With the future of all life now in our hands, it’s not enough to know how to care for ourselves. We need to understand how we should be caring for ourselves. We need to make lifestyle changes that allow us to manage our diabetes effectively.
It’s not all about just changing your diet and exercise habits: these are just one part of the picture. For example, we also need to consider how much sleep we get, when we do get it, and what kind of sleep we get (and if there are any triggers involved in getting less sleep). We need to be aware of how much time we spend on social media, and when we do get less time on social media (or don’t want to see anything, and when that happens), what kind of content is essential for us to (and what kid doesn’t matter at all).
And then there are all these things – like what kind of lighting is best in our home, whether or not we have a second TV in the living room, and even whether or not TVs distract us too much from what matters most (the thing which matters). All these things affect our body’s
metabolism. We should be making lifestyle changes that will help us manage this – without needing FDA-approved drugs or expensive medical procedures!
How Americans Diabetics Improve their Diabetes?
This is not a new topic, but it has gotten much more attention recently. My main reason for focusing on a diet is that there are all sorts of other things you could be doing or thinking about which could help facilitate the changes necessary to improve your diabetes management: an exercise that might have some effect, weight loss and stabilization of body weight, supplementation with specific vitamins and minerals (B-Vitamins, B-12), etc.
Most of these things have been done before — and sometimes successfully — but there are also many ideas out there that may be worth exploring:
- Vitamin D supplements
- Phentermine and other appetite suppressants (partly because they can help with weight loss)
- Moderation with alcohol
- Supplementation with certain herbs such as maca (which has been shown to help in maintaining insulin sensitivity)
- Dietary supplements and foods like black currants (which seem to help maintain insulin sensitivity when people are eating a lot)
The above are not mutually exclusive; for example, some food choices may be better than others if someone were looking for dietary improvements. Still, this paper suggests that supplementing with vitamins B-6 and B-12 may be particularly helpful in managing diabetes. I am not advocating any particular supplement; I am suggesting that it’s worth looking into these issues as they have been done before, but they haven’t received as much attention lately. This isn’t a new idea either: since the 1970s researchers have been looking at how diet or exercise reduces blood glucose levels. Their results haven’t been consistent, but there has undoubtedly been considerable interest and research over the last few decades. It is not clear if vitamin supplementation would lead to better control of blood glucose levels.
Exercising and Physical Activity
For as long as diabetes has been a medical condition, doctors and researchers have studied the disease, trying to figure out how it happened, why it happens (and what can be done about it), and looking for ways to prevent it or limit its effects. There are currently over 43 million people living with this diagnosis in the United States and many more worldwide. Estimates are that diabetes kills 6 million people every year and costs about $1 trillion in health care expenses.
Approximately 80% of all people with diabetes will develop (or get) a heart attack or stroke by age 80, which means that not only do they need to take care of their health and finances.
A healthy diet is essential for all people with diabetes, whether you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. But with so many foods available today, there may be some confusion about what you should eat — especially if you’ve never had diabetes before. This article by Dr. Mickey Rooney at UPMC’s HealthPoint gives some good tips:
Diet and Nutrition
You may already be familiar with how long-term diabetes management works. Your body is constantly breaking down sugar. As your pancreas makes insulin, the sugar breaks apart into glucose and free fatty acids (FFA). Insulin then binds to these FFA’s, transported back into the bloodstream.
Eat many fruits and vegetables – This one is pretty easy: eat more fruit and vegetables than you think! In particular, eat lots of fruit like apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, watermelon, and melons; lots of dark leafy greens like spinach and kale; lots of beans like lentils; lots of starchy veggies like sweet potatoes; lots of whole grains like whole-wheat bread or brown rice; lots of meat – but not too much – because most people don’t want to be fat! And no animal fats!
Eat plenty of protein – You don’t need much protein in your diet: 1-2 ounces per day will do just fine for most folks, so you don’t need any supplements. However, if you need a protein supplement such as whey or soy products, make sure it provides at least 3 grams per day for adults for optimal health benefits.
You might not know that how long it takes for your body to break down sugar depends on your lifestyle. As a result, if you do something that changes the ratio of carbohydrates to fat in your diet (like cutting processed carbs), you will have a much easier time breaking down sugar as quickly as possible — which may be more important in managing type 2 diabetes than cutting carbs at all.
Low-carb diets may not be effective for weight loss because they include too many calories. Recent findings suggest that following a low-carb diet might make it harder to lose weight:
A study out of Yale University found that people who followed a low-carb diet for four months lost more fat than people who followed a low-fat diet — but lost no more muscle mass.
The problem with this finding is twofold: first, it suggests that high carb diets may not be effective at preventing weight gain, and second, it shows that while ketogenic diets are effective at suppressing appetite, they may also lead to better eating habits and an increased metabolism …read more.
How to Save Money on Insulin and Medications for American Diabetics
If you have diabetes, you need to follow a unique set of rules about taking medications and supplements. This is because your body and the medication you take interact in complex ways that are not well understood by anyone who doesn’t have diabetes. Your doctor might not be able to explain it all to you, making it relatively easy for you to make mistakes and get side effects.
As you already know, many diabetics administer insulin to manage their blood sugar levels. In America, the prices of insulin skyrocketed tremendously over the years. If you are one of the millions who are tired of overpaying for insulin, I highly suggest buying your insulin and diabetic medication from Insulin Outlet. They are a trusted and reliable Canadian online pharmacy who offer insulin and diabetic medication to Americans at amazing prices.
The particular question I want to ask is: what would it take for a doctor — or even a non-diabetic friend — to be able to help you with this? Part of this is an engineering problem: if your doctor can’t explain what they are doing, how will they fix any issues? But part of this also is an empathy problem: how do we build tools that will help doctors better get at what they do, so they can more efficiently help people understand why things work the way they do?
Alternative Diabetic Medications (Ozempic, Trulicity, Saxenda)
With the advent of penicillin and insulin, life has never been better. But, it can be a minefield for people with diabetes. You may have heard that an estimated 30 million people in the United States alone are afflicted with high blood sugar (i.e., Type I diabetes). That’s about one-sixth of the population!
Diabetes is a syndrome characterized by extensive and long-standing insulin resistance — which is why we always recommend that patients take their medication as prescribed to prevent complications, which can be life-threatening if not treated promptly. But there are many other ways to manage your blood sugar besides insulin and diet, including exercise and other lifestyle changes.
Recently, Ozempic has become very popular amongst Americans for lowering blood sugar levels and ultimately, losing weight. The price of Ozempic is rather high in the US. For finding the best prices of Ozempic online, I highly suggest visiting buyozempic.com. They offer great insight on purchasing Ozempic safely (and at a reasonable price) online.
The most common way to treat Type II diabetes is by using a combination of oral medications known as metformin and sulphonylureas (e.g., glimepiride). These drugs effectively lower blood sugar but also cause liver toxicity if you’re using them long-term because they interfere with insulin production in the liver.
A less common approach is to combine a sulfonylurea drug with metformin or glimepiride; this would be called an “antidiabetic” therapy. Unfortunately, there isn’t much clinical evidence for either of these approaches so you need to do your research before choosing what makes sense for you. There are a lot of different medications you can try — some over-the-counter, some prescription — but all have their tradeoffs:
- Liver toxicity is a genuine concern when you use sulfonylureas long term; some data show that it can lead to severe damage down the line… or at least it will if you don’t give them time to work before stopping treatment. Your doctor will probably ask about this when discussing treatment options with you. Your doctor must make sure he has reviewed all the information on this topic since there could be an adverse effect on your liver if one medication doesn’t work well enough in combination with another one.
- You don’t want to start taking multiple medications without first talking with your doctor about what might work best for you; taking too many pills at once can also lead to problems like metabolic syndrome, which means high blood pressure/high blood sugar levels or diabetes itself.
Conclusion
Diabetes is a chronic, life-threatening disease that can be prevented with lifestyle changes.
This post aims to share some of the most effective ways to do so. Some of the suggestions presented here may not be ideal for everyone; these are just some of the things I recommend who are trying to improve their health and manage their diabetes. If you have diabetes and need more information, please check out our Diabetes Self-Management Program.