What is diabetes?

Diabetes is actually a very sneaky disease. We have two types of diabetes; diabetes Type One and diabetes Type 2. Type 2 diabetes is much more common and we’re going to concentrate on that one today. Diabetes is the disorder of sugar digestion and does include insulin which your body is making in your pancreas. It is much more involved in the process. I want to tell you it is not only about high sugar but it’s also about low blood sugar as well because we have to keep our sugar in a very narrow, therapeutic window and whenever the sugar is too high or too low it is dangerous for the body and for our wellbeing. So I would like to tell you that it is very important to know some very simple things you can do to prevent yourself or just to make it better and to fight the disease if you already have it. I would like to tell you that you will definitely have to concentrate on lifestyle modification which includes diet and exercising. It was proven definitely that moderate exercising, which probably includes 30 or 40 minutes per day, three or four times/week, may prolong your life 10 years. So it is number one and if you do it and are consistent with that you are going to get some benefit. Secondly, diet. If you have diabetes or pre-diabetes, when you have abnormal blood sugar but we don’t label it as diabetes yet but if you don’t do anything right away you are definitely going to have diabetes. So diet is very important. First of all we have to eliminate all simple sugars. If you like to drink iced tea, try to drink unsweetened iced tea. If you liked baked products I would like to limit you that, cakes, cookies, all that is not good for you. Any starch containing products like potato or rice and noodles or any type of pasta are not a benefit for you. Some people like bread and that’s not very good as well. So you definitely have to limit bread as well.