Preventing and Controlling Diabetes
Diabetes is rising around the world, and type 2 is rising fastest. People call it adult diabetes, but children and young people now get it too. Children and youths eat fast food and soft drinks. They exercise little, and they are becoming obese. In type 2 diabetes, the body may make less insulin, or the cells cannot use the insulin well.
Insulin is needed to move blood glucose into cells. Once glucose enters the cells, the body burns it. If insulin does not work, glucose keeps building up in the blood. Over time this causes many complications. These include heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, nerve damage and blindness.
Many people have type 2 diabetes and do not know it. The number of undiagnosed cases is large. In the early stage, type 2 diabetes can harm the body silently without any symptoms. About six million Americans do not know they have diabetes. One in three adults in this group has type 2. Early signs are often absent, or they look mild and similar to other vague problems.
When symptoms appear, they may include strong thirst and hunger, weight loss and tiredness. Others include blurred vision, frequent urination, and tingling in the hands and feet. Some people have sexual problems or wounds that do not heal. A simple test for diabetes is a blood sugar check. The doctor takes a small blood sample from the fingertip.
Sometimes the doctor measures glucose on an empty stomach. If needed, the patient drinks a glucose solution, and the doctor tests the blood again after two hours. There are three types of results. One is a normal blood sugar level. Another is the middle stage, called pre diabetes. In this stage, blood sugar is above normal but not high enough to be diabetes.
If you have diabetes, the doctor may ask you to change your diet. The doctor will advise exercise and weight loss if you are overweight. Ask your doctor how often to take tests each week or month. See a doctor if any symptom appears. Your lifestyle may need to change a little on a doctor’s advice.
What is diabetes really? When the body cannot use sugar or glucose properly, blood sugar rises. Cells need a chemical called insulin to take in sugar easily. The pancreas, on the left side of the stomach, makes insulin and sends it into the blood. When the pancreas does not make insulin properly, or the body resists insulin, blood sugar rises while the cells stay starved of sugar. After a limit, the body begins wrong chemical reactions. All of this together is called diabetes.
If you follow the rules and take care with food before you get diabetes, you can avoid it. Even after you get diabetes, you must follow all rules on food and movement. Once diagnosed, eat green leafy vegetables once a day. This helps stop type 2 diabetes. On days you do not eat vegetables, eat fruits of many colors three times.
Good choices include cauliflower leaves, amaranth, gourd, pumpkin, bathua, turnip greens and radish greens. Mustard greens, chickpea greens, lettuce, parsley, spinach and dhenki greens are also good. You can eat one of these every day. Researchers advise people at risk of type 2 diabetes to start eating green vegetables now. Scientists from the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health reached this view. They studied the effects of many diets from 1984 to 2000.
Epidemiologist Ms. Lydia Bazzano says to eat apples with the skin on. She says to eat bananas, oranges, watermelon, melon and guava. But do not drink fruit juice, because juice raises sugar fast. If you can, eat hand pounded rice instead of mill polished fine rice. Stop eating refined flour. Eat potatoes only with the skin.
Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, reviewed 50 years of research reports. They found that people should eat vegetables and nuts regularly, and fruit and fish sometimes. If you keep this up, you will not get heart disease easily. Stop eating white bread, biscuits, pasta, mill polished rice, fried food and oily fast food. Stop refined carbohydrates too.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that people who often eat burgers, fried chicken or fried meat face a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. They get used to high calorie foods like burgers and fried chicken. Of these people, 40 to 70 percent develop diabetes after 10 years.
Diabetes treatment is in your hands. The doctor only explains what is good and bad and shows the right path. Think of the treatment as a table with four legs. If even one leg is weak, the table cannot stand properly.
The first leg is regular blood tests and the right medicine in the right dose. Taking unneeded medicine or too little medicine are both harmful. On a doctor’s advice, take extra tests if needed to find complications. These cover the kidneys, heart, eyes and feet. One important point is that every diabetes patient must care for their feet as they care for their face.
The second leg is the right amount of the right food. Make a food chart based on your height, weight and physical work, and count the calories you need. If you want to eat a favorite food, remove another food of equal calories from your day. Make sure you do not take in more calories than you need that day. It may seem hard, but it becomes easy with habit.
The third leg is the right exercise. Choose exercise that fits your physical condition and your joints. It can be walking, running, swimming, cycling, free hand exercise or another form that suits you. In general, you should do 20 to 30 minutes of exercise that makes you sweat each day. The more you exercise, the lower your blood sugar goes.
The fourth leg is a disciplined lifestyle. A lazy or sedentary lifestyle is largely responsible for your diabetes. Try to put everything into a routine from morning to night. Eat, walk and sleep on a schedule instead of at random times. Avoid alcohol, smoking and a lazy life.
The writer is a journalist and columnist. He is an executive member of the Diabetic Association, Sylhet.
