Type 2 Diabetes - Four Reasons Why Adding Exercise to Your Daily Routine Can Improve Your Diabetes

By Beverleigh H Piepers

We know adding exercise into our day-to-day life can make a huge difference in our overall health, but how can it impact our blood sugar levels? It has been found regular exercise can help us better control blood sugar and thus better manage Type 2 diabetes.
Exercising can help support Type 2 diabetes for more than one reason. You can walk if that is all you are able to do but it is important because exercising gets the blood flowing. If you can't walk, move your hands, fingers, toes, ankles, arms, and legs while you are sitting. By moving you are helping to make everything flow better in your body.

Including Exercise in Your Daily Routine Helps to...

1. Improve Blood Sugar. Yes, believe it or not, exercise can help improve your blood sugar levels. It can help to not only regulate blood sugar, but exercise can also help improve insulin sensitivity which is an important part of preventing or reversing Type 2 diabetes.

2. Support a Healthy Weight. A huge part of supporting healthy blood sugar readings is maintaining a healthy weight. Exercise is a great way to keep your weight in check, and it doesn't take much! You don't have to spend hours at the gym, or even go to the gym. A simple brisk walk each day can do the trick.

3. Reduce Stress. Whether you have Type 2 diabetes or not, managing your stress levels is key to supporting your overall health. Exercise can reduce stress levels as it releases endorphins which are those feel-good hormones you get after a workout. Make it a habit to move your body daily whether through yoga, a walk, or going to one of your favourite exercise classes.

4. Improve Sleep. While you may not think sleep has anything to do with blood sugar regulation, it does! When you do not sleep well, your hormone and blood sugar levels suffer. You may also crave unhealthy foods which can lead to eating more sugar than you should. Exercise can improve your sleep habits, so strive to exercise at least a little each day to help you sleep better each night and feel alert the next day!

If you do not exercise, or just haven't been lately because you don't want to spend money or hours at the gym, know you don't have to! You can exercise in the comfort of your home by pressing play on an at-home workout video or online fitness class, or you can get out for a walk. It does not matter how you move your body, just get out and move! The more you move, the better you will feel and chances are you will also start to make healthier eating choices which can greatly improve the outcome with your blood sugar and Type 2 diabetes. By moving you are helping to make everything flow better in your body which is better than taking pills to artificially make things flow.

Although managing Type 2 diabetes can be very challenging, it is not a condition you must just live with. Make simple changes to your daily routine - include exercise to help lower both your blood sugar levels and your weight.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Type-2-Diabetes---Four-Reasons-Why-Adding-Exercise-to-Your-Daily-Routine-Can-Improve-Your-Diabetes&id=10078717

Type 2 diabetes: The best lunch to stop you from snacking and prevent blood sugar spikes

From express.co.uk

TYPE 2 diabetes can be controlled by eating the right kind of diet, but this can be difficult when balancing a busy schedule and eating on the go. There is one simple and tasty lunch which can fill you up and stop you from snacking on unhealthy foods while preventing blood sugar spikes.

Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the level of sugar in a person’s blood is too high. The condition can be dangerous, as if not controlled it can lead to problems with the heart, eyes, nerves, kidneys and feet. People with type 2 diabetes are advised to eat a healthy, balanced diet that is low in sugar, salt, fat and calories in order to keep blood sugar under control. But this can be difficult for people who are balancing a busy schedule and struggling to find the time to prepare healthy meals.

There are many shops and eateries that provide convenience food, enabling people in a rush to eat on the go, but many of these foods are high in calories, fat, sugar and salt.
So what’s the best option for a healthy and convenient lunch that won’t pile on the pounds and cause blood sugar rises?
Diabetes UK recommends making your own soup. While this does require some preparation time, it is quick to make and is also cheap and easy.
Soup can be stored in the fridge for three days or in the freezer for up to three months, so you can make big batches at a time and simply reheat them when you want to eat them.

The great thing about soup is it can be really filling, preventing you from needing to snack between meals.

             Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by eating the right diet (Image: Getty Images)

“Soup is one of the most filling foods you can eat. Research has shown that soup can keep you fuller for longer than eating the same ingredients separately,” said Diabetes UK.
“This makes soup a particularly good food if you have diabetes and trying to avoid snacking between meals.”
Homemade soup is recommended over ready-made soup, as the ready-made varieties can be high in salt. If you make your own, you can control exactly what you put in it.
“Soup can be made with almost any ingredient and is perfect for using up leftovers and odds and ends of meat, fish or vegetables,” said Diabetes UK.
“It can be thick and creamy or a warming hearty broth. It can even be served chilled on a summer’s day, such as gazpacho, which doesn’t even need cooking.”

                    Soup can be filling, preventing you from snacking (Image: Getty Images)

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1088111/type-2-diabetes-diet-food-lunch-soup-blood-sugar

Type 2 diabetes: One food you should always limit on your plate to control blood sugar

From express.co.uk

TYPE 2 diabetes can lead to serious health complications if left untreated. To prevent the condition developing or to control blood sugar there’s one food you should always look to limit.

Type 2 diabetes is a common condition in the UK, often caused by lack of exercise and poor diet. The condition causes a person’s blood sugar levels to become too high and can lead to complications such as heart disease and stroke. A healthy diet is one way to manage your blood sugar level. As part of this there are certain foods you should limit eating, such as white rice.

Some carbs are essential in everyone’s diet, as they provide energy and nutrients for a healthy lifestyle.
White rice is rich in carbohydrates, but having too much can raise blood sugar levels.
A study in the British Medical Journal found people who eat high levels of white rice may have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
If you have prediabetes you should take extra care about your rice intake.

Those who have already been diagnosed with diabetes can still enjoy rice, as long as it’s in moderation.

What rice should you eat?

The type of rice you eat is important though and you should always aim to eat rice with a moderate glycemic index (GI) score.

                  Type 2 diabetes: There's one food you should always look to limit (Image: GETTY)
Health experts at Healthline recommend eating the following three types of rice:

• Basmati
• Brown rice
• Wild rice

On the site it explains: “Brown rice, wild rice, and long-grain white rice includes more fibre, nutrients and vitamins than short-grain white rice.
“Short-grain white rice has a high GI, which means it’s 70 or higher, so you should avoid it if possible. It contains little nutritional value when compared to other forms of rice and starches.

“Basmati, brown and wild rice have GI scores in the moderate range. They have a GI of 56 to 69. These are generally OK to eat in moderation. Cooking times can alter GI score, so be careful not to overcook your rice.”

Other foods you should limit

Another high-carb food you should consider limiting in your diet to control blood sugar levels is white bread.
Studies have demonstrated how eating bread, bagels another refined-flour foods has been shown to significantly increase blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
One study in particular, titled ‘Carbohydrate-induced memory impairment in adults with type 2 diabetes’ found a meal containing a high-carb bagel raised blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes but also decreased brain function.
But in another study (‘Effect of fibre bread on the management of diabetes mellitus’) replacing white bread with high-fibre bread was found to significantly reduce blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1087130/type-2-diabetes-diet-foods-to-limit-carbohydrates-white-rice

Report: Size of waist, not weight, may be better indicator of diabetes risk

From local12.com/health

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - There is new research that might shift your focus off losing weight.
For years, we've been told that losing weight may be a good way to improve health, and for some things, that may be true. But a report in Diabetes Care found when it comes to diabetes risk, weight matters less than waist size, especially for women. It turns out waist size, often influenced by activity levels and the kind of foods you eat, is a better predictor of type 2 diabetes than how much you weigh.

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Researchers followed more than 136,000 women for nearly 15 years. They found diabetes risk went up by 59 percent when women had a waist size between 31 and 35 inches. This is compared to those with smaller waistlines. Waist sizes greater than 35 inches had three times the risk for diabetes in women.

The good news is you can often improve waist size by sitting less and moving more. Previous studies have found men get health benefits from a waist size of 36 inches or below.

https://local12.com/health/health-updates/report-size-of-waist-not-weight-may-be-better-indicator-of-diabetes-risk

Diabetes does not appear to affect children's test scores

From reuters.com

(Reuters Health) - Kids living with type 1 diabetes are no different from their peers in their reading and math test scores, a Danish study suggests.
The less common form of diabetes, known as type 1, develops in childhood or young adulthood when the pancreas fails to produce the hormone insulin, which is needed for the body to convert blood sugar into energy.

Complications of type 1 diabetes - like dangerously high blood sugar, or dangerously low levels of sugar in the brain - have both been associated with cognitive problems. But not all studies have tied type 1 diabetes to worse academic performance, researchers note in JAMA.
For the current study, they examined average reading and math scores for more than 631,000 public school children in grades 2 through 8 in Denmark over five years. They found no meaningful differences in average test scores between the 2,031 kids with type 1 diabetes and the rest of the students in the study.

“Being a parent myself to a child with type 1 diabetes, I know there is a lot to worry about in diabetes,” said lead study author Niels Skipper of Aarhus University. “The take-home message here is that school performance should not be one of them, and that children with diabetes have the same opportunities for learning and education as their peers,” Skipper said by email.
Children in the study took standardized tests in reading and math that were scored from 0 to 100.
Students with type 1 diabetes had been living with the condition for an average of 4.5 years and roughly two-thirds of them used insulin pumps.

Overall average test scores for kids with diabetes were 56.56, compared with 56.11 for children without diabetes. On math tests, average scores were 56.06 for students with diabetes and 55.68 for those without the condition. Average reading scores were 56.81 with diabetes and 56.32 without it. These differences were all too small to rule out the possibility that they were due to chance.
Test scores were below average, however, for diabetic students who had dangerously high blood sugar. In contrast, the students with diabetes without severely elevated blood sugar had average scores that were slightly above average.
This suggests that poor blood sugar control, and not just the diabetes diagnosis itself, are what may explain the potential for cognitive problems to develop with the disease, said Dr. Andrew Budson, chief of cognitive and behavioural neurology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and a researcher at Boston University School of Medicine.

Dangerously high blood sugar can increase the risk of strokes, and these episodes may in turn cause cognitive problems in people with diabetes, Budson, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
The inference “is that an increase in strokes is the only reason that individuals with diabetes end up with problems with thinking and memory in middle or late life,” Budson said.
“Now individuals with diabetes of any age know exactly what they need to do to keep their memory as strong as possible: they need to keep their blood sugar under good control because that will reduce their risk of strokes,” Budson advised.

The study wasn’t designed to determine whether or how diabetes might directly cause cognitive problems, and it also wasn’t designed to assess risk factors for stroke, a rare event in children.
One limitation of the study is that students had not been living with diabetes for that long when they took their standardized tests, and it’s possible that academic performance might get worse over time, the study authors note.
It’s also possible that results in Denmark, where there’s high awareness of how to manage diabetes and government-funded healthcare, may not reflect what would happen elsewhere.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-kids-diabetes/diabetes-does-not-appear-to-affect-childrens-test-scores-idUSKCN1PW2V7

What dried fruits and nuts should you eat if you are diabetic?

From timesnownews.com/health

Dried fruits and nuts are a good choice for a snack when you are on a weight loss diet or have blood sugar. They may also help in controlling blood sugar.

New Delhi: While you can be extremely careful with your meals if you are diabetic, snacks are a different story altogether. Most healthy snacks like fruits can mess with your blood sugar levels since they are high in glycemic index. In that case, you need to make sure that what you snack on when you are diabetic, it is both healthy and safe.
Dried fruits and nuts are a good choice for a snack when you are on a weight loss diet or have blood sugar. They may also help in controlling blood sugar. Here are the dried fruits and nuts you should eat on diabetes.

                                                           Photo Credit: Getty Images

Walnuts

According to a study published in the journal – Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, walnuts promote a feeling of fullness and keep cravings away. This can help in avoiding weight gain Another study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that women who ate walnuts had a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Another link between diabetes and walnuts is that walnuts help in reducing inflammation, which is linked to diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer's.

Almonds

The next best nut for diabetes are almonds which help in keeping blood sugar under control and also keep heart problems at bay. Almonds also contain magnesium and many diabetic people have a magnesium deficiency. Magnesium is an important mineral for bone and teeth strength, and therefore almonds are a great nut to include in the diet for diabetics.

Pistachios

Pistachios are rich in fibre and hence aid weight loss – which is extremely important for diabetic people. A study published in The Review of Diabetic Studies showed that people who ate pistachios showed a fall in their blood sugar levels compared to people who did not. Pistachios can be eaten as a snack or added to a drink, or a salad.

Disclaimer: Tips and suggestions mentioned in the article are for general information purpose only and should not be construed as professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or a dietician before starting any fitness programme or making any changes to your diet.

https://www.timesnownews.com/health/article/what-dried-fruits-and-nuts-almonds-walnuts-pistachios-should-you-eat-if-you-are-diabetic/360921

Type 2 Diabetes - 3 Tips to Help You Manage Your Blood Sugar Without Drugs

By Beverleigh H Piepers

According to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) National Diabetes Statistics Report 2017, over 100 million people in America have Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes. The report also states at least two in every five adult Americans will have Type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. With such startling statistics, it comes as no surprise a vast number of people are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes every year. The most shocking news for many people, however, is they may have to be on medications for the rest of their life.
However, today we have good news. You can manage your blood sugar levels with simple lifestyle changes and no drugs; yes no drugs! Here are three tips to help you out...

1. Manage your weight. When you have Type 2 diabetes, being overweight can increase the symptoms, and you are more likely to suffer from high blood sugar levels. It may seem like managing or losing weight is difficult, but it doesn't have to be. You can start small by doing easy things and move on to more complex methods.
Managing your food portions is the best place to start. You can do this by eating snacks between meals and reducing the amount of food you eat in one sitting. You may also look into eating more organic and low-carb foods as opposed to foods with processed sugars and fats.
It would also help if you considered incorporating fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet.

2. Stay physically active. If your weight is okay, you don't need to work out aggressively, but you can take up a physical activity you enjoy. You can start by walking a few blocks every day.
Being physically active not only helps you to keep your weight in check but is also beneficial in keeping your blood pressure, blood sugar and stress levels low. When these levels are at a healthy level, your body is also able to effectively produce and absorb insulin which kicks out the need to use drugs.

3. Embrace proper bedtime practices. People with Type 2 diabetes are more likely to have sleep apnea than those without the disease. Improper sleep is dangerous because it may cause blood sugar spikes. One of the best ways to ensure you sleep soundly is to have good bedtime routines.
Some of the steps you may start to do include...

• staying away from your electric devices in the 30 minutes before bed,
• avoiding aggressive physical activities before bed, and
• embracing deep breathing before bed.

Final thoughts. Receiving news you have Type 2 diabetes can be a significant blow. Being on meds for the rest of your life can be devastating but by starting small with the tips above, you can still live a healthy life free of diabetes medications.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Type-2-Diabetes---3-Tips-to-Help-You-Manage-Your-Blood-Sugar-Without-Drugs&id=10066163