Archive for the 'Diabetes' Category

For most of you with diabetes, controlling the blood sugar levels in your regular routine will be your major cause for concern.

When you have diabetes, it is very important for you to maintain normal levels of blood sugar in your body. That is, your blood sugar levels must be neither too low nor too high; it must be in recommended levels.

Controlling the blood sugar levels is not only important for diabetic patients, but it is more vital for all non-diabetic patients as well.

If you succeed in maintaining normal blood sugar level, it becomes very easy for you to prevent various health complications associated with diabetes. So, here are 5 best ways to maintain normal blood sugar levels of your body.

5 effective ways to maintain normal blood sugar levels

1. Reduce your bedtime sugars!

This is one of the most ignored effective methods of controlling blood sugar levels in your body. Most of the diabetics have high fasting numbers during the day and tend to increase the intake of sugars at bed time. This is very wrong way of controlling blood sugar levels. In such case, try to reduce the consumption of essential sugars at night time and include them during your day.

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Australian researchers reported that aggressively treating diabetes does not prevent heart problems and deaths.

It’s the second large study, involving thousands of patients, to show no heart benefit from drastically lowering diabetics’ blood glucose levels. Experts said doctors should stick to the recommended target levels.

Heart disease is the cause of death for two-thirds of diabetics. Researchers tried pushing blood sugar down to near-normal levels to see if that would protect the hearts of high-risk patients with Type 2 diabetes.

But the Australian study showed no difference in the number of heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths between groups who got intensive or standard care. A U.S. study that was stopped earlier this year also showed no benefit and in addition reported an unexplained higher number of deaths among those who were aggressively treated.

Both studies are important contributions to the field but do not provide a definitive answer.

Instead of trying aggressive measures, experts say there should be more focus on other strategies known to lower heart risks — diet, exercise and medications such as aspirin, cholesterol-lowering statins and blood pressure drugs.

Source: MSNBC

Do you have high blood sugar? Are you thinking to conceive a baby? When you have high blood sugar or diabetes [Gestational diabetes], then preconception planning can significantly help you a lot in giving birth to a healthy baby.

If you are suffering with high blood sugar, then it is quite common for you to get anxious about the risks and complications associated with your pregnancy. But, don’t worry; here is good news for you.

If you succeed in controlling your blood sugar levels of your body before or during the pregnancy, then it becomes very easy for you to avoid all the odds involved in having a healthy baby.

Ensure healthy body condition before you try for a pregnancy!

Before you try to conceive, consult your personal physician or gynecologist for a simple physical exam. Try to discuss about your interest in pregnancy. If you are on oral diabetic medications, then it becomes necessary for you to take insulin or your will recommend to make out certain changes in your diabetes treatment plan.

So, if you have high blood pressure or any other pregnancy complication, then immediately seek right medical treatment before you try to get pregnant.

Do you know that 4 out of 6 diabetic patients die with heart problems? People with diabetes are considered to be at increased risk of developing heart diseases.

When you have diabetes [Diabetes cure], the blood sugar levels in your body will be quite high than the normal requirement.

So, this excess level of sugar in your body eventually damages many parts of your body including blood vessels and heart.

So, it becomes very essential for you to maintain appropriate blood sugar levels in your body. These controlled blood sugar levels can possibly avoid various complications associated with higher levels of blood sugar.

What is the link between diabetes and heart diseases?

Excess levels of glucose in your body significantly change the complete structure of your blood vessels. Due to this particular change in the basic structure of blood vessels, it can mainly lead to cardiovascular diseases.

Because of higher levels of glucose in your body, the inner lining of the blood vessels becomes much thicker and thus impairs the regular flow of blood. As a result, the main functioning of heart affects and accordingly you experience various heart diseases, including stroke.

Scientists have found that consuming cocoa flavanols – naturally occurring compounds in cocoa – may offer a benefit to those affected by type-2 diabetes.

Poor blood vessel function is recognized as an early stage in the development process of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis.

For more than 20 million Americans living with diabetes, these vascular impairments can eventually lead to heart disease and stroke, the cause of death for two-thirds of those who suffer from diabetes.

Despite good diabetes control and medical treatment, adults with the disease often continue to experience vascular dysfunction.

This has led scientists on a search for novel medical or nutritional options to improve the health and quality of life for people with diabetes.

In a subsequent controlled 30-day, double-masked clinical trial, adults with established diabetes who were medically controlled, drank either a flavanol-containing cocoa beverage or a low-flavanol control three times a day.

The cocoa beverages contained either 25 milligrams of cocoa flavanols (control) or 321 milligrams of cocoa flavanols (treatment) and were matched for calories, nutrients and other cocoa compounds such as theobromine and caffeine.

Do you know how adversely type 1 diabetes can affect your health? Type 1 diabetes mainly affects the major organs of your body, including heart, eyes, nerves, blood vessels, and also kidneys.

So, it is always important for you to check your blood sugar levels and maintain the blood sugar level at almost normal, which considerably reduces the risk of complications involved in diabetes.

Some times, the complications involved with type 1 diabetes can be long term and develops gradually.

The risk of developing the complications in your regular health conditions depends on how earlier you have developed the diabetes and also on poor control of your blood sugar.

Cardiovascular diseases mainly associated with type 1 diabetes:

Type 1 diabetes can significantly increase the risk of developing several cardiovascular problems, if you do not maintain proper levels of blood sugar. This cardiovascular disease is the most leading cause of death among the people with type 1 diabetes. Some of those include:

1. Atherosclerosis: This condition is mainly associated with narrowing of arteries. Chronic hyperglycemia, which is mainly caused due to higher blood glucose levels narrows your arteries of heart and reduces the elasticity. If you have high cholesterol levels, then this excess fat will also contribute to clog the arteries of heart.

Are you a 24 week pregnant woman? If yes, then it is very essential for you to get it tested for gestational diabetes.

Like other forms of diabetes, this gestational diabetes mainly affects the usage of your body glucose, the main fuel for your body to function properly.

Most pregnant women tend to be asymptomatic and don’t have any signs of this dreadful condition, which can raise many complications in pregnancy.

If you have gestational diabetes during your pregnancy, the hormones present in the placenta, which helps in the growth of the fetus, gets blocked under the influence of the insulin present in your body.

This condition of blocking is usually referred as insulin resistance, which makes it hard to use insulin in proper way and results in hyperglycemia [Effects of fluctuations in blood sugar level].

Is the unborn offspring at risk?

Gestational diabetes mainly affects you in later stages of your pregnancy, after the baby has been developed and also during the growth of your fetus. Therefore, it doesn’t cause any harm to your unborn baby, if it is treated well.

Controlling the blood glucose levels is very important for women before they think about getting pregnant.

If you have diabetes before you got pregnant or developed gestational diabetes, then you are at increased risk of having babies with birth defects when compared with the women who neither have diabetes before pregnancy nor developed mild gestational diabetes.

It has been estimated that about 4.8 percent of women with diabetes before pregnancy have children with birth defects where as 1.5 percent of birth defects occurred in women who did not have diabetes.

It has also been estimated that almost 1.2 percent of women with mild gestational diabetes have babies with some or the other kind of birth defect in them.

Birth defect and diabetes:

The level of risks in a pregnant women suffering with diabetes usually depends on the degree of insulin need and also on the severity of complications involved with diabetes and control of blood sugar levels in her body.

Birth defects are more likely in infants who have diabetic mothers, especially in females who are dependent on insulin. Some of these birth defects are serious and can lead to fetal death. Some times these birth defects usually originate in the first trimester of your pregnancy.

The cause of juvenile diabetes is unknown. This is a life long illness, but it is manageable with appropriate care and diet.

This illness is also referred to as type I diabetes. The first step in managing this type I diabetes successfully is maintaining the overall health.

Juvenile diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes the failure of the body to fight against infections naturally.

When a person has type I diabetes, pancreas fails to produce the hormone called insulin, which helps glucose to enter into body’s cells and maintains glucose level. Because of this, the glucose will remain in the blood and damages internal organs, blood vessels, and nervous system.

Does juvenile diabetes cause other health conditions?

Yes. In some cases juvenile diabetes leads to other health conditions such as heart attack, stroke, skin disorders, high blood pressure, and kidney failure. Diabetes also leads to blindness and can cause nerve damage.

Contracting gum diseases and other associated mouth problems are also caused by juvenile diabetes. Poor blood flow is associated with juvenile diabetes, which further leads to many foot problems.

If juvenile diabetes is not treated properly, the condition may become serious leading to amputation of the foot.

World diabetes day is celebrated every year on November 14th. World diabetes day promotes awareness that every person with diabetes or at risk of diabetes need the best quality of education, prevention and care available.

Currently, 246 million people are suffering from diabetes worldwide. 70,000 children below 15 years of age are affected by diabetes every year.

World diabetes day, organized by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) is the primary goal awareness campaign of the diabetes world. On 14th November, millions of people around the world join hands to increase awareness on diabetes.

The rise of diabetes is largely due to increasing sedentary lifestyles and changing diets in all parts of the world. Increase in blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels and obesity can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases of childhood. It can strike at any age, including pre-school children and even toddlers. Diabetes in children is often diagnosed late or it is misdiagnosed completely.

This disease is a leading cause of kidney failure, blindness, heart attack, amputation and stroke. It is one of the significant causes of death similar to number of deaths of HIV/AIDS.