If you are afflicted by diabetes or have a family member with the condition, then you know that diet is a major factor in monitoring the disease. Diabetes is a disorder that affects the body’s ability to break down sugars in foods into their essential energy components. These building blocks of sugar are used by every tissue and cell in the body to maintain normal functioning. Without the vital hormone insulin, the body is unable to fully utilize the metabolic system that keeps the human body at optimal levels. By adjusting and monitoring your diet, you can help reduce your chances of having a detrimental reaction to high blood glucose levels.

When you eat food, your body begins metabolizing the contents of your stomach. Food is broken down into minerals, vitamins and energy. The more food you put into your body at one time, the harder this system has to work. Therefore, it is incredibly important for diabetics to limit the amount they eat at one time, but to eat enough through the day to keep the blood sugar levels relatively constant. The easiest way to do this is to eat six meals a day. Ideally, as a diabetic you should eat three moderately proportioned meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is also important that you supplement these meals with three smaller portioned snacks in between. By breaking up the calories and quantity of food throughout the day you will prevent viscous drops and spikes in your sugar levels.

Different foods cause different reactions to your blood sugar, this function is known as the glycemic index. Diabetics should be extra careful when picking which foods to eat at which times. You can help regulate your blood sugar levels by eating something with protein, such as cheese, when you eat something sugary, like fruits. You also need to learn to stay away from certain food and drink items as these may spike your levels dangerously high. The two biggest examples of these off-limits items are alcohol and processed sugars. Both are not complex carbohydrates and can skyrocket your glucose levels. Complex carbohydrates are better for a diabetic because they are broken down and then used, whereas simple and alcohol carbs just sit around in the system taking up space.

Although the amount and types of food may vary depending on your gender and size, a good rule of thumb for food quantities for an average adult diabetic can be found on many websites. Ideally, a medium sized adult should eat six servings of starches, three servings of vegetables, two servings of fruits, two servings of dairy, and five ounces of meat a day. Once again these servings should not be consumed in one big feast but broken up over the course of six smaller meals. Fats, such as nuts and olives, should be consumed infrequently and with careful moderation as they too can affect blood sugar levels.

As a diabetic your first line of defense is your diet. By selecting your dietary choices with care and forethought, you may be able to slow the progression of this disease. If you are diabetic and are not monitoring your diet as closely as you monitor your blood sugar, you may be making an error that could prove fatal. As with any decision that involves diabetes, you should discuss with your doctor any changes you are making and ask them to steer you in the right direction for optimal health.

You have heard it said a million times over, exercise makes the body stronger. But for a diabetic the results of exercise could mean benefits that you never dreamed possible. Everyone can see results of a healthier body by doing simple exercise everyday. Depending on your condition and overall health different exercises may be best for different situations.

Whether you are looking to lose weight, gain strength, improve flexibility or increase endurance, a doctor should always be consulted when an exercise program is started. You should also enlist the help of an exercise buddy; not only will you be more willing to follow through with the program, but you will also have a second pair of eyes looking out for your well being. For diabetics certain factors must be taken into account that may not normally affect a healthier individual. As you exercise your body will start to react in different ways, some beneficial and some detrimental.

If you are diabetic and you begin to run a mile a day, you may develop blisters that could become infected. Consideration must be taken to keep your feet free from any possible sores. In order to ensure this you should always make sure your shoes fit properly and that your socks stay as dry and clean as possible. These simple precautions could help prevent the all too common occurrence of extremity damage in diabetics.

Although there are many benefits to participating in a regular exercise program, such as lowered blood pressure and a reduced dependence on insulin, it should be noted that certain exercises could actually cause problems. Heavy weight lifting should be avoided at all costs, if you already have problems with your eyesight. Lifting weights can put pressure on the blood vessels behind your eyes as you strain, which may cause sensitive tissues to become inflamed or rupture. However, if you do not have eye damage, strength training is an excellent way to increase your body’s overall endurance.

All diabetics can benefit from the addition of flexibility training. Limbering the joints and muscles can help your body recover from the ill effects of diabetes and its varied symptoms. By adding yoga or any other form of low impact exercise, the body will begin to release endorphins that will help you cope not only with the physical demands of an autoimmune disease but also the mental ones. With a more relaxed body and mind, the blood pressure will decrease and so will the strain on various organs. This new relaxation may surprise you in its effectiveness of lowering your dependence on insulin and other diabetes medications.

As a diabetic you know that your life, your diet, your medications and other aspects must be monitored carefully and preferably by a medical professional. Diabetes is a serious medical condition that affects the bodies ability to convert simple sugar like glucose into the life giving energy needed to maintain healthy tissues and bodies. As with all helpful information regarding a disease, care should be taken to consult a doctor before beginning any program that may alter your normal body state.

Diabetes is a disorder that affects nearly eighteen million people and the numbers continue to grow. There are two major types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is often called juvenile diabetes because patients are diagnosed as children. This form of the disease is an autoimmune syndrome that prevents the production of insulin within the pancreas. Without this vital enzyme the body is unable to break down glucose into its essential energy matrix to feed the tissues and cells. Type 2 diabetes is similar in symptoms but not in actual function. With this second form of the disease, the patient is often an adult when diagnosed and the belief is that environment may play a greater role. For type 2 diabetics, the body may produce insulin but it may not be effective enough in performing its designated role. Regardless of which type of the disease is presented, all patients are in need of insulin.

There are three variations on how insulin can be introduced to the system. The most common and frequent form of insulin introduction for type 1 diabetes is through injection. An injection involves a needle and a syringe. The patient or patient’s guardian fills the syringe with the required amount of synthetic insulin. The needle is then placed into a fatty tissue, where the syringe is depressed and insulin is released. It is always best to inject into the abdomen, upper arm, or thigh where the tissue has a higher fat concentration. Injections into the hip or buttocks will work, but will not be as effective for rapid absorption.

For some type 2 diabetics an insulin pump may be necessary. An insulin pump is a small machine, roughly the size of a small electronic device like a phone or pager, that clips to the clothing. A tube runs from the machine into the body, much like a catheter or an IV. The machine then administers the insulin through the machine at a preset interval. Due to the fluctuations of blood glucose levels in regards to exercise, diet and other factors, the insulin pump is often programmed to deliver different amounts of insulin at different points during the day. Insulin pumps are worn twenty four hours a day and provide around the clock delivery of the much needed hormone.

The final option for insulin introduction is becoming more common for small children and others who are not comfortable with self injections. Although some training is necessary to find the exact amount of pressure needed for various parts of the body, the benefits of an insulin jet injector are immense. An insulin jet injector uses a burst of highly pressurized air to push the insulin under the skin, without the use of a needle. The result is an increase in absorption and a decrease in time for the insulin which has been introduced. While previously cost prohibitive, insulin jet injectors are finding their way into the mainstream markets.

No matter which insulin delivery method you decide to use, keep in mind that insulin is a mandatory metabolic hormone that must be carefully regulated and monitored. A medical professional is the most important person that you can consult and you should do so with any questions or concerns you may have regarding insulin and diabetes.

For diabetics insulin dependence is a way of life. Whether this vital hormone is delivered through syringe injections, jet injectors or pumps, a diabetic will need insulin for the rest of their life. Or will they? In the past ten years there have been amazing advancements in a procedure known as pancreatic islet transplantation. Before addressing this modern breakthrough, we must first understand what diabetes is and how insulin is involved.

Diabetes, especially type 1, is an autoimmune condition that affects the pancreas. The pancreas is a small, normally ignored organ located near the stomach. The pancreas’ entire existence is for the production of hormones and enzymes that are needed by the body to fully digest and absorb food. These elements break down the food we eat into the basic building blocks of energy and nutrition and that is how the body grows, heals and maintains itself. In diabetics the pancreas produces none or too little insulin and the energy rich glucose in the blood stream goes unused causing a whole host of problems.

Pancreatic islet transplantation has been widely known since the summer of 2000, when a group of scientists reported that they had found a way to isolate the needed pancreas tissue that produces insulin. The pancreas contains clusters of cells, particularly beta cells, that manufacture insulin called the islets of Langerhans. By taking these clusters out of cadaver donors and purifying the islets, the scientists were able to transfer them into diabetic patients.

Five years after the transplantation over ten percent of the patients no longer needed daily injections of insulin, their bodies were producing insulin on their own. The remainder of the patients, while still needing insulin at various points, reported that they were more able to reduce their blood sugar levels and achieve stabilization. A second study done in 2006 showed even more promise when over one third of that test group was able to become insulin free.

As with all medical procedures, pancreatic islet transplantation runs some risk to the patient. The largest of these is the rejection of the donor tissue. Leading up to and immediately following the transplant, patients need to take a wide range of immunosuppressive drugs to keep the body from destroying the new tissue as a foreign body. Diabetics already have a suppressed immune system so the addition of these drugs may lead to an increase in infections.

It is the belief of many in the scientific community that with more time pancreatic islet transplantation will be more widely available to a greater number of patients. There are studies under way to grow and harvest other types of these tissues. Work with both swine pancreas and stem cell research is under way to find cheaper and more efficient ways of producing the vital islets of Langerhans. Hopefully in time diabetics will find that one short stay in the hospital for a transplant may reduce or eliminate the need for daily injections of insulin and routine monitoring of their blood glucose levels.

Whether you are a newly diagnosed diabetic or one who has been suffering with the disease for years, there are ways of helping to lower your dependence on insulin. One of the most effective and possibly the most beneficial is weight reduction. It seems that doctors are saying that lowering your weight and overall body mass index will help a whole host of problems; and when it comes to diabetes this is even more true.

Type 2 diabetics are those whose bodies do not produce enough insulin or effective insulin to help transfer glucose from the blood stream into usable energy for tissues. The result is an overload of blood sugars and a wide range of diabetic symptoms. Although diabetes is considered an autoimmune disease if you have type 1 diabetes; type 2 diabetes is actually considered to be affected more by environment on already stressed genes. All diabetics need to monitor and regulate their blood sugar levels; however, type 2 diabetics may have a greater chance of decreasing their insulin dependence through the loss of weight.

In recent years the entire world has been educated on the overall dangers of obesity and the benefits of weight loss. For diabetics losing a few pounds may not only help improve their quality of life, but also their longevity. Due to its destructive and stressful nature on the body, excessive weight can actually cause diabetes symptoms to be more aggressive. Losing weight can reduce blood pressure, which is of vital importance to diabetics who suffer from eye deterioration and disease. The eyes are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in blood pressure; as anyone who has seen spots during exercise can attest.

Some of the many symptoms of diabetes are fatigue and joint pain. Many diabetics will be surprised to learn that both of these can be lessened and even alleviated by weight reduction. The lower extremities can be greatly afflicted by diabetes due to nerve damage and other complications. By relieving the burden of carrying around additional weight, patients will find that their hips, knees, ankles and even back will feel less stressed and stiff.

Also, as in all patients, with the shedding of a few extra pounds comes the shedding of a few digits off of a cholesterol score. High levels of cholesterol is one of the largest contributing factors of diabetic heart disease. By simply losing weight a patient could easily lower their cholesterol without the aid of prescription medications. Although all care should be taken and doctors consulted if they are already using cholesterol inhibiting medicines.

As with any weight loss plan, a medical professional should be consulted before drastic changes take place. For diabetics the decision to lose weight may be one of the best they make, but extra precautions should be taken. First and foremost, as the body weight and condition change the insulin and other diabetic medications will need to be adjusted; only a qualified medical practitioner is in a position to correctly and safely change medical dosages. In addition to the monitoring of medications, a diabetic should be aware of maintaing healthy dietary rations during a weight loss program. A diabetic should have the following division of food categories throughout the day: fifty percent carbohydrates, thirty percent fat, and fifteen percent protein, with the remainder being taken up by other important nutrients. For type 2 diabetics the decision to lose weight may be the answer to losing their dependence on insulin.

Diabetes is unlike any other health problem. It requires treatment on a daily basis, as well as knowledge on coping with specific situations. While life with diabetes can present itself as a challenge, it doesn’t have to run every aspect of your life.

The goal of treating diabetes is to keep your blood sugar as close to normal as possible. Not too low (Called hypoglycemia) and not too high (Called hyperglycemia). This can be achieved by eating healthy, exercising, and utilizing insulin and medications to help control the sugar in your blood.

If you fail to properly treat your diabetes, it can lead to some fairly serious problems. Over time, high blood sugar can lead damage to blood vessels, kidneys, and other vital organs. Long term consequences can sometimes be severe, such as a stroke or heart attack.

The most import thing for someone with diabetes to remember is to spend the time everyday to make sure that they’re staying healthy. It’s also important to turn to loved ones, family and friends to help cope when going through difficult times.

With all of the technology available in the medical world today, having diabetes doesn’t have to be a death sentence like it was in the past. With the proper care and treatment, the majority of diabetics in todays world go on to lead happy and healthy lives.

Diabetes is a life-long disease caused by high levels of sugar in the blood stream. It can be caused by too little insulin,
resistance to insulin, or both.

There are 3 main types of diabetes, and therefore there are many different symptoms of diabetes. The more symptoms you have the greater risk you have at developing the disease. Listed below are the different types of diabetes and the symptoms associated with each type.

Type 1 diabetes – This is usually diagnosed in children. The body makes little or no insulin, and daily injections of insulin are required to maintain life. Daily management of the disease is required or else medial emergencies may arise.

Type 2 diabetes – is far more common than type 1 and makes up 90% or more of all cases of diabetes. It usually occurs in adulthood, but more and more children are starting to develop it because of obesity rates. Here, the body does not make enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels normal. Many people with type 2 diabetes do not know they have it, and can carry it around for a number of years before complications arise. Type 2 diabetes is becoming more common due to the growing number of older Americans, increasing obesity, and failure to exercise.

Gestational diabetes – Develops anytime during pregnancy because of high blood glucose levels. The person usually does not have diabetes and after the pregnancy blood sugar levels return to normal.

If you believe you have diabetes please consult with your family doctor.