Diabetes is a disease that has a tremendous effect on the eyes, heart, kidneys, nerves and other organs of the body. Apart from that, did you know that gum disease and diabetes are linked? It’s time that you are aware that people with diabetes are at high risk of developing gum disease, compared to the average person who does not have diabetes. Continue reading “The Link Between Diabetes and Gum Disease”
Category: Diabetes
Don’t Let Diabetes Hold You Back
Diabetes is on the verge of becoming a full-grown health crisis in the U.S. and the stats are there to prove it. In 2015, 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the population, had diabetes. This includes the approximate 1.25 million American children and adults that have type 1 diabetes. Diabetes is currently the seventh-highest cause of death in the U.S., and also carries a high cost for the healthcare industry. In 2012, $245 billion was spent due to diagnosed diabetes cases. In addition, this trickles down to the individual level. Average medical costs for people with diabetes were 2.3 times higher than those without. Continue reading “Don’t Let Diabetes Hold You Back”
Home Remedies For Controlling Blood Sugar Levels
By enhancing the level of blood sugar in human body, this situation influences the body’s capability of manufacturing insulin or even utilizing it properly. Though there are several treatment options available, however the following home remedies have also proved to be quite effective on your sugar level. Some of the few home remedies are:
Kerala/ Bitter Gourd:
Polypeptide-P is a chemical that is pretty similar to insulin produced by the human body. Bitter gourd has a rich content of Polypeptide-P. It has the ability to lower the blood sugar level from our bodies. Because of its rich concentration of momordicin & charatin this is a very useful product to control your blood sugar level.You can have it as a curry or boiled vegetable or even make its juice & consume it.
Mango Leaves:
Take a glass of water & add almost 10-15 mango leaves in it. Allow it to boil & let it stay overnight. On the very next morning use the strainer to get the water & consume it in empty stomach. It’s a very useful home remedy for controlling your sugar level.
Indian Gooseberry or Amla:
It’s a rich supplier of vitamin C & is able to enhance the activities of your pancreas. Try to extract almost two teaspoons of its juice & pour it in a glass full of water & then drink. If you are able to drink this mixture on a daily basis, then it will help your body to control the blood sugar level. You can also add a pinch of turmeric in 2 teaspoons of Amla juice & consume it.
Tulsi or Basil Leaves:
Basil leave is a great source of antioxidants. Antioxidants are mainly responsible for getting rid of the oxidative related stress in the human body. It also contain essential oils, which help in reducing the sugar level. To keep it under control you need to drink two tablespoon of basil extract daily in an empty stomach.
Fenugreek Seeds:
This extreme source of fiber is a nice option for home remedies to control sugar level. You can soak these seeds in a glass of water whole night & drink the water in the morning. You can even make powder of these seeds & pour it in a glass full of milk.
Cinnamon Powder:
This is believed to be one of the most useful remedies for diabetes. In a saucepan pour 1 liter of water, then add almost ¾ tablespoons of cinnamon powder. Let it heat for almost 15/20 minutes. Use strainer to strain it & allow it to cool down. Consuming this on a daily basis will help you to control your blood sugar level.
Banyan Tree Bark:
Take four glasses of water & add ficus bark (almost twenty gram). Let it boil till the water reduces to about one glass. Allow it to cool down & then drink it. Drinking this mixture regularly will help you to lower your sugar level.
Green Tea:
Green tea is known for its unfermented feature as well as a great supplier of polyphenol. It’s a hypo glycemic compound as well as a hardy antioxidant too, which helps in discharging blood sugar & supports our body to utilize the insulin as well.
Use of Neem:
You can find this anywhere in India. It has various utilities. Not only it helps in controlling our blood sugar level, it can also enhance the blood circulation in our body too. on a daily basis try to drink the juice of tender neem leaves every morning in an empty stomach & you will get benefitted from its various helpful aspects.
Triphala:
You can consume triphala with some other ingredients too. Take similar portions of barberry root, colocynth, turmeric powder (4 gm) & moth (twenty ml) & consume it twice daily.
Some more foods that are useful as home remedies rebel, spinach,barley, green gram, garlic, horse gram, garlic, blue berry, jamun, cucumber, wheat, soybean etc.
Foods that you need to stay away from are cakes, root rhizome, jiggery, ghee, sugar cane juice, sugar, ghee/purified butter, curd, cold drinks, junk foods, alcohol, biscuits, carb rich products etc.
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Growing Trend of Type 2 Diabetes Among Children
Earlier type 2 diabetes was looked upon as an adult ailment, however this concept has changed completely. In the year of 2008 & 2009 almost five thousand people below the age of twenty has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. In the current scenario this ailment is quite common among children of ages between ten to nineteen.
This is a kind of persistent situation which leaves a significant impact on the process of metabolizing glucose undertaken by the human body.
Following signs could help you to detect the problem early:
- Kids suffering from diabetes usually don’t get adequate insulin which can give their cells enough fuel. So food becomes the leading option for providing energy & you can see them getting hungry very frequently.
- When you find your kid extremely tried or feeling sleepy all the time then that’s an indication that something is wrong. This condition is caused because their body might not be getting adequate sugar to activate their usual body activities.
- When you find your kid visiting the restroom quite often, then there might be a chance that high blood sugar level in their blood stream is extracting fluid out of their tissues making them visit the bathroom very frequently.
- Extreme thirst is another indicator of excess blood sugar levels.
- Sometimes insulin hindrance can lead to skin darkness, which is also known as acanthosis nigricans. Usually this problem arises around the neck or armpit areas.
- If your kid is experiencing quite slow rate of healing of their infections or any kind of wounds, this might be the indicator of type 2 diabetes.
- Some more indicators are unusual weight loss, itchy skin, dry mouth, heavy breathing, blurred vision etc.
Children could develop risk of diabetes when they have the following:
- When your child’s body mass index is more than 85% they have greater chances of experiencing type 2 diabetes.
- When family members or close relatives have the same ailment.
- If they are belong to Native American or pacific or Asian islander or African decent or Latino communities.
- Girls have been identified to be more vulnerable to this ailment.
- If they have a problem, known as insulin resistance.
Some other situations, which can contribute to the risk factor are:
- Insufficient exercise or physical activity.
- If an adult family member is overweight, it can affect the kid later.
- Some typical medical situation or hormonal problems.
- Poor eating. Etc.
Some preventive measures that your child can take are:
- Encourage your kid to have a healthy diet. Limit their carbs as well as sugar intake. It could help them minimize the risk for type 2 diabetes.
- Make sure your kid is participating in some regular exercises. You need to limit their board game or television & encourage them to go out & play. Exercise always plays an important role in averting diabetes.
- Healthy lifestyle, like well-balanced diet, regular exercise can help them in maintaining athletic weight.
- They tend to follow you in every aspect of life. So you need to set a good example of a healthy lifestyle in front of them, so that they can follow you without any hesitance.
Probable future side effects:
- Children suffering from type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop some serious health issues as they grow old. Some of such ailments are, vascular ailments, damaging nerve, eye disorder etc. Such problems usually grow faster among children with type 2 diabetes than type 1.
- Problems like hypoglycemia, weight managing problem, high BP, kidney disorder are some other ailments, which they can experience in their lifetime.
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Early Warning Signs of Diabetes
You can’t become a victim of diabetes all of a sudden, it happens over a prolonged period of time according to Melissa Joy Dobbins, RD, a certified diabetes educator in Illinois and a spokes person for the American Association of Diabetes Educators. Sometimes we are unaware about this ailment, even when it’s in the middle phase as per Aaron Cypess, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and staff physician at Joslin Diabetes Center. The longer the time you spend without any treatment, the more you enhance the risk of kidney ailments, blindness, heart disease, amputation etc. According to Dr.Cypess people who have a family history of diabetes or obesity should get evaluated on a regular basis.If you are feeling that something is wrong, then don’t waste any more time and visit your doctor immediately.
The following symptoms will help you to get an idea & take the next step. For both types of diabetes, there are few common signs:
Feeling Thirsty & Going for Pee very Frequently:
As per our normal natural process we go to pee once in every four hours, however for people with diabetes, it could be more often than that. Usually human body soaks up glucose and then it goes out through our kidneys. On the other hand when diabetes forces our blood sugar levels to go up, our kidneys have to work overtime to absorb the increased quantities of glucose and most of the time it can’t bring back all the glucose. This results in our body producing more urine than the fluid we consume. When you are peeing more than usual, it will make you thirsty too & you are compelled to consume more liquid.
Experiencing more Fatigue & Hunger too:
Usually our body transforms the food we consume into glucose, which the cells use for getting energy. However to get the desired quantities of glucose, our body cells require insulin. When our body is not able to produce any insulin or very little of it or our body gets insulin resistant,then our cells can’t get any energy, because glucose is not able to get into them. This in turn, makes you feel more tired & hungry too.
Vision disorder:
Lenses in our eyes can get swollen, because of the fluctuating fluid levels in our body. Sometimes they face difficulties in focusing.
Having Itchy Skin as Well as Dry Mouth:
When we are peeing more, there is very little moisture left for other stuff. So you can feel dehydrated, even our mouth can also feel dry. You can face itching problem because of your dehydrated dry skin.
Some other Signs of Type 2 Diabetes:
When you are having this problem of diabetes for quite a long period of time, it could leave an effect on your nerves as well as on your blood flow too. This could make the healing of any kind of wounds more difficult. Because of nerve disorder people with diabetes can also experience numbness or even pain in their legs. Irrespective of sex, people can get yeast infection. The main food for yeast is glucose, the more the supply the more they prosper. You can experience this ailment, in areas like, the area around the sex organs, under your breast, in between toes & fingers also.
A Few Other Signs of Type 1 Diabetes:
Nausea and Vomiting:
The output of the process of burning fat is ketones. If the ketone content in our blood stream grows to dangerous level, a life threatening condition called diabetic ketoacidos is happens to our body. This results in us feeling vomiting tendencies.
When you are over forty five or experiencing the other symptoms of diabetes, then you need to go for a check-up, before it starts leaving a bad impact on your kidneys or your heart or any other disorders.
When your body is not getting any energy from the food you are consuming, then it will begin to use energy generated by burning fat & muscles.This will result in you losing some weight, without changing your eating habit.
Some generic scenarios when you need to see your doctor:
- Going for peeing frequently
- Feeling thirsty or weak or experiencing some stomach ailments
- Breathing unusually (faster or very deeply)
- Experiencing breath that smells like nail polish remover. Remember this could be a symbol of very large accumulation of ketones.
- Experiencing abdominal pains.
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Dietary Consideration for A Diabetic Patient
Diabetes and Diet:
When you are suffering from diabetes you need to put some extra effort on your food habit. According to Gerald Bernstein, director of the diabetes management program at Friedman Diabetes Institute in Beth Israel Medical Center , New York,, people with diabetes need to stay away from foods that can trigger blood sugar spikes. Soda & candy are such kinds of deadly options for diabetic people. Our body can soak up these kind of sugars almost immediately. Consumption of carbohydrates also needs to be watched, because unhealthy fat in a diabetic body can enhance the risk of heart ailments.
Fats:
All fats are not bad, some like monounsaturated fats can minimize our cholesterol level as well as avert various heart diseases too. On the other hand we need to control trans & saturated fat consumption.
Best choices:
Peanut butter
Sunflower seeds & Pumpkin seeds
Canola & Olive oil
Avocados
Fish like Albacore Tuna & Salmon
Nuts like Pecans, Almonds, Walnuts & Peanuts
Make sure you are concentrating on portion sizes for these options.
Offenders:
Cream sauce
Lard, butter
Red meat, which have high fat content like Pork chops, T bone steaks, Pork shoulder, Ground beef etc.
Sausage, hot dogs etc. processed foods
Dairy products which are full fat.
Protein:
Best bets:
As per ADA (The American Diabetes Association), go for low saturated fat containing lean proteins, like turkey or fish. For seafood, the recommended level of serving is around 2-3 servings per week. Fishes like salmon are also heart healthy options, because of their omega-3 content. For vegetarian people a huge variety of beans or tofu or nuts are great foods to go for. However, make sure that you are putting some effort on portion sizes, as some of these nuts contain high calories.
Worst culprits:
Stay away from hot dogs, deli meats which are processed. Because of their high sodium & fat content they can enhance the risk for stroke as well as high BP among diabetic people. Some other worst food options can be, pork bacon, deep fried fish, fried meats, poultry with skin, beans specially those prepared by lard etc.
Grains/Starches:
Carbs is an important item for our body, however you need to choose it carefully. Following tips will help you to consume your carbs wisely.
Best choices:
Sweet potatoes, that are baked
Whole grains like oatmeal or millet or quinoa or brown rice etc.
Make sure that the food item is made with whole grains have no extra sugar in it.
Worst options:
French fries, white bread, cereals that contains added sugar but very minimum amount of whole grain.
Tortillas, which are fried & made with white flour.
White flour or white rice (processed grains)
Dairy:
Best choices:
Nonfat, plain Greek yogurt is a good option for people with diabetes. You can have it as breakfast or even as dessert by adding some berries in it. In your cooking process it’s a very good substitute for sour cream.
Worst bets:
You need to stay away from all types of full fat containing dairy products. Food products, which have extra sugar like packed chocolate milk is a deadly option for diabetic people.
Fruits:
Fruits are great supplier of fiber, vitamins, carbs & minerals. On the other hand, it has tendency of providing carbohydrates in much more quantities than veggies.
Applesauce (no added sugar)
Fresh fruits
Canned fruits without any kind of extra sugar or frozen fruits (plain)
Less sugar or even sugar free jam.
Worst Option:
Fruit rolls
Fruit juices or fruit punch
Applesauce , that is sweetened
Regular jelly or jam
Extra sugary canned fruits
Veggies:
Best bets:
Veggies high in fiber & low in carbohydrates like asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, leafy green veggies, carrots etc. Smashed cauliflower could be a great replacement for smashed potatoes.
Worst choices:
Starchy veggies like corn or peas or potatoes are no no. though these are a rich supplier of various nutrients, but you need to consume them in moderation.
Featured Image by: Steve Davis