How to Avoid Type 2 Diabetes - Part3 Understanding Diabetes

Part3 Understanding Diabetes

1 Differentiate between the different types of diabetes. Diabetes affects the way that blood sugar (glucose) is processed in your body. An essential energy source, glucose is present in the bloodstream after digesting food. Insulin, normally produced by the pancreas, assists the glucose out of the blood and distributes it to the liver cells, muscles, and fat, where it is turned into usable energy for the body. Diabetes is identified as Type 1, Type 2, and Gestational Diabetes.

• Type 1 diabetes: This condition involves destruction of more than 90 percent of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, causing the pancreas to cease making insulin or to make very little. Type 1 diabetes tends to occur prior to the age of 30 and it may involve environmental factors and genetic predisposition.
• Type 2 diabetes: While the pancreas continues to produce insulin, or even higher levels of insulin, the body develops a resistance to the insulin, causing the insulin to not be used properly for the body's needs and blood sugar levels remain consistently too high. While this type of diabetes can occur in children and adolescents, it usually begins in people over 30 and becomes more common as people age. Being overweight is a major risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes.
• Gestational diabetes: This type of diabetes develops in some women during pregnancy. Left undiagnosed and/or untreated, serious side effects can injure the mother and affect the unborn child. Having gestational diabetes that resolves after delivery increases your chances of developing Type 2 Diabetes at some point of your life.

2 Know the dangers of Type 2 Diabetes. Understanding how diabetes can disrupt your life can help motivate you to make the necessary lifestyle and diet changes to prevent the disease. Some of the complications from Type 2 Diabetes can be quite severe. Possible complications include:

• Lowered blood supply to the skin and nerves
• Fatty substances and blood clots clogging blood vessels (called Atherosclerosis)
• Heart failure, heart attack, or stroke
• Damage to the eyes, which may cause permanently poor vision
• Renal (kidney) failure
• Nerve damage (with numbness and pain and loss of function)
• Inflammation, infections and skin breakdown especially of the feet
• Angina (heart pain)

3 Recognize Type 2 Diabetes risk factors that are controllable. Some of the factors that increase your risk for developing diabetes are within your control. Risk factors for diabetes that can be controlled with diet and lifestyle changes include:

• Obesity: Based on body mass index, a BMI over 29 increases your odds of diabetes to one in four. Losing weight can drastically reduce your odds of developing Type 2 Diabetes.
• A diagnosis of heart disease or high cholesterol: Cardiovascular risks include high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, and high LDL cholesterol, and a study showed that one in four people in Europe suffering from these risk factors were also pre-diabetics. Diet and exercise can both help reduce your risk of heart disease and high cholesterol.
• Eating a diet high in sugar, cholesterol, fat, and processed food: Diet is tied closely to diabetes. Focus on eating healthier foods.
• Irregular or no exercise: Exercising less than 3 times per week increases your risk for diabetes. Work on integrating physical activity into your daily life.

4 Acknowledge risk factors for diabetes that you cannot control. There are some risk factors for developing Type 2 Diabetes that are not within your control. However, being aware of these factors can help you assess your overall risk for developing the disease. Risk factors include:

• Being older than age 45: Note that pre-menopausal women are probably helped by the levels of estrogen, which helps to clear away fatty acids that cause insulin resistance, and helps insulin absorb glucose more rapidly.
• Having a parent, sibling, or other family member who has or did have Type 2 diabetes: This can indicate a family gene predisposing you to diabetes.
• Being of Hispanic, African American, Native American, Asian, or Pacific Islander descent: These subgroups are at almost double the risk of white Americans.
• Experiencing gestational diabetes during pregnancy: Up to 40 percent of women who experienced gestational diabetes are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.
• Being born with a low birth weight: A low birth weight increases your chances of developing diabetes by 23 percent for babies born under 5.5 pounds and by 76 percent for babies under 5 pounds.

5 Act early. High blood sugar can be corrected before lasting damage sets in. If you have the risk factors associated with diabetes, it is important to get regular blood or urine screening tests and to respond by controlling your lifestyle factors. If tests reveal that you have pre-diabetes, you have an increased chance of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in the future. Pre-diabetes is a part of metabolic syndrome which is "a group of risk factors -- high blood pressure, high blood sugar, unhealthy cholesterol levels, and abdominal fat." While such a diagnosis can be frightening, it's also an opportunity to take back your health and to slow, reverse, or avoid Type 2 diabetes through lifestyle changes.

• Pre-diabetes exists where your blood glucose is higher than normal. It's a key indicator of metabolic breakdown taking place, which indicates a movement towards Type 2 Diabetes.
• Pre-diabetes is reversible, but left ignored, the American Diabetes Association warns that your odds for getting Type 2 diabetes within a decade are almost 100 percent.
• The CDC recommends that anyone aged 45 or over should be tested for diabetes especially if you're overweight, and people under 45 should be tested if they are overweight and have any other risk factor for diabetes.

6 Return for testing. After 6 months of improving your diet and exercise habits, return for a test to see how your blood sugar levels have changed.

• Always keep monitoring with your doctor. Follow your doctor's advice. In rare cases, your doctor may recommend taking medication such as Metformin, to reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes.
• If you need help, consider speaking to a registered dietitian who can assist you with developing a meal plan.

Tips

•           Regularly schedule appointments in advance with your doctor to monitor your urine and blood if you are at risk for diabetes. Set automatic reminders on your phone or online calendar to ensure you keep your appointments.
•         A study in the Netherlands showed that men eating a diet high in potatoes, fish, vegetables, and legumes appear to have a lower risk for diabetes.
•          It has been noted that breast-fed babies are less likely than bottle-fed babies to develop Type 1 Diabetes.

Warnings

•         Untreated diabetes can lead to heart disease, which in turn can bring about death. If you discover that you have any risk factors for diabetes or testing determines you have pre-diabetes, make the lifestyle changes to reverse the condition and avoid a diabetes diagnosis.
•             Always talk to your doctor about major changes to your diet and lifestyle to ensure that you are making changes safely.