To put it simply, a Diabetes Diet Plan is a deliberate eating plan that will help you control your blood sugar levels. It involves eating a variety of the recommended healthy foods in moderate amounts and sticking to regular meal times. Because an excess in carbohydrate and fat intake sends your blood sugar to alarming levels, the diet should consistently make up of vegetables, fruits and whole grains.

The key here is consistency and making informed food choices.

• Your meal plan should consistently comprise of a variety of healthy foods (low in carbohydrates and fats). This makes sense because the more you vary your food especially carbohydrates the harder it is to keep track of your blood sugar levels.
• Follow an established eating routine. Read food labels and count your carbohydrate and fat intake. Use Food Exchange Lists.
• Plan your meals well and stick to it.

Having your doctor and dietitian involved

The shift to a healthy diet plan from your normal carefree eating habit is by no means easy. The transition does not happen over night but your doctor and dietitian can advice you on ways to keep yourself on track. For instance, a dietitian can advice you on how to keep yourself from overeating, losing the excess weight and making better food choices.

Having your peers involved

Because it is customary for people to eat meals with their peers, it would be wise to inform your family and friends of your Diet Plan. This knowledge will guide them in making future meals with you that both accommodate your Diet Plan and their own personal tastes.

Eating out doesn’t have to be a problem

The prospect of eating out is usually filled with joy and anticipation. For diabetics on a diet plan, this is often met with dread and a sense of inevitable helplessness. It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, you can incorporate restaurant menus into your Diet Plan.

• First of all, when eating out, look over their menus carefully and if possible, ask a restaurant staff about the ingredients, carbohydrate and fat content in the foods and drinks they prepare.
• Secondly, pay attention to their serving sizes and extra side dishes. Moderation is the key.
• Thirdly, make healthier food substitutions. For example, instead of having a regular salad dressing, bypass it or have the low-fat variety.
• Last but not the least; remember to stick to the ground rules of your diet plan and your target blood sugar level.

Did you know that Diabetes is a disease that is caused by an over exhausted pancreas, which is trying to overproduce enzymes for the digestive process? It is the job of the pancreas to produce enzymes so that the food source you have consumed is properly broken down and digested. That is its first and foremost function.

Unfortunately our body only produces a certain amount of enzymes naturally, and furthermore the ability to produce enzymes decreases eight to ten percent every ten years of our life. By the time we are age fifty we will have lost fifty percent of our body’s natural ability to produce enzymes. We destroy all enzymes that are in our fruits and vegetables once they are irradiated for shipment purposes. By heating, baking, boiling, microwaving, we destroy the enzymes in all our food sources.

So that is the first job of the pancreas, the second is to produce insulin, and that is where the problem with diabetes begins. Insulin is not being properly produced or produced at all because the pancreas is overloaded and stressed out from producing enzymes that the body requires so badly. When the pancreas is stressed it over inflates to the point where it deteriorates and weakens further making it more inefficient in trying to produce enzymes and insulin. The best way to deal with diabetes is to take stress off the organs and that begins with taking a broad spectrum digestive enzyme product daily. Make sure that you have mineral activators for those enzymes within that capsule. In order to activate those enzymes it requires certain minerals, so make sure you have a quality enzyme product. Capsules by the way are the only form enzymes will be efficient, tablets on the other hand are inefficient as the enzymes are destroyed by the heat process that takes place while molding that tablet.

To take the strain of digestion off the pancreas. First we include enzymes in the diet. That will lower the amount of enzymes the pancreas has to make. Then we lower the strain of digestion even more, let’s add a juicing diet. Notice I didn’t say a ‘juice’ diet. Juice from the supermarket is not the same as whole fruits and vegetables freshly juiced. Using organic fruits and vegetables makes it even better.

An expert in enzymes is Mr. Ron Schneider who specializes in the field of Immunoenzymology and Darkfield Phase Contrast Microscopy. After many years of studying alternative and holistic medicine, he focused on research with enzymes. In 2001 Mr. Schneider was nominated for the Nobel Prize in science and medicine by the Bill Clinton Administration for the formulation of his highly effective formulation of plant enzymes, the worlds most premium enzymes available today.

The number of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has really skyrocketed over the past twenty years.? Add to that the number who are prediabetic and those walking around who have no idea they will be diagnosed in the years to come.? At least 50% remain undiagnosed!? Research shows one in four has a disturbance in how their body metabolizes sugar.

Whilst we are aware that genetics and obesity plays a big role in the rise of diabetes some drugs including prescripton drugs, can actually induce this condition in otherwise normal people.

Known offenders include:

• steroids
• birth control pill
• diuretics
• beta blockers

It is not unusual for impaired glucose tolerance to develop during the treatment of hypertension, and the condition does not go away when treatment is discontinued.?Other drugs can either increase blood sugar levels or decrease them.? Leading offenders that diabetics should avoid include:

Drugs that lower blood-sugars:

• Salicylates (Aspirin), and acetaminophen (paracetamol) or Panadol, can both lower your levels, especially if taken in large doses
• Phenylbutazone (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory)
• Ethanol (in alcoholic drinks) especially when taken without food
• Sulfonamide antibiotics
• Coumarin anticoagulant
• Trimethoprim (used for urinary tract infections)

Drugs that increase your blood-sugars:

• Caffeine in large quantities
• Corticosteroids such as prednisone, are used to block autoimmune conditions.? Even when applied topically it increases your levels
• Ephedrine
• Estrogen when the dose is high, modern oral contraceptives are usually not a problem
• Frusemide and thiazide diuretics often raise the glucose by causing a loss of potassium
• Lithium
• Nicotinic acid in large doses.? Used to lower cholesterol can bring out a hyperglycemic reaction
• Phenytoin or Dilantin, a drug used for seizures, blocks insulin release
• Rifampin (used in the treatment of tuberculosis)
• Sugar containing medications
• Thyroid hormone in elevated levels, raises blood glucose by reducing insulin from the pancreas

If you find a sudden change in your blood sugar levels and you have started a new medication, don’t hesitate to check with your health care provider.

Looking after yourself and your type 2 diabetes is your show, so know which drugs affect your blood sugars levels, find a diet that works for you, lose weight, and increase your physical activity.? You are the CEO of your body!

The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among UK men has risen by 10.9% over the past three decades, with a dramatic increase in more recent years accounting for a large proportion of the overall increase, report UK researchers.

Prevalence of the condition has increased sharply worldwide in recent years, and researchers predict that the disease is likely to reach epidemic proportions during this century, explain Mary Thomas (University College London) and colleagues.

For this study, Thomas and co-investigators used data collected from a cohort of 7722 British men from across the UK, aged 40 “59 years at baseline, who were followed-up from 1978 “2005 for incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

The researchers carried out seven sequential surveys during the study period. Diagnosis of diabetes was defined by self-reported diagnosis of diabetes or self-reported use of anti-diabetes medication on returned questionnaires.

Writing in the journal Diabetic Medicine, the researchers report that the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes increased from just 1.2% in 1978 to 12.1% in 2005.

They calculated that the average age-adjusted increase in Type 2 diabetes prevalence over the study period was 7.0%.

However, the increase in prevalence was not uniform as the annual rate of increase from 1979 “2000 ranged from 4.3% to 6.9%, but increased dramatically to an average of 11.2% in the 2000 “2005 period.

Men from Scotland had the greatest increase in prevalence of Type 2 diabetes, with the lowest UK prevalence ” 0.52% ” in 1979 and the highest UK prevalence ” 13.0% ” in 2005.

The authors note that the rate of increase was strongly related to body mass index (BMI), with annual rates of increase rising with increasing BMI. Individuals with a BMI below 22.5 kg/m² had an annual increase of less than 3% compared with a higher than 10% annual increase in men with a BMI of 27.5 kg/m² or more.

Thomas et al estimate that if all participants had maintained a BMI of under 25 kg/m² for the entire duration of the study, 68% of diabetes cases would have been prevented.

“These results emphasize the urgency of population-wide measures to control the increase in Type 2 diabetes prevalence, particularly by limiting the rising prevalence of obesity at all ages,” concludes the team.

MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a part of Springer Science+Business Media. © Current Medicine Group Ltd; 2009

Free abstract

Metabolic syndrome increases the risk for microalbuminuria more than three-fold in Middle-Eastern people with Type 2 diabetes, an Iranian study shows.

A number of reports have demonstrated an association between the metabolic syndrome and microalbuminuria, but this relationship has been less well studied in people with Type 2 diabetes.

Alireza Esteghamati and co-workers (Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran) recruited 800 consecutive adults with Type 2 diabetes attending for follow-up visits at an endocrinology clinic in Tehran.

Metabolic syndrome was defined by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria, with the exception of waist circumference, which was defined by recently established cut-offs for Middle-Eastern populations of 91.5 cm for men and 85.5 cm for women (compared with IDF values of 94 cm for men and 80 cm for women).

Microalbuminuria was defined by urinary albumin excretion between 30 and 299 mg/day on at least two of three occasions. Patients with macroalbuminuria and those with poor renal function were not included.

In this study, 645 patients had metabolic syndrome and 155 did not. Microalbuminuria was present in 237 (29.6%) patients with metabolic syndrome, and increased in prevalence with increasing numbers of metabolic abnormalities, report the authors in the journal Acta Diabetologica.

When patients were divided into those with (237 patients) and without (563 patients) microalbuminuria, metabolic syndrome was significantly more common among patients with microalbuminuria (90.3%) than those without (76.6%) even though there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of age, gender, and renal function.

Multivariate regression analysis revealed metabolic syndrome was the strongest correlate of microalbuminuria with an odds ratio of 3.3. This was followed by HbA1c and diabetes duration, which were both associated with a 1.3-fold greater risk for microalbuminuria.

The authors acknowledge that, as a cross-over study, the results do not allow them to draw any cause-and-effect conclusions, but suggest that “the presence of metabolic syndrome in a Type 2 diabetic patient is an independent alarm for renal involvement.”

“We expect interventional measures that improve metabolic control to aid in regression of microalbuminuria,” they conclude.

MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) is an independent clinical news service provided by Current Medicine Group, a part of Springer Science+Business Media. © Current Medicine Group Ltd; 2009

Free abstract

Know Yourself

The most important consideration to keep in mind is your own weight, target blood sugar level, drug regimen such as insulin shots and blood sugar lowering agents and the presence or absence of other diseases. What’s more, take into account your personal tastes and lifestyle needs.

Knowing Your Food Groups

Before creating an effective diabetic diet plan, you should know the fundamentals about food. Foods basically fall into four categories:

1. Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. Starches like bread, rice and cereals, fruits and vegetables, sweet drinks and snack foods such as sodas potato chips.First of all, identify and focus on the healthy sources of carbohydrates such as whole wheat bread as opposed to white bread. The second step is where carbohydrate counting comes in. The amount you need from this group depends on your target blood sugar level. A 45%-60% of carbohydrates of your daily calories is an acceptable amount although it may vary for different individuals.

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2. Fats: Contrary to popular belief, fats are needed by the body too provided they are in the right amount. Keep your fat intake within 20%-35% of your daily calories. Look out for saturated and trans fats and limit the intake of the former to no more than 7% of your daily calories and as much as possible avoid the latter completely. Choose omega 3 fatty acids rich foods sush as salmon and mackerel, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as olive oil for cooking your meals.

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3. Proteins: These are needed by the body primarily for tissue repair and muscle growth. But proteins are broken down into glucose too in a process known as gluconeogenesis to provide energy. Hence, it can trigger high sugar levels too. A modest 15%-20% protein of your daily calorie intake is a reasonable range.

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4. Fibers: These are usually found in fruits and vegetables. They should compose a larger part of your meal because they give the body the sense of being full and thus, curb your overeating tendencies. A 25-30g of fiber each day is good for you.

Keep in mind that 1 g of carbohydrate and 1g of protein provides 4 kilocalories each. 1g of fat is equivalent to 9 kilocalories.

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Use Food Exchange Lists

This information provides the diabetic patient the power to choose food from an approved list of food categories in order to cater, to a certain extent, to her own personal preferences. With it, the diabetic can substitute a certain food for another one belonging to the same food group. It provides approximately the same amount of the necessary nutrients and has a similar effect on the blood sugar levels. As a result, the target blood sugar level remains predictable and more importantly, still attainable.

When you are diagnosed with diabetes, it can seem like everything is changing. One question many patients have is whether they are still allowed to consume alcohol with diabetes.

Many patients have to give up a number of their favorite foods and change their exercise and lifestyle habits. In addition to being somewhat stressful, all these changes can also feel like a burden. Feeling as though you need to call your doctor before you does anything can seem overwhelming and many patients are unaware of what is on the list of do’s and don’ts. It is also the same with diabetes and alcohol.

This question, like all diabetes questions, has no single answer. The answer to this question depends on the severity of your diabetes as well as your current health and blood sugar levels. The American Diabetes Association states the following: “When your blood sugar is controlled and well established and you do not have complications, conditions, or medications that are affected by alcohol consumption, then modest amounts of alcohol with your diabetes can be a part of your diet plan”.

It is important to understand that if you drink alcohol with diabetes, your body is at increased risk for certain conditions. This does not mean that you may not have a drink, but there are precautions you should take. Understand that when you drink, your liver slows the glucose release in order to metabolize the alcohol in your blood stream. This means that drinking, especially after an insulin injection or without eating, can result in low blood sugar.

It is also recommended that patients with diabetes adhere to the recommended guidelines of one beer, one glass of wine, or one shot of liquor for women per day and two for men. For adults over the age of 65, diabetes and alcohol should be limited to one drink per day regardless of gender. This helps to reduce the risk of complications significantly. If you want to know more about whether you should or can drink with your diabetes, contact your doctor. While these guidelines are intended as a general rule of thumb, only your doctor can tell you what is best based on your symptoms and risk factors.

Changing your life due to diabetes is very stressful, but once your symptoms are under control, you will likely find yourself able to sit back and enjoy a drink with friends. Managing your symptoms and treating your body well is important, but talking with your doctor can help you ensure that you do not have to eliminate all things that you enjoy, such as having a drink with loved ones. Diabetes and alcohol can be a possibility, only with well controlled diabetes symptoms

There are many myths surrounding diabetes, and it can be hard to determine what is true and what is not. Many patients want to know if diabetes will really make them go blind. The fact is that the disease can certainly cause blindness, and is one of the top causes of blindness among adults. Equally important, however, is the realization that proper testing and eye care can often prevent the condition from occurring.

The vision problem that causes blindness in diabetics is also known as retinopathy. Retinopathy is damage to the eye due to blood flow problems. It causes decreased vision and when left untreated leads to blindness.

When your blood sugar is not well controlled, the blood vessels in the eye become weak. This leaks fluid into the part of the eye responsible for vision. Eventually the blood vessels close off, stopping blood flow to the retina. As the disease progresses, new blood vessels form. These vessels are quite fragile and bleed into the eyes causing severe vision problems and blindness.

Retinopathy occurs in approximately eight percent of patients in the first three years, with statistics rising to one quarter after five years and jumping to eighty percent after approximately fifteen years of being diagnosed with diabetes of any form. These percentages are quite large, but they do not mean that the same percentage of patients will go blind. They point instead to the reasons you should be tested annually for the problem.

When you have your vision checked annually, your eye doctor will be able to catch retinopathy in the early stages. In this stage, the condition is easily treatable. Controlling your blood sugar can also prevent the condition or help delay the onset and progression. It is very important to contact your eye doctor if you experience any vision changes including blurriness or trouble seeing clearly.

Blindness is still considered a side effect of diabetes even though it is preventable. Many patients do not have their vision tested often enough or fail to report symptoms. When you are diagnosed with diabetes, it becomes imperative that you have annual vision tests. When retinopathy is diagnosed early, it can be treated before symptoms become permanent and severe. Your vision is very important to your quality of life. If you are experiencing blurred vision or have not recently had your vision tested, seeking an eye exam is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

While many people are becoming aware of the prevalence of diabetes in the United States, many people still do not know the diabetes risk factors that put them at risk of developing the disease. If you are concerned about diabetes and looking to understand how high your risk of developing the condition is, the next few paragraphs are designed to help you understand more.

One of the biggest diabetes risk factors in developing diabetes is body weight. Obesity is the single largest predictor in the development of diabetes. If you are significantly overweight, taking steps to reduce your body weight by even five to ten percent can greatly lower your risk of diabetes and pre-diabetes.

A diagnosis of pre-diabetes is also a strong indication that you are likely to develop diabetes. If your doctor tells you that your blood sugar levels are indicative of pre-diabetes, it is very important to make diet and lifestyle changes immediately to prevent the onset of type II diabetes. High blood pressure is another major diabetes risk factor and maintaining a healthy cholesterol level can have many significant benefits on your health.

Other diabetes risk factors for diabetes include gestational diabetes as well as lifestyle, ethnicity, and family history. If you had gestational diabetes during a pregnancy, not only are you at risk of having it during subsequent pregnancies, but you are also at an elevated risk of developing type II diabetes in the future. This means taking active steps to lower your risks of diabetes.

When it comes to your lifestyle habits, the simple answer is to be active. If you do not exercise regularly, at least a few days a week, your risk of developing type II diabetes is much higher than that of an active person. Changing your exercise habits can greatly decrease your chances of developing diabetes and other health problems.

Your family history can also be a strong indicator of a genetic predisposition to diabetes. Your genetic predisposition is a high diabetes risk factor. If your parents or siblings have been diagnosed, caring for your body becomes even more important in helping to prevent the disease. Certain ethnic groups, such as Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian Americans, native Alaskans and Pacific Islanders are also at an elevated risk.

In short, knowing these diabetes risk factors can greatly help you reduce your risk of diabetes. If you have any of these risk factors, taking active steps to change your diet and lifestyle can greatly help you lower your chances of developing type II diabetes. While no diabetes risk factor is a certain indicator, and people without these factors can develop the condition, assessing risk and changing your lifestyle appropriately can have a significant impact on your life.

Type 2 diabetes has been described as the quiet epidemic. The link between obesity and the condition has long been known. Unless action is taken, the trend in the United States and other developed countries toward a more desk bound and inactive lifestyle will exacerbate the situation. For this reason, health experts encourage those who are pre-diabetic or who already have developed the full condition to have a more active life style.

Exercise is one of the easiest ways to start controlling your diabetes. The good news is that it is never too late to start exercising. For people with type 2 diabetes in particular, taking regular amounts of exercise can improve insulin sensitivity, lower the risk of heart disease, and promote weight loss. It would be sensible to consult your physician before starting an exercise program.

Your exercise routine can be as simple as a brisk 30 minute walk around your local park or your neighbourhood. If you have been particularly inactive, you should start slowly and build up the duration and intensity of your exercises. Walking the dog or doing some gardening or doing the housework helps. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park at the far end of the car park and walk to the shopping mall. Every little bit of exercise helps. By raising your heart rate for as little as 30 minutes each day makes a big difference in your blood glucose control and to the risk of you developing diabetic complications.

For best results and to lose weight, combine your exercise regime with a healthy, calorie controlled diet. If you consume more calories than you consume, your body will burn fat to get the extra energy it needs. The effect of this is to reduce your insulin resistance.

The results would be the sweetest rewards from the effort that you have exerted. All you need is the willingness and the determination to start exercising for a healthier life free of type 2 diabetes.?