These Could Help You Prevent Type-2 Diabetes

Have you always thought over the years that you could develop diabetes because your mother suffered from it? Same with your mother’s mother? Do you subconsciously taste your urine to be sure it is not sugary yet? Has anxiety almost taken all your joy because you feel you are doomed to have type-2 diabetes and that nothing can change it because it has been a family illness? Your fears are right. Diabetes can be genetic. However, if the fate your mother and her mother suffered was type-2 diabetes, then I bring you good news. That good news is, you will not suffer that same fate if you read this article and follow all the preventive measures for type-2 diabetes.

Are you someone who does not have diabetes in your lineage but feels like you will soon develop type-2 diabetes because you know the kind of lifestyle you live when it comes to fitness and diet? I will show you the risks you are exposing yourself to if you continue with that care-free fitness and feeding habit.

There are different types of diabetes. However, in this article, we will reveal precisely just a kind of diabetes – type-2 diabetes. This article contains the explicit definition of what type-2 diabetes is: what it means when a person is said to suffer from diabetes and how the body system of a type-2 diabetic patient works. This article also gives insight into what you have been doing all along that is exposing you to type-2 diabetes.

What Does it Mean to Have Someone suffer From Type-2 Diabetes?

Type-2 diabetes occurs when your muscles, liver, and fat cells resist or do not use insulin well. As you know, your body needs insulin to convert glucose to glycogen and glycogen back to glucose, among other functions. Type-2 diabetes happens when insulin cannot help glucose enter the cells. It also occurs when the pancreas that generates insulin is no longer capable of creating or producing enough insulin that will help convert the sugar in your blood (glucose) to glycogen, thereby making your blood glucose levels rise.

At this point, all that your body would get accustomed to is, while you deposit sugar into your body upon every meal you take, your body stores the sugar and waits for the insulin to convert it. Suppose the insulin ends up being incapable of transforming it. In that case, your body will continue to store this sugar, thereby increasing your blood sugar level at every slight drop of sugar you eat.

Now that you know what type-2 diabetes is and what it is that is faulty in the body when it is said that one is suffering from type-2 diabetes, what then do you think would be the reason for this body system malfunction? This leads us to the second part of the article, the origins of type-2 diabetes.

Causes and Risk Factors of Type-2 Diabetes

Some of the causes of diabetes are self-inflicted. As mild as they might sound, lousy lifestyle and eating habits can put you at significant risks of suffering from type-2 diabetes.

• Lack of Physical Exercise:

When you eat without exercising your body, you are likely to suffer from type-2 diabetes. Unfortunate exercising habit leaves you overweight. Being overweight causes insulin resistance, which puts you at a higher risk of suffering from type-2 diabetes. This is a significant cause of type-2 diabetes.

• Poor Diet:

Though there is no specific diet for preventing type-2 diabetes, however, eating smart would go a long way in preventing type-2 diabetes. Fatty foods are significant factors of overweight, and overweight with obesity are contributory factors to type-2 diabetes. Overeating carbohydrates without exercising your body leave you overweight, which will expose you to developing type-2 diabetes. Lack of fruits in your daily diet also has a role to play in causing this harm.

• Excess Sugar Intake:

The underlying factor of the illness ‘diabetes’ is excess sugar. If you are addicted to too sweet things and cannot part with them anytime soon, this means that you are welcoming type-2 diabetes with open arms anytime soon. When you take too much sugar, and the defunct insulin cannot convert it to glycogen or dispense it to the cells in your body, the excess sugar will remain in your blood and make you develop diabetes, type-2 specifically.

• Smoking:

Smoking is generally known for its hazardous effects on the human body. Research has also linked smoking as a factor that causes type-2 diabetes. Smoking was found in a particular analysis to increase the risk of type-2 diabetes by 44% on average smokers and 61% in people who smoke 20 or more sticks of cigarettes per day.

• Processed Foods:

Processed foods have been found to contribute to type-2 diabetes risk. Avoiding whole foods and settling for fast meals, junks, or processed foods would one way or the other add to why you are likely to suffer from type-2 diabetes.

• Genetics and birth weight are risk factors of type-2 diabetes. It is possible that if type-2 diabetes runs in your family, you are likely to suffer the same fate (unless it is prevented). However, this is not a self-inflicted cause, but this does not mean it cannot be avoided. Following the guidelines in this article would enlighten you on what to do and what not to do to prevent type-2 diabetes, even if it runs in your family.

Symptoms of Type-2 Diabetes

How do you know that the insulin in your body is not functioning correctly, which automatically means you are a few meters close to having diabetes?

• First on the list is increased thirst and urination.
• Fatigue
• Faint or blurred vision
• Wounds that do not heal
• Sudden weight loss.

Prevention of Type-2 Diabetes

As the saying goes, “it is best safe than sorry.” It is better to prevent a thing because curing it can be so stressful, expensive, and can cause psychological trauma. How then do we prevent type-2 diabetes?

• Eat less refined sugar; you can use honey instead to sweeten your tea.
• Lose weight and fat:

This is very crucial in the prevention of diabetes. Too much weight is the major contributor to type-2 diabetes development. The body would accumulate a lot of nutrients and sugar, and would not get the chance to use it properly if you do not engage in physical exercises. Lose weight, exercise your body, do not eat without involving yourself in any physical activities, and expect you to remain healthy forever. Take walks, jog, and visit gyms, these would help burn fat, kill obesity, and keep you fit.

• Make Water Your Primary Beverage:

Have you once felt so thirsty that you feel like taking any drinkable liquid you can sight, especially sugary ones? Have you also experienced it? If you were unable to get your hands on any of those sugary drinks, and the only liquid solution to your thirst problem at that moment is water, when you take that water, you feel relieved, and the urge for sugary liquid disappears?

Taking sugary liquids in place of water can be so tempting, but disciplining yourself to take water instead of sugary drinks, no matter what is a good start on cutting down on sugar and sugary beverages.

• Drink Tea or Coffee:

If you are necessarily going to take any other liquid beverage aside from water (primary beverage), then make sure it is coffee or tea and not carbonated drinks or processed fruit juice. Research has shown that tea and coffee have antioxidants called “polyphenols” that can help shield you from diabetes. Green tea is not left out, it has proven to be effective in the lowering of blood sugar and increasing insulin sensitivity.

• Add Fiber-rich Foods to Your Diet:

We have two types of diet, soluble and insoluble diet. Insoluble fiber has been linked to the reduction in the sugar level in the blood, thereby reducing the risk of suffering from diabetes. (though, exactly how it works is still being researched and not clear yet.

• Eat Fruits and Foods Rich in Vitamin D:

Studies show that Vitamin D is beneficial for the lowering of blood sugar. Research also shows that people who do not get enough Vitamin D have more significant risks of suffering from every kind of diabetes.

• Quit smoking and excessive alcohol intake
• Avoid processed foods and eat whole grains.
• Visit your doctor regularly for check-ups; this is also an excellent way to prevent type-2 diabetes.
• Consider taking natural herbs like; neem leaves juice, bitter leaf juice, and so on.

In summary,

Type-1 diabetes might not have any clear preventive measures, but type-2 diabetes obviously has, and following these measures would make you live a type-2 diabetes-free life, even if it (type-2) is a norm in your family.

Adopting healthy lifestyles and eating habits are good ways to begin the prevention journey. Prevention they say is better than a cure. Curing an illness comes with too many expenses, stress, pain, and psychological trauma. Paying regular visits to your doctor for check-ups is also a good idea for adequate prevention.