›› How To Prevent Diabetes
How to prevent
Diabetes has been a concern for many of us since we were
kids. In my own family, my baby cousin was born with
diabetes, so she had to have shots—injected once a day by my
aunt, who just happened to be a Registered Nurse. Of course,
while this many years later we have sub-lingual solutions, we have
different levels of Diabetes (those not requiring shots included), and
we have do-it-yourself daily blood glucose testing, for those with
Diabetes or those with a concern for how to prevent Diabetes from going
full speed ahead into full blown stages of the disease.
Besides my cousin on my mother’s side having the disease, on
my biological father’s side, my grandfather had it.
So my emphasis has always been (as it was taught to me) how to prevent
Diabetes from setting in if you are genetically prone to it but
don’t yet have it.
Is there a surefire solution for how to prevent Diabetes,
though? Yes and no. Evidently, we can
“delay” such forms of the illness as Type 2
Diabetes. According to such institutions and studies as NIDDK
(National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney
Diseases) and NIH (National Institute of Health), diet and exercise are
found to help stave off the onset and symptoms. These
findings are only reinforced by the additional smaller studies by
organizations and institutes all over the world: from Finland to China,
it has been found that at-risk people can slow the onset or fight the
disease with rigorous exercise (with a goal of losing 2 to 7 percent
body weight) and balanced, low sugar diets (with a goal of avoiding
“trigger” foods). The sugars mentioned
include, that is, sucrose, fructose, lactose, and other sugar forms
found naturally and synthetically present in most foods.
In addition, from what I understand, Diabetes Prevention programs set
up a regime that includes, besides diet and exercise, standard care and
the drug metformin. According to CDC (Center for Disease
Control), the studies applying such treatment/prevention measures found
that participants who included a healthy diet, metformin, and moderate
physical activity of 30 minutes a day/5 days a week, reduced their risk
of getting Type 2 Diabetes by 58%!
I used to go every year but now go every two years to get a glucose
tolerance test along with a general physical. And since I
have Diabetes in my family history, the doc always admonishes me about
“dumping great amounts of sugar” into my
system. If I can conquer that, and walk at least five days a
week, you can too!
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A Healthy Dose of Good Advice
