The Risk Factors That Make You Susceptible To Diabetes

By Juanita Swindell

How you strike a balance between living your life to the fullest and taking the necessary precautions to keep diabetes at bay can be a tricky tightrope to walk on. If you take into account a few factors that put you at risk for type 2 diabetes, you can live a diabetes-free life. While there are certain risks that are passed down from one generation to another, there are a few others you can consciously keep a check on.

A Sedentary Way Of Life
There is nothing that damages your health more than a sedentary lifestyle or a lack of exercise. Staying active is very advantageous to your health because it helps the insulin in your body to become more effective and also minimizes insulin resistance. If you are inactive, you can end up becoming overweight, which is one of the biggest precursors for this disease.

Consuming Processed Foods
Highly processed foods come with refined oils that can cause inflammatory conditions such as type 2 diabetes. These foods are digested by the body more quickly and so can out people at risk for getting diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Heavily relying on processed foods, little fibre content and poor quality fats is said to be very unhealthy in nature.

Obesity
Obesity or being alarmingly overweight is one of the top causes for this condition. While a majority of the population is already obese, the percentage continues to climb up as many children and teenagers are also diagnosed with diabetes owing to obesity.

Gestational Diabetes
If you had diabetes while you were pregnant, there are chances that you could develop type 2 diabetes in the later stages of your life. So also, if you have given birth to a baby weighing 9 pounds or more, you are at a higher risk of developing the condition.

Other Risk Factors

If you have had a heart attack or a stroke, have schizophrenia, bipolar illness, depression, polycystic ovary syndrome, or have a low level of HDL, that is good cholesterol, or are age 45 years and older, you are more susceptible to diabetes than the rest of the population.

You can try losing weight if you are overweight, eating healthily instead of a high calorie diet, exercising regularly and seeking medical guidance, if you want to lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. You should even consult your medical practitioner about the medicines you take and if they increase your risk of developing the condition in any way.

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