking Tea May Help Prevent and Manage Type 2 Diabetes

The fountain of youth still remains elusive, but there's something that seems close: green tea. People have been drinking tea for centuries, and today it's the second most popular drink in the world (after water). Some of that popularity may stem from the many widely recognized benefits of tea, including its reported power to prevent cancer and to sharpen mental health. But tea may offer health benefits related to diabetes, too.
“We know people with diabetes have problems metabolizing sugar,” says Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, a cardiologist, director of women’s heart health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “Insulin comes along to decrease sugar, but with type 2 diabetes, the body isn’t so sensitive to insulin, so blood sugar levels go up. Through a complex biochemical reaction, tea — especially green tea — helps sensitize cells so they are better able to metabolize sugar. Green tea is good for people with diabetes because it helps the metabolic system function better.”
A 2013 research review published in the Diabetes and Metabolism Journal outlined the potential benefits of tea when it comes to diabetes as well as obesity, which is a risk factor for diabetes. It highlighted a Japanese study that found that people who drank 6 or more cups of green tea a day were 33 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than were people who drank less than a cup of green tea a week. It also reported on Taiwanese research that found that people who drank green tea regularly for more than a decade had smaller waists and a lower body fat composition than those who were Continue reading

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Dealing with Emotions: How Diabetes Can Affect Your Mood

Having type 2 diabetes can affect not only your physical health but also your emotional health. Getting a diagnosis of diabetes adds an emotional weight onto your shoulders which can be challenging to carry day in and day out. Sometimes this weight can come out as other conditions such as anxiety or depression.
There are multiple studies that have shown that external stressors, such as feelings of anxiety or depression, can lead to difficulties in managing self-care. Decreased physical activity, bad food choices, not regularly taking medication are some examples of poor self-care management. Anxiety and stress can lead one to taking up bad habits such as smoking or drinking excessively, which can put a person with diabetes at more risk for developing diabetes related complications.
The Grief of Diagnosis
When you are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, you may notice that you start to experience a grieving process. Many people experience the same emotions associated with the loss of a loved one. When you consider the diagnosis of diabetes, it changes your life, you have lost something and you’ve lost your normal carefree life that you had before.
These common emotions are explained in more detail below as well as various the ways you can learn to control these emotions or even overcome them.
Common Emotions of Diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic condition that requires diligent almost 24/7 management. Sometimes this type of schedule can seem like a burden. When this happens, other common emotions or conditions may manifest, causing even more difficulty in managing your blood sugar Continue reading

Diabetes BREAKTHROUGH: Type 2 'can be REVERSED in weeks by following THIS diet'

Scientists say lifestyle driven Type 2 - a condition that almost 12 million Britons are thought to be at risk of developing - is caused by excess fat in the liver and pancreas.
Findings due to be presented today have given fresh hope that the debilitating disease need not to a life sentence.
They reveal that even if sufferers have been blighted for years the condition can be brought under control by sensible eating.
Professor Roy Taylor, from Newcastle University, said: “The good news for people with Type 2 is our work shows that even if you have had the condition for 10 years you are likely to be able to reverse it by moving that all important tiny amount of fat out of the pancreas. At present, this can only be done through substantial weight loss.”
The good news for people with Type 2 is our work shows that even if you have had the condition for 10 years you are likely to be able to reverse it by moving that all important tiny amount of fat out of the pancreas
Nine in 10 Type 2 sufferers are overweight or obese and do not produce enough insulin, or the insulin they produce does not work properly.
Professor Taylor, who has spent 40 years studying the condition, will deliver his research to an international collaboration of experts at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Lisbon.
He will claim excess calories leads to excess fat in the liver.
As a result, the liver responds poorly to insulin and produces too much glucose.
Excess fat in the liver is passed on to the pancreas, causing the insulin producing cells to fail.
He says losing less than 1 gram of Continue reading

Crash course diet reverses Type 2 diabetes in a week

Adhering to the strict 600 calorie-a-day diet causes fat levels in the pancreas to plummet, restoring normal function, found Prof Roy Taylor of Newcastle University.
The discovery, a "radical change" in understanding of the condition, holds out the possibility that sufferers could cure themselves - if they have the willpower.
Until recently received medical wisdom was that Type 2 diabetes was largely irreversible.
But this small-scale study indicates that defeating it could be easier than commonly thought.
Prof Taylor asked 11 volunteers, all recently diagnosed, to go on what he admitted was an "extreme diet" of specially formulated drinks and non-starchy vegetables, for eight weeks.
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After just a week, pre-breakfast ('fasting') blood sugar levels had returned to normal, suggesting a resumption of correct pancreas function.
After eight weeks, all had managed to reverse their diabetes. Three months on, seven remained free of it.
Prof Taylor explained that too much fat "clogged up" the operation of the pancreas at a cellular level, preventing normal secretion of insulin which regulates blood sugar.
When this fat was removed - by way of the diet - normal function resumed.
He said: "This is a radical change in understanding Type 2 diabetes. It will change how we can explain it to people newly diagnosed with the condition.
"While it has lo Continue reading

Turns Out Type 2 Diabetes Is Reversible, After All

If you've been diagnosed with diabetes, no doubt you've been told to change your eating habits (more veggies, less sweets) and get more exercise. These actions were thought to control your diabetes but not to reverse it.
But a paper published in The BMJ says that Type 2 diabetes is indeed reversible for many Type 2 diabetes patients who lose around 15 kilograms, or 33 pounds.
Diabetes is a chronic disease that has been rising rapidly throughout the world. It affected 8.5 percent of the world's population in 2014 (about 422 million people), up from 4.7 percent in 1980.
The most common form of diabetes is Type 2 diabetes, also known as adult-onset diabetes. It occurs when the body doesn't effectively use the insulin it produces (insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar.) If your blood sugar level is too high and not treated, it can lead to severe problems, like blindness, stroke, kidney failure and foot amputations. Type 2 diabetes is almost always directly tied to physical inactivity and extra body weight.
"The belief amongst doctors and scientists is that Type 2 diabetes is irreversible, always gets steadily worse, demanding more and more drugs, then insulin. Patient groups advise that the first step for someone newly diagnosed is to get used to the idea of dealing with a life-long illness," explains paper co-author Roy Taylor, professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom in an email interview. His research is the latest chapter in years' worth of investigation about Type 2 diabetes.
In 2006, he noticed that liver function test Continue reading