Do you ever wonder if you’re headed for hypoglycemia, pre-diabetes or diabetes? Have you got a family history of blood sugar difficulties? Aunt Mary, Cousin Sam or Mom have Diabetes? Well even though heredity isn’t the only indicator that you might become Diabetic – it reflects a 50/50 chance.
Diabetes everyday
My husband was diagnosed with diabetes before I met him. Since his stroke nearly two years ago he’s become insulin dependent. I’ve seen first hand how it’s ravaged his body. It started with his vision where he had to undergo 3 different eye surgeries to fix a painful diabetic phenomenon known as diabetic retinopathy. He was subsequently placed on statins, blood pressure medication and a number of other medications to fight the other.
Kidney Problems
It’s been almost 5 years since we first became aware that he had kidney disease. He was born with a single kidney – not as rare an occurrence as anticipated. Most of us will never have to get a sound taken of our kidneys and will, therefore, never know how many kidneys we really have. So unless kidney function is impaired as is determined by pain, distress or abnormal blood work, only then would you discover the number of kidneys you really have. So taking care of them today if a very good idea.
I’m sharing my husband’s and my situation with you now simply to allow you to know that yes – Diabetes can be a very damaging disease affecting almost even organ system within your body. There is, however, a silver lining. There are thankfully lots of things you can do now to stop its development.
Keys to Preventing Diabetes
Get Your Bloodwork Done Regularly
It’s important to get routine bloodwork done – at least every 6 weeks. You want to have a fasting glucose, cholesterol, HDL, LDL (and their ratios), triglycerides, and an A1C. Your A1C will indicate how handled your blood glucose is over a longer period of time – about 3 weeks versus just the specific day that your blood has been drawn, as sugar would show.
Move
Obviously, you want some kind of daily or at least 3x/week ritual of exercise. Walking helps relieves stress that’s the chief offender in any disease process. Merely walking or riding a recumbent bike 30 minutes/day can allow you to manage and reduce elevated blood sugar if you’ve got it. If neither of these two actions do it for you, find something which does – but you have to do it so as to benefit. Unless you’re up and moving along while viewing your favourite dance competition on TV or while browsing the net – you won’t have the ability to rely on these activities as exercise.
Take the Right Supplements
Ask yourself, would you rather take effective supplements today, or inject yourself with insulin later? It’s really that easy. There are lots of outstanding blood sugar balancing nutrients which can allow you to manage an imbalance now. If you’ve got a tendency towards hypoglycemia, know that that is a precursor to hyperglycemia, aka high blood glucose aka diabetes. Including a fantastic fish oil, chromium, alpha lipoic acid, blood glucose formulas including cinnamon and gymnema can help tremendously.
Make Your Diet Matter – a lot!
Blood sugar problems are primarily a lifestyle issue. Therefore, by modifying your lifestyle, especially your food choices, you’ll have a much better prospect of preventing diabetes. Choose whole foods – fresh produce, quality proteins, and fats that are good. Steer clear of high fructose corn syrup, agave, and all additives. Know that fructose or fruit sugar found in actual fruits is extremely different from fructose found in packaged, processed foods. Real fruit also contains pectins and fiber that are crucial in the proper breakdown and ultilization of the sugar found in fruit. To be clear Agave, which masquerades as a health food, is potentially bad for your liver – not a good thing whatsoever!
Don’t Ignore Your Symptoms
If you suffer from signs of hypoglycemia – shakiness, headaches, or brain fogginess – always carry healthy snacks with you. The aim is to eventually remove these kinds of symptoms all together. Again, hypoglycemia can become hyperglycemia or diabetes.
Pay attention to your body is speaking to you. So many have ignored symptoms, whether pre-diabetic or some other, only to end up much worse off than when the symptoms first appeared. If you don’t feel right you need to take action to start a process towards enhanced health – the sooner the better.
