Fighting Diabetes, Proactively!

A new study suggests that the Mediterranean diet may help ward of Diabetes Type 2. It is all over the news[Follow the links below].

The Mediterranean diet consisting mainly of Vegetables, Fruits, Olive Oil, Fish and less animal products, and as you see the food items you can see that it is actually very healthy, and the particular diet is long known to be good for fighting cardiovascular diseases, but the recent study suggest that it can ward of diabetes.

I would say that this diet would actually prevent Diabetes, and this is something that I have been been trying follow religiously, not knowing that it could be the Mediterranean diet.

I have always espoused the following of a healthy diet plan, and a healthy lifestyle to ward of Diabetes. When your food mainly comprises of Fruits, vegetables, Olive Oils and Fish (with Omega-3 fatty acids), this will actually help you control your weight as well, and if you can fight obesity, that is half the battle won against the fight for Diabetes.

And this study has strengthened my belief in a healthy lifestyle for the prevention of Diabetes.

My thought is reflected by some other expert here,

“This study reminds me of a comment I once heard someone else say — ‘Research simply confirms what we already know or suspect,’ ” said Lona Sandon, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

And yes, switch to Olive Oil.
Taste great and it is healthy, what more can you ask for?
Take a packet of mixed vegetables, the frozen kind that you get in supermarkets, with peas, beans, Broccolli, carrots and such like. Defrost the whole Packet.

Heat a table spoon of olive oil.
Chop a small onion and add it to the oil.
Add two cloves of crushed garlic.
Add the vegetables and stir fry for 5 minutes.
Add pepper and salt to taste.

I absolutely love this.

More:
[US news]
[CTV]
[AFP]
[Science Daily]
[Reuters]
[BBC News]
[The Independent]

Since most fruit juices contain a lot of sugar, it is not advisable for a diabetic to drink fruit juice. I still haven’t stopped taking fruits, but I have started avoiding sweeter fruits. I have also started taking tomato juice and carrot juice in place my usual orange. I also drink Apply juice is surprisingly good, but avoid too sweet apple.

An increase in whole fruit consumption of three servings a day was associated with an 18 percent reduced risk of diabetes.

An increase in green vegetable consumption of one serving a day was associated with a 9 percent reduced risk of diabetes.

An increase in fruit juice consumption of one serving a day was associated with an 18 percent INCREASED risk of diabetes.

Read this interesting article.

Which was always obvious to me, and I have telling again and again to cut down on the Potatoes, and Rice. But now a study has also indicated that A diet low in carbohydrates but high in animal fat and protein doesn’t seem to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in women.

More:

“One study is never enough to change a recommendation, but this study is interesting in that it shows that a low-fat diet is no better than a low-carbohydrate diet in preventing type 2 diabetes,” said Thomas Halton, lead author of a study in the current issue of theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition. “The one diet that did seem to show a protective effect was a vegetable-based, low-carb diet which consisted of higher amounts of vegetable fat and vegetable protein, and lower amounts of carbohydrate.”

The findings, Halton added, were a bit surprising in that most doctors and nutritionists recommend a low-fat diet to prevent type 2 diabetes. “This study showed that a low-fat diet didn’t really prevent type 2 diabetes in our cohort when compared to a low-carb diet. I was also surprised that total carbohydrate consumption was associated with type 2 diabetes, and that the relative risk for the glycemic load was so high.”

[source]

I was just going to run to the pantry to grab my 3rd cup of black coffee when I read this article. I sure need to cut down on my caffeine as well, though I already drink my coffee without sugar. And I have been drinking Tea only with honey.

People who gain weight are much more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, characterized by increased levels of sugar, or glucose, in the blood. But Duke University researcher James Lane believes blood glucose can become elevated from more than just eating too much. The North Carolina-based scientist has been studying what happens to the blood glucose of diabetic patients after they drink caffeine.
“On average, the levels were 8 percent higher,” Lane reports. “We found that the response was to the meals. In other words, the glucose rise that occurred after each of the three meals was significantly larger on the day that they had caffeine as well.” For example, Lane says blood sugar levels after dinner were more than 25 percent higher on days when subjects had caffeine than on their non-caffeinated days. [source, VOA]

Dr Neal Barnard, a US-based clinical researcher, famous for his work on reverse diabetes, plans to study the plans to study impact of a vegan diet on diabetes in India. He has done a experiment with the low-fat vegan diet in Americawhere 99 people with type 2 diabetes were made to live on the vegan diet, a vegetarian diet that keeps out milk and milk products as well, has found that it controls blood sugar three times more effectively than a conventional diabetes diet did. The effect was stronger than using medication.

[more]