Diabetes and Nutrition

Diabetes mellitus (commonly known just as diabetes), is an unfortunate medical condition.

And it is one reason why Diabetes and Nutrition go hand in hand.

When someone is diagnosed with diabetes, this means they have too much sugar (glucose) in their blood.

In a normal body, a hormone called “insulin” carries glucose from your blood to your cells which provides them with energy. If you don’t have enough insulin in your blood or there is too much sugar for your amount of insulin, you might get diabetes.

In the United Kingdom there are about 1.4 million people who have been diagnosed with diabetes.

Approximately 1 million of them have type 2 diabetes.

And there are probably still many out there who have not been diagnosed.

If you eat a balanced diet and do a reasonable amount of regular exercise, then in most cases there should be no reason for you to have or get diabetes.

If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, you should make sure you maintain a weight which is considered to be in the healthy range for your height and age.

Diabetic menus mean you need to watch the following:

Make sure you do not eat much saturated fat and salt.

Make sure your diet includes the healthy lot of five portions of fruit and veggies AND eat healthy carbohydrates which are found in pasta, whole-grain bread and rice.

If you are feeling very thirsty but need to urinate more, have unexplained weight loss, have itchy genital organs, blurry vision and feeling perpetually sleepy then you might have diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is known as insulin dependant diabetes.

Although know one knows why, this occurs when the body’s immune system turns on the pancreas as a threat and destroys all the cells which produce insulin.

Without these insulin producing cells in the pancreas, the body cannot get sugar from the blood stream to the cells that need energy which causes all these Symptoms of Diabetes and can lead to more harmful outcomes if left unattended.

It is unusual for insulin dependant diabetes to happen to anyone over 40. Usually it happens to children and teenagers.

Type 2 diabetes usually happens to people who are overweight due to a poor diet and lack of nutrition. Usually this happens to middle aged people.

The best treatment for type 2 diabetes is exercise and a healthy diet. 

This will not only improve diabetes, but make you feel much better! This will help you lose weight and drop the blood-glucose level. Usually it is only a healthy diet and insulin shots which are needed to look after this sort of diabetes.

The best idea is to pay a visit to a health care professional who will advise you on what your individual body needs because everyone is different!

But if you have a balanced diet and sufficient exercise, it is entirely possible to avoid type 2 diabetes altogether in the first place!

Research has shown if you eat whole grain foods often - follow the food pyramid, it will not only help prevent type 2 diabetes but also heart disease and cancer!

Diabetes and Nutrition: Change to whole grain foods which contain minerals, vitamins, and resistant starch.

Phytoestrogens and antioxidants are also in whole grain foods and help prevent diseases.

Be careful though as some of these nutrients disappear in the refining process and that is one reason why whole grain foods are better for you.

Everyone should eat healthy and exercise on a regular basis – whether they are diabetics or not.

A healthy and balanced diet should contain a sufficient amount of veggies, fruit, foods containing starch and foods which are low in salt, sugar and fat.

Although there are cakes which are designed for diabetics, they may have negative impacts on your body because the sugars in the cakes are merely replaced by fat so be careful.

Diabetes and Nutrition go together – a good diet will almost certainly keep diabetes at bay.