Blood Sugar and Diabetes

If you are one of approximately 18 million Americans living with diabetes, we hope you will find this page informative and helpful, particularly if you are newly diagnosed. Diabetes is a silent disease that occurs when your blood glucose is too high. While your body naturally has and needs glucose in your blood, too much is bad for your health and could cause damage to the eyes, kidneys and nerves.

Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose (sugar) for our body to use for energy. The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose enter the cells of our bodies. When you have diabetes, your body either does not produce enough insulin, or cannot use the insulin it does produce as well as it should. This causes glucose to build up in your blood. Click here to receive a Free Glucose Monitor.

Left untreated, diabetes can cause serious complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, loss of feeling to the hands and feet and lower extremity amputations. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels as we age is critical to promoting good health. High levels of blood sugar are associated with adverse affects on ones vision, heart/circulation, kidneys and nervous system. Several vitamins, minerals, herbs and antioxidants have been studied for their efficacy at promoting healthy blood sugar and protecting cells from the damage of elevated blood sugars with favorable results. Over 65 and on Medicare? You may qualify for free Diabetic Testing Supplies. Find out now through Liberty Medical.

Diabetes is now considered an epidemic that is affecting not just a select number of countries but the entire globe. It joins a short, but unfortunately, growing list of diseases of which, HIV/AIDS is part of. Projections for the disease’s spread are alarming. The World Health Organization (WHO) pegs the number of diabetes patients to reach 240 million people worldwide by the year 2010.

The disease comes in two forms: Type I and Type II. Both, however, are similar in that both types involve the hormone insulin in the body and its ability to process sugar in the bloodstream. Too much or too little sugar in the body has adverse effects ranging from kidney failure, eyesight loss, and in extreme cases, coma.

Type I diabetes occurs when the immune system attacks the insulin-forming cells in the body, misled into thinking that these cells are harmful. The pancreas therefore fail to produce insulin leading to a heightened level of sugar in the body, which puts stresses the kidneys, leading to further complications. Most of the patients demonstrate the disease’s symptoms at around 15 years of age, although the disease may have already been contracted years before. It is because of this that experts have interchanged the term Type I diabetes with “juvenile onset diabetes”. However, recently, this practice has been set aside in light of the alarmingly increasing number of young people contracting Type II diabetes. Find

Type II diabetes (also known as “adult onset diabetes”) is characterized by the body’s failure to process sugar in the bloodstream despite the fact that insulin is produced by the pancreas. This could be because not enough insulin is produced or that the body simply does not respond to it. This form of diabetes accounts for 90 percent of the estimated 300 million cases of the disease worldwide.  Find your FREE profile.

If left unchecked, the complications arising from diabetes are many and adverse.

• Retinopathy is the degeneration of the retina of the eye, leading to loss of sight.
• Kidney diseases / failure sets in when the organ finally breaks down due to the excessive stress from filtering too much sugar in the blood.
• Nervous system disorders are experienced by around half of diabetes sufferers. Symptoms such as impaired sensation in the limbs, carpal tunnel syndrome, and even impotence have been recorded among diabetics. When sensation is impaired in the limbs, infection from injuries may progress without being noticed, leading to no other resort but amputation.
• Diabetic coma (diabetic ketoacidosis) occurs when a patient becomes severely dehydrated and metabolism is greatly imbalanced. Since the cells in the body are starved of energy, the entire body shuts down leading to a coma.

These complications, however, pale in comparison to the number of lives that are lost every year due to diabetes. As of now, the number of deaths related to the disease is placed at around 4 million annually. But perhaps the greater tragedy is the fact that the adverse effect of diabetes (particularly with Type II) could have been prevented. But seen from a different point of view, that is also part of the good news. By observing a healthy lifestyle of eating and exercising right, the chances of leading a full and productive life despite the disease are very possible. Who is at-risk? Anyone who has: A family history of diabetes High blood pressure Experienced diabetes during pregnancy Did you know that if you have diabetes, Medicare may cover the cost of your diabetes testing supplies? Liberty can help you determine if your costs are covered. If you’re currently paying out of pocket, this could mean a significant savings. But Liberty does a lot more than that. They’ll deliver your diabetes testing supplies and prescriptions right to your door with no charge for shipping. The NutriSystem Diabetic Program is an easy-to-follow diet that is a healthy way of eating for people with Type II Diabetes. It's a complete diabetic meal plan that lets you easily control your calorie and carbohydrate intake to promote safe weight loss. In fact, all of the NutriSystem Nourish foods are either ready to eat immediately, or prepare in just a couple of minutes in the microwave or by adding a little hot water. Lose weight with NutriSystem Diabetic Program for people  with Type II Diabetes. The simple meal plan is dietitian  approved and lets you control your calorie and carbohydrate intake to promote safe weight loss.

It features more than 70 prepackaged NutriSystem^® Nourish™ meals and desserts (see complete list below) that you choose online (or on the phone), and that arrive on your doorstep, all ready to go.

Monitoring 10,000 Steps Program with a Pedometer Helps Type 2 Diabetes

By Bodytrends Health and Fitness

Doctors have been telling patients with type 2 diabetes that increasing physical activity can help them lose weight, lower their blood pressure and reduce complications associated with diabetes.

Two recent research teams reported some modest improvements in fitness for individuals who utilized a Steps program in which a pedometer is used to track their activity during the day. A pedometer attaches to the waistband of the pants and keeps count of each step taken. High-end models can report distance in miles, speed, heart rate and caloric burn.

In one study, 125 obese men and women with type 2 diabetes walked an average of 4,364 steps daily at the beginning of the study, following an outlined program. The participants attended weekly meetings for the first month and discussed goals for improving fitness, went on group walks and shared ideas on how to overcome obstacles.

After the first month the participants were on their own to walk as much as they could. At the end of four months, the group met again.

After 16 weeks the group had basically doubled their activity level, with some reaching 10,000 steps a day.

The majority of the participants increased their physical activity level, saw a small reduction in blood pressure, waist size and body mass index (BMI) according to the research reported to the American Diabetic Association.

In the second study, conducted by Vanderbilt followed 87 men and women with type 2 diabetes.

Half the group got pedometers and instructions to increase their steps per day by 1,500 each month or 10%, whichever was greater. The other half got a standard talk on exercising more and eating healthfully.

Step counts on the pedometer peaked at 9 weeks with approximately 7,500 steps.

They reported some success in the group, noting that some individuals were able to reach the 10,000 steps per day goal.

The researchers reported that they felt that the addition of a pedometer to a diabetes management program was useful in some patients. Shop for pedometers at Bodytrends.com.