Diabetes Mellitus or simply Diabetes affects more than 15 million individuals throughout the world. It is an illness resulting from lack of insulin or dysfunctional insulin in the body. Almost 40 percent of diabetic patients do not even know that they have this illness.
It is important for us to eat healthy food and promote a healthy lifestyle so as to prevent any occurrence of this disease. According to statistics, there are over 20 million people affected with pre-diabetes. Pre-diabetes is an illness caused by high glucose levels in the blood.
We should always take care of the body. The main factors that contribute to diabetes are genetics and lifestyle. Even if we have a family history of diabetes, we are still unsafe unless we promote a healthy way of living.
Main causes of diabetes are obesity, improper diet and lack of exercise. Every little thing we do to our body affects its entirety. For instance, if we eat unhealthy food and neglect exercise, we become obese. If we become obese, chances are, we can get a lot of illnesses including diabetes. Considering the lifestyle of many people nowadays, almost all of us are indeed at risk of diabetes.
How Do We Get Diabetes?
The food we eat contains natural glucose. Natural glucose is a simple sugar which gives our body the energy that we need everyday. The glucose that goes into our blood stream must be regulated at all times.
Blood glucose regulation is done by our pancreas that produces insulin. The body must produce more insulin if there is more glucose or sugar that enters the body to regulate and transform them into energy. For diabetics, the insulin produced by the pancreas may be dysfunctional or there is no insulin production at all. This is why some diabetic patients have to monitor their glucose levels.
Effects of Diabetes
By having high blood sugar levels in the body, it tends to do harsh damage over time. Diabetes can cause blurry vision, blindness, death, kidney damage as well as poor healing of wounds resulting to gangrene and amputation. It is best to prevent having this disease or control it from spreading or doing severe damage at the very least.
Diabetes Mellitus Types
There are various types of diabetes. By far, type 1 diabetes is the most severe form. Type 1 diabetes is also known as “juvenile diabetes” for it often occurs in children.
Type 1 diabetes may need more than exercise and proper diet. It requires insulin injections and proficient monitoring of blood glucose or sugar levels in the body. Some type 1 diabetic patients even have to induce insulin everyday.
In this type of diabetes, the pancreas does not produce any insulin to control the sugar level in the body. This is why they need daily insulin shots. Without the daily insulin injections, the patient will not survive.
About 10 percent of diagnosed patients have type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is now termed as “Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus”.
Another type of this illness is simply called “type 2 diabetes”. It is also known as “Non-insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus”. This type of illness occurs when the pancreas stops producing the proper amount of insulin or the insulin simply fails to function properly. This type of diabetes occurs in about 90 percent of all diabetics. It affects persons who are 40 years old and above. In this case, genetics is a big role in this type of diabetes.
There is also gestational diabetes and pre-diabetes. Gestational diabetes occurs among pregnant women. During pregnancy, some women get this type of diabetes. There are also some instances where the mother gets this illness after pregnancy.
Pre-diabetes is an incidence where the body has very high glucose levels. Some pre-diabetic patients are required to monitor their blood sugar levels at all times to prevent the illness.
The best way to prevent diabetes is to have your physician do an annual blood sugar test. There are various methods of getting blood sugar levels. Ask your doctor about the most suitable and accurate test for you.
Diabetes Diet
Diet plays a vital role when controlling diabetes. A diabetic diet may be used with a combination of oral hypoglycemic drugs as well as various insulin doses. The diet may also be taken without any medication depending on the severity or type of diabetes.
The objective of undergoing a “diabetic diet” is to ensure that patients maintain or attain their ideal weight. This is done by providing the right amount of nutrition as well as the normal amount of blood glucose or sugar in the body.
Diet plans do not work for every individual. It is a case-to-case basis. Each diet plan for diabetics is based on the patient’s weight, height, gender, age, nature of diabetes and physical activity.
If you are a diabetic, it is better to consult your physician along with a dietician to give you the right diet. Dieticians have to consider some complications such as high cholesterol level and high blood pressure when planning the diet.
There are myths about diabetes that many of us still believe. In fact, most diabetics still believe it until now. One myth is that diabetics cannot eat sweet foods and beverages because it will increase their blood sugar levels. This is not entirely the case. Even if you are diabetic, it doesn’t mean you can’t eat the foods you used to eat.
The key word for this is “moderation”. Diabetics may eat sweets and food rich in carbohydrates provided they follow the tolerable amount. Carbohydrates and glucose are much needed by the body so foods with those elements are also a part of their diet plan. The proper diet for diabetics simply means eating food in moderate amounts as well as sticking to ordinary meal times.
Basically, a diabetic diet is comprised of fruits, whole grains and vegetables. A key factor for a successful diet plan is consistency because the body responds to any excess fat and calories by producing an unwanted rise in blood sugar levels. The diet is a healthy eating plan loaded with nutrients and low fat or calorie levels rather than a limiting diet.
Meal Planning
A meal plan is a guide that helps you choose healthy food in right amounts every meal. This can help you practice proper dietary habits.
If diabetics stick with the meal plan and watch their serving sizes, chances are they will eat the same amount of calories and carbohydrates every day. This will help control the patient’s weight and blood sugar. On the other hand, the more variations on what the diabetic eats makes it harder for them to control their blood sugar.
If there isn’t any problem with the regular meal plan of the patients, the only thing they should do is to adjust its proportion sizes so as to keep the blood glucose or sugar under control.
It is essential to seek the aid of a dietician. You may ask your doctor to refer a registered dietician.
Dieticians can provide useful information about how to manage or change eating habits. Also, dieticians can help you meet your goals such as making better food choices, controlling the act of over eating and losing weight in order to meet the ideal standards.
Dieticians can fix diet plans according to tastes, health goals and lifestyle. With this diet, patients will need to follow a deliberate plan. This means they have to eat the only recommended serving for every food group each day.
Exchange Lists
An exchange list is a system where foods are grouped into the following categories:
• Starches
• Meats
• Meat substitutes
• Fruits
• Fats
A single serving in a group is called “exchange”. The exchange has the same amount of protein, fat, carbohydrates and calories. It also has the same effect on the blood sugar as every food serving in the same group. For instance, you can trade a small apple or a half-cup of pasta for a single carbohydrate serving.
Carbohydrates
Counting carbohydrates is a useful tool when meal planning. This ensures that the amount and timing of carbohydrates are the same as with any other day especially if the patient takes insulin or diabetes medications. If a diabetic eats different amounts of carbohydrates at a given meal, the blood glucose level may fluctuate thereby creating more damage. Consult your dietician for a better meal plan.
On the other hand, some diabetics use the so-called “Glycemic Index” to select food particularly carbohydrates. Food that comes with a high glycemic index is said to have higher sugar levels than other foods with a low glycemic index.
Although food with a low glycemic index does not increase blood sugar in the body, it does not necessarily mean that they are healthier. Some food types rich in fat and cholesterol have lower glycemic index than some other healthy options.