Foods That Cause Diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease in which blood glucose (sugar) levels are too high. Cells in the body break down glucose in order to provide energy for movement, growth, and repair. The hormone insulin is responsible for regulating glucose levels in the blood. Abnormally high levels of glucose can damage the small and large blood vessels, leading to diabetic blindness, kidney disease, amputations of limbs, stroke, and heart disease. Currently diabetes is the third leading cause of death in most parts of the developed world.

There are three common types of diabetes:

i) Type 1 diabetes is usually (but not always) diagnosed in children and young adults. Persons with type 1 diabetes make no insulin and must take insulin every day.

ii) Type 2 diabetes is usually (but not always) diagnosed in adults over the age of 45. In type 2 diabetes, either the person is not making enough insulin, or the body is resistant to insulin and cannot use it properly.

iii) Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy: 2-4 percent of all pregnant women have gestational diabetes. If a woman has gestational diabetes, she has about a 40 percent chance of having type 2 diabetes later in her life.

Type 2 diabetes is a condition related almost entirely to lifestyle choices. In almost every case, it is preventable and reversible. The solution is to engage in consistent physical exercise (high-intensity, brief-duration), to eat a diet rich in protein and healthy fats, and to limit consumption of grains, starches, and sweets.

Because food intake affects the body's need for insulin and insulin's ability to lower blood sugar, diet and exercise is the cornerstone of diabetes treatment.


Does Sugar Cause Diabetes?

This is probably the most common misconception about diabetes. If you have diabetes, you do need to watch your sugar and carbohydrate intake to properly manage your blood sugar level with the help of your registered dietitian. However, if you do not have diabetes, sugar intake will not cause diabetes. What is known is that a diet high in calories, being overweight, and an inactive lifestyle are the main risk factors for Type 2 diabetes.

Foods That Cause Diabetes

Diabetic Food To AvoidIncreased diabetes risk appeared to be most pronounced for frequent consumption of total processed meat especially bacon and hot dogs.

In 2003, 47,309 participants in the Women's Health Study aged 45 years or older who were free of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes completed validated food frequency questionnaires that documented the onset of type 2 diabetes in 1,558 cases over 8 years and found positive associations between intakes of red meat and processed meat and the risk of developing diabetes. Those who ate bacon at least twice a week had a 17% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate it less than once a week. The results for frankfurters were even more troubling. Those who had hot dogs at least twice a week upped their risk by 24%.

The results are surprising, since most of us associate diabetes with foods that are high in carbohydrates and sugar - not protein-rich foods. Researchers aren't yet sure how eating these meats leads to diabetes, but say it may be nitrates and nitrites, preservatives and additives that can be toxic to pancreatic cells (damage to these cells is a hallmark of type 2 diabetes). Your diet is the single biggest influence on your diabetes condition.

Diabetes Treatment

Vegetables are among the numerous plant substitutes tried for the treatment of the diabetes mellitus. A few vegetables that are commonly consumed in Asia have been known to possess antidiabetic potency. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest to screen such plant food materials, for possible treatment of diabetes. Considerable amount of work has been carried out in this regard with bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) and ivy gourd (Coccinia indica) both in experimental animals and human diabetic subjects.

Studies on other vegetables such as cabbage (brassica oleracia), capsicum (Capsicum annum), green leafy vegetables, beans and tubers have shown the beneficial hypoglycaemic influence in diabetic patients.

Diets rich in mineral can also help to provide nutrients useful in controlling diabetes. Several of the minerals can be obtained from evening primrose oil, an extract from the medically-useful herb, the evening primrose. Other mineral-rich plant foods are the bitter melon fruit and fenugreek seed.

There is much research continuosly being carried out on this serious disease and good progress have been made in getting this disease under control. Today's top medical scientists, doctors and Nobel Prize winners have discovered new ways to treat Diabetes. This new diabetes breakthrough reveals the root cause for diabetes and how to trigger your body to produce more insulin. This new research has helped hundreds of people slowly but very effectively reduce their blood sugar levels.

Information On How You Can Manage & Control Diabetes