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In my last article about diabetes, I explained which tests you need to determine whether you’ve got diabetes or pre-diabetes.

Now I’m going to share with you my top advice for preventing — and reversing — these conditions.

Eating Well

The foods you eat can have huge effects on your health. Eating the right foods will balance your blood sugar, reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, and improve liver detoxification — all of which help prevent and reverse insulin resistance and diabetes.

In general, you should follow a whole-foods diet that contains plenty of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and detoxifying foods.

Here are more details.

When to Eat:

* Eat protein for breakfast every day

* Eat something every 4 hours to balance blood sugar

* Eat small protein snacks in the morning and afternoon

* Finish eating at least 2 to 3 hours before bed

How to Eat:

* Control the glycemic load of your meals by combining protein, fats, and whole-food carbohydrates at every meal or snack

What to Eat:

* Organic produce and animal products

* High-quality protein, such as fish and shellfish

* Cold-water fish such as salmon, halibut, and sable, which contain omega-3 oils that reduce inflammation

* Up to eight omega-3 eggs a week

* Low-glycemic legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, and soybeans

* Fresh fruits (berries, cherries, peaches, plums, rhubarb, pears, and apples are optimal) and vegetables (including low-glycemic vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, kale, spinach, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts)

* Detoxifying foods such as cruciferous vegetables, green tea, watercress, dandelion greens, cilantro, artichokes, garlic, citrus peels, pomegranate, and even cocoa

* Herbs such as rosemary, ginger, and turmeric

* Garlic and onions

* 30 to 50 grams of fiber a day, especially soluble or viscous fiber (legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, vegetables, and fruit)

* Extra-virgin olive oil

* Soy products such as soymilk, soybeans, and tofu

* Nuts and seeds, including raw walnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, and pumpkin and flax seeds

* Chocolate that contains 70 percent cocoa (up to 2 to 3 ounces a day)

What Not to Eat:

* All processed or junk foods

* Foods containing refined white flour and sugar, such as breads, cereals (cornflakes, Frosted Flakes, puffed wheat, and sweetened granola), flour-based pastas, bagels, and pastries

* All foods containing high-fructose corn syrup

* All artificial sweeteners and caffeine

* Starchy, high-glycemic cooked vegetables, such as potatoes, corn, and root vegetables such as rutabagas, parsnips, and turnips

* Processed fruit juices

* Processed canned vegetables

* Foods containing hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils

* Processed oils such as corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, and canola

* Red meats (unless organic or grass-fed) and organ meats

* Large predatory fish and river fish, which contain mercury and other contaminants in unacceptable amounts

* Dairy

* No more than 3 glasses of red wine per week

Keep Moving

By targeting belly fat, regular exercise can improve insulin sensitivity, prevent and even reverse diabetes, and reduce the risk of complications.

Start with 30 minutes of walking every day. You may need to do sustained aerobic exercise for up to an hour 5 to 6 times a week to control full-blown diabetes. Add interval training (described in UltraMetabolism) and strength training to improve metabolism even more.

Supplements

I recommend a number of different supplements for insulin resistance and diabetes, depending on the severity of the problem:

1. A multivitamin and mineral.
2. Calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D.
3. Fish oil (1,000 to 4,000 mg)
4. Chromium (500 to 1,000 mcg day)
5. Antioxidants (such as vitamins C and E)
6. Extra vitamin B6 (50 to 150 mg a day) and B12 (1,000 to 3,000 mcg) to protect against diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage.
7. Biotin (2,000 to 4,000 mcg a day)
8. Alpha-lipoic acid (300 mg twice a day)
9. Evening primrose oil (500 to 1,000 mg twice a day)
10. One to two 500 mg tablets of cinnamon twice a day
11. Other herbs and supplements that can be helpful include green tea, ginseng, bitter melon, gymnema, bilberry, ginkgo, onions, and garlic
12. Banaba leaf (Lagerstroemia speciosa); 24 mg twice a day
13. Konjac fiber, four capsules 10 minutes before meals with a glass of water

Stress Management

Stress triggers insulin resistance, promotes belly fat, increases inflammation, and can cause diabetes.  Practice relaxation techniques, like yoga, breathing, and meditation, regularly.

Medications

A number of medications may be helpful for diabetes. The main classes include:

* Biguanides, especially metformin (Glucophage). They can help improve insulin sensitivity.

* Thiazolidinediones, including rosiglutazone (Avandia) and pioglitazone (Actos). They can help increase insulin sensitivity but can cause weight gain and liver damage.

* Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors, which include acarbose and miglitol, can help lower the absorption of sugar and carbohydrates in the intestines.

Older medications include sulfonylureas include glipizide, glyburide, and glimepiride. I don’t recommend them: They only reduce your sugar temporarily and actually worsen diabetes over time.  Plus, they increase the risk of heart attacks.

Insulin is your last resort and can cause weight gain and increased cholesterol and blood pressure.  Many patients can get off insulin entirely if they are treated early and aggressively with lifestyle changes.

Remember, diabetes is completely preventable and often reversible.

And you don’t need to limit your efforts to medication or insulin. Start making the lifestyle changes I’ve described here, and you should see quick and dramatic results.

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Mark Hyman, MD is a pioneer in functional medicine, practicing physician and best-selling author. A sneak preview of his book “The UltraSimple Diet” is available.  See The UltraWellness Blog for more on Testing for Insulin Resistance: http://www.ultrawellness.com/blog/insulin-resistance

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com
Permalink: http://www.submityourarticle.com/a.php?a=26047

by Andrew Bicknell

Many women who become pregnant are unfamiliar with gestational diabetes until they are diagnosed during their second trimester. If you are currently pregnant or are trying to get pregnant then it is important that you are aware of this condition that affects only about 4% of all pregnant women. Most women are not affected by gestational diabetes but with the increasing obesity rates and un-healthy eating habits it is becoming more of a problem.

Gestational diabetes is a disease that appears during pregnancy and goes away once the baby has been born. In a few instances it does not go away causing the woman to become a type 2 diabetic. Most doctors attribute this problem with the hormonal changes that take place in a pregnant woman but there is still no clear cut known cause. No matter the cause it is a very serious issue that if left untreated can have severely negative health effects on both mother and baby.

Most women who are eventually diagnosed with gestational diabetes are unaware that they have it. This is why it is important that every pregnant woman get tested during their 24th to 28th week of pregnancy. If there are symptoms they will manifest much like any other person who is affected by diabetes. Increased frequency of urination, constant hunger despite eating, general fatigue and lethargy, carbohydrate cravings, increased thirst, and weight loss are all signs of gestational diabetes.

Gestational diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar levels during the term of a woman’s pregnancy. Fortunately it is easy to control it effects through changes in diet and exercise frequency. Normally these lifestyle changes are easy to incorporate into daily life and the health benefits far out-weigh any inconvenience they might pose.  The changes in diet consist of eating healthy foods and avoiding sugar and other high carb foods. If you are diagnosed your doctor will recommend a dietician who specializes in helping women with gestational diabetes. Working together with your health care practitioners you can create a gestational diabetes diet that best fits your needs.

For more information about the symptoms of gestational diabetes please visit the web site Diabetic Diet Plans by Clicking Here.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_803027_17.html

About the Author
http://www.health-choices-net.com

Here’s a brief rundown of some conditions you may experience prior to talking with your doctor about possibly having diabetes:

• Thirst (constant)
• Urination (increased)
• Appetite (increased but usually with no weight gain)
• Tiredness (extreme)
• Nausea (general feeling of being sick)
• Yeast infection (in both men and women)
• Impotence (in men only)

An experience with one or more of these symptoms might make you want to visit the doctor as soon as possible to get checked out. Your body may be having trouble producing enough insulin to allow the conversion of sugar and starches to the sugar it usually uses to expend energy (thus the constant state of tiredness). In other words, you find yourself with an insulin deficiency.

In other cases your body becomes “immune” to the insulin it produces and it cannot use its own production to process sugar. At present you will only be able to manage your symptoms with proper diet, exercise and in some cases medicine; there is no cure.

If you do have diabetes, proper diet and consistent exercise is extremely important to you in order to keep the disease from becoming a problem. Getting a handle on what and when to eat will help you control this disease, however. A regular schedule of physical activity must also be included, e.g., walking, bicycling, aerobic dance, swimming, etc.

Visit your doctor — he or she might believe that medication is the best thing for your condition. Don’t let the notion that you’ll absolutely have to take daily insulin shots keep you out of the doctor’s office. Insulin also comes in pill form and it can sometimes be prescribed by a doctor depending on the patient’s condition.

So few people understand what diabetes is that it’s helpful to get a general bit of information on this disease. Even the most basic but factual information can help you get an idea about what to look out for in monitoring your own health.

Basically speaking, you cannot “get” diabetes from eating or drinking too much sugar. Whoever made up that story did us all a dis-service. You will end up overweight from your high caloric intake, but you won’t mysteriously develop what the “old folks” used to call “sugar diabetes”.

Too many high calorie foods and beverages will, however set you on the road to obesity. If you become obese from a steady diet of high caloric food and drink and neglect to exercise you will, however, increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

If you’ve got diabetes then you have a high level of sugar in your bloodstream. A state of diabetes means that the body has a problem processing glucose (i.e., sugar). You may have diabetes but show no outward signs of having any illness. Meanwhile, the damage is being one in your body — you see no obvious symptoms.

Here’s a list of some conditions you might find yourself dealing with. The symptoms include:

- a state of constant thirst
- an increase in urination
- a large appetite, usually without weight gain
- extreme fatigue
- a yeast infection (in either a man or a woman)
- impotence in males
- general feelings of being ill or nauseous

For more information about Diabetes and how you can recognize the sypmtoms and ultimately control the disease for a better life, visit Control Your Diabetes.