Diet for diabetes is essential in the regulation of blood sugar levels. It’s been said many times that the right diet, along with exercise and medication, is key in controlling diabetes.

Why is there a need to control diabetes in the first place? Although diabetes itself is not life-threatening, control measures are necessary so as to prevent complications like kidney problems and heart failure either which can ultimately lead to death. Such being the case, regulating blood sugar levels should therefore be the primary goal of every diabetic treatment plan.

You must know that certain foods trigger abnormal spikes of your blood sugar levels. Thus, it may be necessary to embark on the right diet for diabetes. There are foods that are highly recommended for diabetics to eat; at the same time there are also those that they must avoid.

Ideally, diet for diabetes should comprise of the following:

fiber-rich foods

whole grains, bran, brown rice

vegetables

fresh fruits

nuts, seeds, legumes

fish

Whereas, the following foods should be avoided or at least limited:

foods rich in fat

salty foods

sweets

There is what is called the diabetes food pyramid that clearly illustrates the ideal diet for diabetes. The bottom of the pyramid represents foods that you must eat plenty of, and this includes starches or whole grain starches in the form of bread, cereals, pasta, corn, and potatoes. The next level of the pyramid are vegetables and fruits; next in line are milk, meat and meat substitutes, while at the top of the pyramid are fat and sweets, and these you should very well limit your intake of.

This diet for diabetes also requires that 45% - 65% of the total daily calories should come from carbohydrates, 25-35% from fat, while 12-20% should come from proteins.

Aside from knowing the right foods to eat, it is also important that you know exactly when to eat and how much to eat. Always keep in mind that anything in excess can have negative repercussions to your health.

As you must know not every diet for diabetes works effectively for all diabetics. Each one has different sets of needs and requirements, the reason why it is highly recommended that you see a diabetic dietician to help you come up with the right meal plan based on your body weight and needs. This way, you will not have to eat too much of anything that you shouldn’t, and not too little of those that you should.

If you think that this diet for diabetes seems rather boring, more so if you have a sweet tooth, think again, because with some bits of creativity, you can easily whip up a great meal that is just as delicious as any other meal you have been used to. A glass of fruit shake, a bowl of vegetable soup, and a toast of wheat bread can be a great way to start your day.

Indeed, a diet for diabetes can certainly be palatable, too, and since you are basically using natural products, you can be sure that it will give you loads of health benefits.

You’ll be surprised that this dietary regimen not only regulates your blood sugar levels naturally but makes you feel a lot healthier in the process. So even if you are not a diabetic, you can most certainly achieve better health with this diet for diabetes.

The typical American lifestyle reads like the ADA’s list of risk factors. We’re obese and inactive. We eat foods that give us high blood glucose and high cholesterol. We stress ourselves out and raise our blood pressure. It’s not surprising, then, that there are over one and a half million people with type 2 diabetes in California alone.

Here are some of the most common symptoms of diabetes. If you find yourself experiencing them, it may be a good idea to check with your doctor.

• Frequent urination
• Extreme hunger
• Excessive thirst
• Unexplained weight loss
• Blurry vision
• Increased fatigue
• Irritability

Some people get “pre-diabetes,” a condition characterized by high blood glucose levels, but nothing high enough to diagnose as diabetes. This can still be harmful to the body, but if you are aware of the possibility, you can prevent it from ever becoming full-blown diabetes.

The best way to avoid diabetes is to keep your blood glucose levels healthy now. This means eating right - plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains over Wonderbread, fish, dried beans, lean meats, diet drinks over sugar-laden ones, liquid oils over solid fats. This also means cutting back on the desserts and generally watching portion sizes. Really, it’s the wonder diet you’ve been looking for.

The other key to avoiding diabetes is lots of exercise. If you can walk instead of driving, do it. Anything that gets you moving will help, whether its running or climbing or swimming or playing tennis. If you feel that you may be at risk, talk to your doctor about safe exercise for people who may have trouble maintaining healthy glucose levels during exercise.

Diabetes has become an epidemic in America, but if we can wise up, it doesn’t have to continue to be one.

We know that Diabetes is a silent killer, being able to inflict damage because we’re looking somewhere else. We thought we were okay by avoiding sweets. We thought we were okay because no one in the family had it. We thought we were okay because we were negative for urine sugar. We thought we were okay because our wounds healed easily. We now know why it’s a silent killer. But we don’t know how.

Diabetes is a serial killer. But it is a SILENT serial killer because it stays behind the scenes. It doesn’t directly participate in the murder of its not-so-innocent victims. It has many guns-for-hire under its payroll. It is the MASTERMIND. Some of its crimes remain unsolved, pointing only to the one who pulled the trigger but not the one who paid the triggerman.

Let us go into a forensic analysis of how the Mastermind works, what his weapons are, and how we can detect his presence even before we can see him.

1. Stroke

I have mentioned that in Diabetics, cholesterol rises years before the blood sugar goes up. Since diabetics lose the capacity to utilize sugar, tissue fat is mobilized as alternative fuel. So fat in the tissues will have to travel via the arteries. The blood carries too much fat, much of which will be imbibed into the arterial walls. By the time the rising blood sugar is uncovered, the tightened cerebral arteries have already choked off the blood that carries oxygen to the brain. And since the brain cannot last more than 6 minutes without oxygen, the area deprived of it dies. If the patient lives, he is found to have Diabetes. But if he dies, he is diagnosed as a stroke, and the diagnosis of Diabetes dies with him. The triggerman is convicted, with the mastermind scot-free.

2. Heart Attack

In the same process it takes for the cerebral arteries to harden and narrow, the blood supply to the heart declines, giving the patient shortness of breathing and easy fatigability. If the patient seeks medical attention, his Diabetes would be uncovered and treated accordingly. But if the blockage is abrupt, the heart stops beating. Blood will stop going to the brain. And the patient will die of a heart attack. The triggerman is convicted, with the mastermind scot-free.

3. Retinopathy

While the brain and heart suffer because of blockage of the large vessels supplying blood, the small arteries bringing needed oxygen to the eye can more easily get clogged. Those with white collared jobs that require frequent reading and writing easily notice the blurring of vision, but put off a visit to the ophthalmologist thinking that glasses would be a burden to their work. But those who have no use of reading skills, or have not even learned to do so, may not even notice the change until they are no longer able to find their way around the house. It is not, however, the lens of the eye that gets damaged in diabetes, but the retina which is the inside of the eyeball that catches the image thrown by the lens. With retinopathy, it would be like focusing a projector onto a cobblestone wall instead of a white screen. Trying to change the focus with corrective lenses would do nothing to improve the image on the cobblestone. Again the triggerman is convicted, with the mastermind scot-free.

4. Kidney Failure

In my 20 years of medical practice, I might have heard this statement more than twenty thousand times. And as if the misconception of “kidney” being an illness was not enough, those claiming to have “kidney” associate it with urine dribbling. So, patients having this problem are unconcerned, thinking they do not have kidney problems. If the bladder is uninvolved, patients do not complain of dribbling. So the damage that diabetes inflicts on the kidney is so subtle that you don’t feel a thing until you start to bloat because the kidney is no longer able to excrete your excess body water. (The low back pain present in kidney infections is absent in Diabetic Nephropathy.) At this point, your only recourse would either be dialysis or a kidney transplant. The triggerman is convicted, with the mastermind scot-free.

There are subtle and not-so-subtle clues that point to Diabetes as the mastermind. If only we would care to notice before the triggermen do their job.

1) Frequent urination.

-sugar in the urine attracts more water into the kidneys

2) Excessive thirst.

-due to frequent urination

3) Big, big appetite.

-hunger because of under-utilization of sugar in the blood

4) Weight loss.

-due to fat mobilization

5) Tingling sensation or numbness over extremities.

-decreased circulation and nerve swelling

These clues can spell the difference between catching the triggerman or catching the mastermind. Between alleviating the symptoms, or treating the cause.