6 Ways To Lower Your Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
You probably know all about type 1 diabetes. This condition is typically diagnosed during childhood, and it forces individuals to constantly check their blood sugar levels. Unfortunately, there is no way to cure or prevent this disease.
However, many adults and even some children are being diagnosed with the preventable type 2 diabetes. Individuals with this condition have to adjust their diets or perhaps take insulin therapy to get the disease under control.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin to naturally manage the body’s blood sugar level. Fat, liver and muscle cells also become more resistant to the insulin the body does make. Those cells thus do not absorb the sugar they need to function properly. If left untreated, diabetes can cause kidney disease, neuropathy and heart problems.
More than 88 million Americans are also suffering from prediabetes, which is elevated blood sugar that does not rise to the level of diabetes. While many people with prediabetes end up developing type 2 diabetes, there is a way to reverse the progress of the former illness. Here are six diabetes prevention tips.
1. Control Your Sugar Intake
If you have prediabetes, the last thing you want to do is add excess sugar or refined carbohydrates into your body. Google “What is sucrose,” and read about this and other types of sugars. Then discard the items in your home that contain lots of those sugars.
2. Drink Water
Drinking water instead of soda is an easy way to reduce the sugar in your diet. Water is completely natural and does not contain any of the preservatives found in other drinks. There is even research indicating that increased water consumption may help control blood sugar.
3. Lose Weight
Most, but not all, people who develop type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese. Those who carry excess fat around their abdominal organs, including their liver, are at particular risk for this condition. That is because this visceral fat increases insulin resistance.
You do not have to lose a ton of weight to lower your chances of developing diabetes. One study found that individuals who dropped just seven percent of their body weight reduced their diabetes risk by nearly 60 percent. According to the American Diabetes Association, those with prediabetes should lose at least seven to ten percent of their body weight to prevent their condition from progressing.
4. Get More Active
Cutting sugar from your diet and becoming more physically active should help you slim down quickly. Regular exercise, in particular, may lower your blood sugar and keep it within a healthy range.
Try to get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise per week. Common aerobic exercises include swimming, running and biking. You should also increase your balance and strength by doing resistance exercises, such as calisthenics and yoga, two to three times a week.
When you are not exercising, you should limit your periods of inactivity. If you spend hours in front of the computer for work every day, take short standing or walking breaks every half hour.
5. Quit Smoking
Smoking is linked to many severe health conditions, including type 2 diabetes. Quitting smoking, contrastly, reduces the risk of diabetes. One study followed approximately 7,500 middle-aged men in England. Researchers found that five years after men in the study stopped smoking, their chances of developing diabetes decreased. Just 20 years after they quit smoking, they had the same diabetes risk that never-smokers did.
6. Choose Healthy Fats
Even if you are trying to lose weight, you should not cut fats out of your diet completely. Unsaturated fats can actually improve your vascular health and good cholesterol levels. You can find these fats in certain fish, including tuna and salmon. Other sources of unsaturated fats include seeds, nuts, and nut-based oils.
Following the above tips should not just reduce your chances of developing type 2 diabetes. These suggestions should improve your overall health, as well.
