Diabetes is a common disease that is affecting millions of women right around the world.
A diabetes diet plays an important role in maintaining your body healthy.
So, it is essential for you to pay careful attention towards diabetes diet and nutrition as part of your diabetes treatment course.
On the other hand, nutrition experts state that there is no standard diabetes diet designed for all diabetes patients. But, there are general nutrition guidelines that everyone can follow.
It is most important for you, as a diabetes patient, to have same quantity of food at the same time every day to maintain your blood sugar levels constant in order to prevent the complications of diabetes.
The first step in controlling diabetes is to know the facts about the disease completely. Diabetes affects an estimated seventeen million Americans, and the figure is rising every year. It is fifth leading cause of death. It is a disease that cannot produce enough insulin to burn the glucose in the body. Most of the people know this disease as ‘sugar.’
Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas, which converts sugar, starches, and other foods into energy. When insulin is produced inadequately, too much sugar remains in the blood that can lead to severe health problems, such as: damage to the heart, kidneys, eyes and nerves in the hands and feet.
Three most common types of diabetes are Type1, Type2, and gestational diabetes. You can control any of these types through diabetes diet, regular exercises and many other preventive measures [Diet and exercise].
Following a diabetes diet is the most direct way to control your sugar levels in the body. So, understand the kinds of food that increases your sugar (glucose) levels, and be in control in avoiding them.
Before planning your diabetes diet, consult your dietician or nutritionist for proper guidelines. Diabetes diet depends on several factors such as diabetes type, your weight, height, age, other diseases (suffered or suffering) and routine physical activities.
Mainly, the diabetic diet is of two types: measured and unmeasured diet. In measured diabetes diet, the quantity of your meal needs to be measured to ensure that it is according to prescription.
However, in an unmeasured diabetes diet, the prescribed diet routine needs to follow and maintain without any measure in food quantities.
The basic elements that need to include in a diabetes diet are:
Proteins: Proteins supplies amino acids required for tissue repair, maintaining the glucose levels during the absorption process and contains less calories than in fats.
Carbohydrates: It helps to prevent ketosis.
Fats: saturated fat and foods rich in cholesterol need to be avoided completely.
Fiber: It is essential to reduce the rate of glucose absorption, the blood sugar rise, the urinary glucose excretion, the process of stomach emptying, and to delay the intestinal passage time.
Your diabetes diet should not contain potatoes, sweet potato, sugar, glucose, jams, jaggery, honey, sweets, fried foods, and fruits such as mango, banana, chickoo and custard apple. Also, limit the quantity of oil or fat substances in your diabetes diet. Instead, replace these with a lot of salads and leafy green vegetables.
The article mentions carbohydrates in the diet as “helping to prevent ketosis”. Certainly diabetic keto-acidosis (DKA) is a very bad circumstance for Type 1 diabetics. It isn’t caused by a lack of carbohydrates but a lack of insulin. Without insulin to move blood sugar into the cells for energy your body starts to burn fat for energy. By-products of the fat-burning products include ketones, which in high levels are toxic.
But while a diet low in carbs may result in some level of ketones, this is not the same thing as the admittedly dangerous DKA. As long as the cells are getting adequate amounts of glucose DKA is not a danger. Type 2 diabetics in particular are not likely candidates for DKA, because even though they are insulin resistant, they still get *some* glucose into the cells, enough to prevent DKA.
My point here is that Type 2 diabetics can certainly benefit from a low-carb diet. Low carbs in the diet mean less to have to deal with in the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics can benefit from a low-carb diet as well, but need to monitor their blood sugar and use insulin as needed to prevent DKA.
is a result of But ketosis per se is not a bad thing.