Tag: diabetics

Categories
Diabetes Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes – Symptoms, Causes, Treatments

Type 1 diabetes - Symptoms, Causes, Treatments

Diabetes is a kind of disease related to metabolic disorders. These disorders cause abnormal levels of blood sugar inform of glucose. There is a broad variety of symptoms related to this disease. They include Increased thirst, commonly known as Polydipsia. Increased hunger know as polyphagia in medical terms. Increased urination also known as polyuria. These symptoms are predisposing factors of diabetes. Diabetes is a serious lifestyle disease that could managed with little adjustment. If ignored, diabetes develops into chronic complications that could offer long-term threat to your life. There are two types of Diabetes disease; Type 2 and Type 1 diabetes. In this article, we will cover on type 1; what causes the disease, symptoms and possible treatment options.

Type 1 Diabetes

This form is also known as insulin dependent diabetes. It is common in children, but adults are still at a risk of contracting the disease. Type 1 diabetes, is generally caused by the body’s inability to produce enough insulin. This is caused by loss of insulin producing cells in the pancreas. Loss of these cells leads to high deficiency of insulin in the body.

Signs and Symptoms of Type 1

There are a variety of symptoms related to type 1 diabetes. These includes dehydration, general weight loss, blurred vision, ketoacidosis diabetes, increased hunger and urination among other symptoms.

If not addressed, these symptoms degenerate into chronic illnesses. This could be kidney failure, heart diseases, eye problems and other diseases. Unlike other types of diabetes, type 1 diabetes is more prominent.

Causes of Type 1 Diabetes

There are a number of factors that lead to this type of diabetes. They include:

  • Genetics. Presence of diabetic genes offers great prevalence to risk of getting the disease.
  • Age. As noted earlier that type one diabetes is more common in children, it is noticeable in children who are at their peak ages. Though it could be detected at any age.

Possible Treatment of Type 1 diabetes

Though this disease cannot be completely cured, it can be managed. Regular intake of Insulin, is one of the preventive measures of type 1 diabetes.

Categories
Diabetes

Learn More About Diabetes

Learn More About Diabetes

Figuring about how to manage and control diabetes begins with first learning about the disease and how critical it could be at times. The diabetes disease is a lifestyle disease. This means that diabetes is caused by the kind of life we lead. The food we eat, how active we are, how we address other health problems are all imperative causatives of diabetes.

The Basics of Diabetes

Diabetes arises when the body is not able to convert glucose into energy. Most of the time, insulin which is responsible for converting glucose into energy becomes insensitive to carbohydrates. This means that the body is unable to convert carbohydrates into glucose. As a result, the body lacks enough energy to perform major functions.

Another case happens when the body is unable to produce enough insulin. When this happens, carbohydrates are converted to body fat instead of energy. Consequently, fat builds up in the body and results in unhealthy weight gain. Maintaining a healthy weight, is one of the preventive measures of diabetes. Therefore, gaining excess weight puts you at risk of getting diabetes.

Types of diabetes

Diabetes disease is of two types. This category is based on the body’s response to glucose. When insulin is non-responsive, the amount of glucose in the body becomes too high past normal levels.

1. Type 1 diabetes

This type of diabetes occurs when the body is not able to produce enough insulin. Worst, the body entirely stops producing insulin. As discussed above, the body of the patient is unable to utilize glucose. However, this type of diabetes is managed by taking doses of artificial insulin, coupled up with recommended medication for diabetics.

2. Type 2 diabetes

In this case, the body is unable to use insulin properly. It is the most common type of diabetes disease. However, to manage it, a patient is advised to take diabetic pills and insulin.

3. Gestational Diabetes

This type exhibits itself in pregnant women. It predispose the woman to type 2 diabetes attack in future. Its caused by the hormonal imbalances that comes along with a pregnancy.

Diabetes is a serious illness that should be taken seriously. However, it is manageable. If you feel any of the symptoms related to diabetes, its advisable to visit your doctor who will take diabetes tests on you to determine the amount of sugar in your body.

Categories
Diabetes Gestational Diabetes

All You Should Know About Gestational Diabetes

All You Should Know About Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes affects women alone. This type of diabetes occurs when you are expecting a newborn. It might not show in the first trimester of the pregnancy, but between 24 – 28 weeks of a pregnancy, it will begin to exhibit concrete signs and symptoms. This happens when the body produces excess glucose. This have a great effect on your pregnancy as well as general health of the baby.

No woman would like to have complications when expecting a child. Women who are at the risk of gestational diabetes could prevent and control this disease by eating healthy, balanced meals, doing regular exercises, and taking recommended medication for the disease.

Signs and Symptoms of Gestational Diabetes

Though there could be no direct signs and symptoms of diabetes during pregnancy, it could be identified with regular exams carried out during your pregnancy period. These signs will exhibit when glucose levels are abnormally high. In this case, general symptoms of diabetes will show out. They include:

  • High frequency of urination
  • Increased and continuous thirst
  • Increased, Non-stop hunger

These symptoms gradually decrease after birth of the baby. Your glucose levels get back to normal levels. On rare cases, glucose levels do not get back to normal, and thus have to take diabetes medication to maintain it.

Complications Associated with Gestational Diabetes

Most women who have gestational diabetes have healthy babies. However, if the disease was not controlled early enough, it could lead to a number of complications to both the mother and the newborn.

  • Excess Weight: When blood sugar or glucose shoots to high levels, it could lead to more production of insulin. As a result, the baby becomes overly large, a condition known as Macrosomia. This could lead to difficult deliveries or sometimes C-Section delivery.
  • Respiratory Distress Syndrome and premature birth: When glucose levels goes too high, the baby may become too big. The doctor may recommend an early delivery. Consequently, pre-term infants have difficulty breathing, a condition known as RDS (Respiratory Distress Syndrome)

There are other problems related to gestational diabetes. However, sticking to a healthy lifestyle is one choice that will keep you off the disease. Additionally, taking regular diabetic checks during pregnancy could prevent long-term effects.

Categories
Diabetes Exercise

4 Best Exercise To Manage and Maintain Diabetes [Burpees Workouts ]

The Best Exercise To Manage and Maintain Diabetes - Diabetes exercises

Exercises are good lifestyle activities that help overall health of an individual. There are those exercises that will focus on your upper body muscles while others will focus on the muscles on your lower body. Moreover, other exercises will focus on internal muscles such as cardiovascular muscles and so on. Diabetes exercises are great activities that make the body have healthy sensitivity to insulin. When your body has a healthy sensitivity to insulin, it will move carbohydrates to muscle cells and thus help to build on lean muscle mass. Conversely, when the body has reduced sensitivity to insulin, the carbs are converted into body fat thus gaining unhealthy body weight.

Types of Diabetes Exercises

1. Push-ups

Push-ups - Diabetes Exercises

type2diabetes.biz

Push ups are one of the traditional diabetes exercises that engage muscles on your upper body. They are a good resistant activities that will make you sweat, burning a high load of calories and unhealthy fats.

2. Squats

Squats - Diabetes Exercises

nutright.com

Squats are good diabetes exercises that challenge the body to a significant degree. Lifting heavy weights offer intensive activity for both upper and lower muscles of the body. Lower body muscles increases insulin sensitivity and creates higher demand for glucose.

3. Cardio Intervals

Cardio exercises are not as vigorous as other diabetes exercises. When you are doing cardio state exercises, to reap maximum benefits, going for an all-out pace for 1 Minute, coupled up with active rest periods is a good way to improve insulin sensitivity. Consequently, your cells will become more sensitive to glucose.

4. Burpees

Burpees - Diabetes Exercises

joshuaspodek.com

These are one of the best diabetes exercises that you can perform in your workouts routine. They improves and gets your heart rate high and get your muscles stronger. Burpees are preferred for almost any healthy exercise routine, because of their intensity. Because of this intensity, they enhance and improve on insulin sensitivity.

With the above diabetes exercises, you will be able to maintain a healthy weight as well as increase your body’s sensitivity to insulin. Coupled with a healthy diet, these exercises will reduce weight gain.

Categories
Diabetic Meals Basic Meal Planning

9 Basic Dietary Plans for Diabetic Patients

BASIC DIETARY PLANS FOR DIABETIC PATIENTS

One of the natural ways to manage diabetes is through taking a healthy diet. It is important to carefully consider what you take for your meals, the size of each meal component that is in your servings and quantities of each component. Rather than preparing any meal that you think will work for your diabetics diet, careful planning can lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Other than helping to keep your blood sugar levels low, careful planning for your meals will also help you to control your weight. A good, carefully planned meal, will keep you feeling all good throughout the day. It will keep you full and improve on all aspects of your lifestyle. This article describes about some basic dietary plans for diabetic patients.

It is a known fact that so many people think that meal planning only involves the amount of food components in a meal, the amount of proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins. But this is not true, the natural benefits of each component to the body is of great importance. This notion gets people supplementing their diets with pills, minerals and vitamins to keep their blood sugar levels low. Careful meal planning will help you get minerals, vitamins and other body requirements in the right way; through foods and not diet pills!

The main problems associated with diabetes is inability of the body to use and store food that offer energy to the body. This energy is stored in the form of glucose. This is a type of sugar that is sourced from the foods that we intake in our bodies. These includes fruits, vegetables, starchy foods, milk and sugars. Once a person is diagnosed with diabetes, eating a health diabetic diet, coupled with good exercises to keep you active will help manage the disease. However, on the rare end, diabetics are advised to take insulin and diet pills to manage sugar levels.

Tips to Healthy Eating, Prevention and Management of Diabetes

On average, a person takes three meals in a day. As said earlier, the body of a diabetic is unable to store foods that would be used by the body. Eating at regular times with a considerable spacing between meals is a great way to manage diabetes and sugar levels. It is recommended to adopt a spacing of less than six hours between meals. Regular meals helps you keep the stomach full and enables the body to control blood sugar (glucose) levels. When you feel empty, it is advisable to take healthy snacks in between your meals.

Limiting the amount of sugars and sweets that you take into your body is a good way to manage diabetes. These sugars include regular pops, candies, honey, jam and desserts. These sugars increases blood sugar levels thus destabilizing the natural sugar level in the body. According to dietary plans for diabetic patients, to solve on this, there are natural sugar sweeteners that could be used in place of these artificial sugars. Similarly, there are sugar-free components that could be used to replace sugar-rich foods.

A high intake of foods with fats is not an option when it comes to dietary plans for diabetic patients. These foods increases chances of being overweight. Other disadvantages of fat intake is cardio-vascular disease, you risk heart attacks and thick blood vessels. Conversely, sugar free foods helps you control blood sugar levels as well as have healthy weight.

Foods & Exercise

One recommended food complement is fiber. Foods that are rich in fiber such as grain and whole breads, cereals, lentils, vegetables, fruits and dried beans are a good choice. These foods keep you feeling full all day long while keeping your blood sugar and cholesterol levels low.

Major symptoms for diabetes is feeling thirsty. Once you feel thirsty, it is advisable to take plenty of water. Water keeps your body hydrated. Water offers great therapy for the body, it keeps the body lean and keeps you looking healthy. Other than water, regular pops and fruit juice are a good alternative to water that will help raise healthy blood sugar levels.

Exercise is a lifestyle practice that keeps you healthy and active. Adding a physical activity coupled up with healthy meals is a good way to manage and prevent diabetes. Regular exercise boosts your sugar levels and maintains and controls healthy sugar levels. It enables the body use up excess energy that is stored in the body and improves the flow of blood in the body.

Dietary Plans For Diabetic Patients For Healthy Eating

As mentioned earlier, having a careful meal plan is a good way to control and manage diabetes. The amount of food components that you take in your meals is an imperative consideration. The amount of proteins, starch and vegetables that you take in your meals is of prime importance. To effect on the amount of every component in your meals, adopting the “Plate Method” will offer and control portion sizes for your meals. In this method, it is recommended that you take a variety of vegetables in one half of the plate, while the other half covers grains and starches on one quarter, and proteins such as meat and alternatives in the other quarter. Below is a guide to healthy meal planning:

  • To complement you meals, it is advisable to take a glass of milk or any other alternatives such as sugar-free yoghurt. Taking a fruit is another great complement for your meals, fruits such as berries, grapes, peaches and oranges are good fruits to incorporate in your diabetic diet.
  • Alcohol does not augur well with diabetics. Alcohol destabilizes blood sugar levels thus causing you to gain weight. However, little amounts of alcohol is healthy for a meal, it enhances digestion. It’s advisable to talk to your dietician for the right amounts.
  • Vegetables takes a large portion of your meal plate. These meal components are rich in nutrients and are low on calories and rich in vitamins.
  • Intake of whole grains and cereals, noodles, rice and other healthy starchy foods provide foods that are broken down into glucose which the body needs for energy.
  • A healthy intake of healthy proteins such as fish, low-fat butter and cheese, lean meat and vegetarian proteins are healthy choice for your meal.

It is advisable to consult your healthy dietician for advice on your nutrition intake and dietary plans for diabetic patients. A good intake of the right food portions, incorporating exercises that keep you active and taking the right medication is good management practice for a diabetic lifestyle. Most importantly, taking a breakfast helps you have a good start for your day. Do not skip breakfast meals.

Dietary Plans for Diabetic Patients who have Smaller Appetites

BREAKFASTHalf a cup of cold cereal about 125 Ml

1 slice of whole grain or whole meal toast

1 Orange

A cup of low-fat milk 250Ml

2 table spoonful of peanut butter about 30Ml

Regular Coffee or tea.

LUNCH
1 sandwich

2 slices of whole meal or whole grain bread.

2 Oz, or 60g of chicken or fish meat

1 teaspoonful of non-hydrogenated margarine

Grapes

175 Ml of low-fat or fat-free yoghurt

Regular Coffee or tea

DINNER
1 Medium potato or 150 Ml of rice

At least two types of vegetables

Lean chicken or fish meat about 60g or 2 Oz.

1 Cup of low fat or fat-free milk about 250Ml

1 Cup of Cantaloupe

Regular Coffee or Tea.

EVENING SNACKS4 Whole grain crackers or less

30g or 1 oz. of low-fat cheese

Dietary Plans for Diabetic Patients who have Bigger Appetites

BREAKFAST
125 Ml of Cold Cereal

2 slices of whole grain or whole meal toast

An orange

250Ml of fat free or low fat milk

60g or 2 Oz of low fat cheese

A cup of tea or regular coffee.

LUNCH250Ml or 1 Cup of Soup

2 slices of whole meal or whole grain bread

90g or 2 Oz of lean chicken or fish meat

5Ml of non-hydrogenated margarine

Carrot sticks

175 Ml of Fat-free or low fat yoghurt

Tomato Slices

A cup of regular coffee or tea

AFTERNOON SNACK1 apple or banana
DINNERLarge potato or 375Ml of Noodles (cooked)

Vegetables

Salads with Fat-free or low-fat salad dressing

Lean chicken or fish meat about 120g or 2 Oz.

A cup of low-fat milk.

Regular coffee or Tea

EVENING SNACK4 tablespoonful or 60 Ml of Peanut Butter

4 whole grain crackers

250Ml of low-fat or Fat-free milk or yoghurt

Exercise and Physical Activity

Dietary plans for diabetic patients are not enough for them. They should follow some physical activity to solve their problems easy with those dietary plans. Staying active in the day is a good and healthy lifestyle practice that will keep you fit and healthy all day long. To achieve this, it’s healthy to allocate enough time for your exercises. Moreover, try to engage in vigorous exercise most of the days of the week.

Walking is a good healthy exercise. Instead of taking a car, you can start slowly and gradually increase your progress on strolling and walking. Engaging in family activities such as swimming, skating, hiking and mountain climbing is good exercise for a diabetic.

Exercise helps you have an improved sense of well-being. Try to gain effort to engage in new activities such as dancing, riding a bike, playing basketball, beach volleyball and other exercises.

Healthy Eating Lifestyle

It is recommended that you include the four main component meal types in your meal. These include;

  • Fruits and Vegetables
  • Whole grain products
  •  Milk and alternatives
  • Proteins and meat alternatives

Having a whole, healthy meal that includes major components such as whole grain breads, pastas, fresh fruits and cereals will help maintain and control a healthy body weight. Lower intake of foods that are high on fats and calories, alternatively, use low fat choices such as skim milk, lean ground beef, trim fat meat and so on. Healthy eating plans will keep you healthy and enable you keep a healthy lifestyle.

Categories
Diabetes Type 2 Diabetes

Managing and Preventing Type 2 Diabetes

Managing and Preventing Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes is one of those lifestyle diseases that have developed great prevalence in today’s world. There are basically two types of diabetes disease. These are Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. When it comes to type 2 diabetes. It is a condition where there is insufficient or insignificant amounts of insulin in the body that would convert glucose into energy or a different case, the body becomes resistant to insulin functions.

It’s a long-term condition that has no cure but can be managed easily and with cost-effective means. After being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, you have to stick to a strict diet and recommended medication which will help improve production of insulin or enhance insulin functions in the body.

Tips to manage Type 2 diabetes

Since diabetes has no permanent cure, there is a variety of ways you can manage the disease. Most of the proven methods to manage and maintain diabetes is having a healthy diet and regular exercises. Below are tips that will help you maintain and manage type 2 diabetes.

1. Maintain a healthy body Weight

The major cause of Type 2 diabetes is obesity. If you are obese, it is recommended that you try to shed off some weight to prevent contracting diabetes. A healthy body weight helps to prevent and manage diabetes. There are a number of ways you can take into consideration when you want to manage your weight. It could be through exercise or adopting a healthy diet program. Crash diets are major contributors of excess weights, avoiding fad diets and foods that are high on fats will help maintain a healthy diet and consequently overall maintenance of diabetes.

2. Healthy Diabetic Diet

Healthy eating is essential for anyone, whether you are preventing, managing, maintaining diabetes or not. The best foods that will help a person suffering from type 2 diabetes are foods that are rich in fiber such as fruits, lean proteins such as chicken and fish meat, Low-fat milk etc. The plate method, is a recommended meal guide for a diabetic.

3. Reduce intake of sugar-rich foods.

As mentioned earlier that diabetes is a condition where the body is unable to convert glucose stored in the body into energy, taking sugar-rich foods means increasing on the levels of sugar and glucose in the body. Paying attention to the amount of carbohydrates that you consume, also reduces the amount of glucose in the body. There are great carbohydrate alternatives such as brown rice, whole wheat bread and so on in place of threating carbohydrates such as white bread, pasta, corn and processed foods.

4. Regular Exercise

Exercising has a great effect on preventing and managing diabetes. Taking exercises does not only help you burn calories but it also helps to improve on general insulin function in the body as well as control blood sugar. Any type of exercise that has an exertion and mild sweating will definitely work for you. Exercising about four times in a week, or sometimes three times, is a good method that will help one manage and maintain type 2 diabetes.

These are the proven ways that can help prevent, maintain and manage type 2 diabetes. Maintaining a healthy weight is important as adopting a healthy meal. There are those identified meals that your dietician will recommend. Exercising will enhance the function and production of insulin, therefore its advisable to exercise regularly.

Categories
What to Eat Foods

Which kind of dietary fibers control diabetics?

Which kind of dietary fibers control diabetics?

Fiber is a massive word. But here we discuss about the fibers in our diets. Those type of fibers are micro in size and called dietary fibers. Basically we can identify two types of fibers. One is soluble in water and the other one is not. So, what is the difference between soluble and insoluble fibers? Can you imagine? No? So, here we go.

Insoluble and Soluble Fibers

Water soluble dietary fibers are soft and helps to control blood glucose. Ah! that’s it. Yep! not only controlling blood glucose but it reduces bad cholesterol and cleans arteries. It manages diarrhea. Insoluble fibers are bulky. It acts only inside the digestive tract. Because of it’s insolubility, it could not enter to the blood through the cell walls inside digestive system. It helps to clean colon and reduce constipation. Insoluble bulky fibers help to reduce the risk of forming colon cancers because of it’s ability of cleaning.

Many foods contain both soluble and insoluble dietary fiber. Whole grains, vegetables, beans and legumes, fruits, seeds and nuts contain soluble fibers. Some of those are also containing insoluble too.

Dietary Fibers are Carbohydrates

Dietary fibers are also a type of carbs but not digest in human digestive tract. Therefore those not bring us calories. It feels stomach filling but not actually like other digestible carbohydrates. It counts your meal but not affected badly to blood glucose levels. Therefore this is the best solution for diabetic patients. But remember this! If you are going to eat fruits for dietary fibers, be careful. Most of the types of fruits contains sugar. More sugar will the condition worse. When we eat fruits for fibers we have to keep in our minds, not to get very ripped fruits.

Fibers and Digestion

Dietary fibers slow down the process of digestion. Therefore digestion of carbohydrates will also slow down and rate of releasing glucose to blood is reduced. It helps to prevent us from increasing blood sugar levels. One of the related research proved that high fiber diet reduces blood glucose levels by a considerable number.

Considering all of the above, we have to change our day-to-day diabetic diets to fulfill the requirements of additional dietary fibers in to our digestive tract.

Categories
What to Eat Nutrition

What to Include in Your Diabetic Diet?

What to Include in Your Diabetic Diet?

Diabetes is manageable. Healthy eating habits are a good way to manage diabetes level. And maintain a healthy weight also. A diabetic diet should have plenty of vegetables, proteins, whole grains, fruits and healthy fast that will help replenish your body. Discussed below are the benefits of each meal component.

Lean Protein

As opposed to having plenty of carbohydrates on our plate for every meal, eating plenty of lean protein ensures that our body is able to operate at full strength with much energy. Proteins do keep us full for longer periods of time, thus preventing us from junky high carb diets. We may include meat, cheese and eggs.

Veggies

Vegetables are a good choice in our diabetic diets. They have plenty of nutrients, are high in fibre, low calories and fat. Unlike other diet meal plans, veggies are delicious and will ensure us to maintain the right track on our diet. Five to nine servings of veggies are a good recommendation.

High Fiber Foods

Foods with high levels of dietary fibre have overwhelming benefits, while still reducing cholesterol levels. Foods with dietary fibre keep full long periods of time and are known to reduce post-prandial glucose levels.

Fruits

Including fruits in our daily diet compliments on our efforts of having a high fibre, vitamin and mineral diet. By nature, fruits have low levels of calories and facts. Despite that carbohydrate levels will fluctuate on the type of fruit we choose of to take, fruits will provide essential vitamins to our body. Moreover, fruits are good antioxidants and help to improve the strength of our immune system.

Healthy Fats

Olive oils, nuts, canola oil and seeds are among the many healthy fats that we could include in our diabetic diet. Omega fats are another good choice to incorporate into our diet, the best choice is fish oils. Healthy and balanced fat levels are a good choice to include in our daily diet. However, try avoiding as much as possible fats that are hard at room temperature.

Good eating habits coupled up with healthy nutrients, are important in regulating diabetes. A good healthy meal, keeps our feeling at our best. Coupled up with great exercise, will generate more energy and stamina and generally improving on your general outlook each day.