Why do we prefer sweet foods like strawberries to savory ones like cabbage? Our desire for sweetness is the result of an ancient and ongoing coevolution between plants and animals. Fruits provide us a nutritious, pre-packaged, and brightly colored source of energy, while the plants that bear them get to spread to otherwise unreachable places when we spit out their seeds.
Diabetes is a metabolic disease, the most common form of which is called type 2 (about 90% of people with diabetes have type 2). People with type 2 diabetes are insulin resistant, meaning their cells are resistant to the insulin that is produced. Over time they also start to produce insufficient insulin. As insulin is the hormone we use to carry glucose to the cells, if there is insufficient insulin, glucose builds up in the blood and is not used properly by the cells for growth and energy. The result? A greater risk of kidney failure, blindness, cardiovascular disease, heart disease and even amputation.
Chances are you know someone with type 2 diabetes. Currently about 8% of people in the US are affected. Although the risk increases with age (because insulin production is decreased), childhood type 2 diabetes is on the rise, a fact blamed on the increasingly poor diets and sedentary lifestyles of our children. Alarmingly, rates of diabetes have doubled since 1980. So how can we protect ourselves from contracting the disease?
Since about 80% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight, there is no denying the link between being overweight and contracting the disease. A nutritious diet containing low GI foods (such as wholegrains, beans, apples, oranges, sweetcorn) will help. Maintaining a healthy weight and an active lifestyle is key. Research has clearly shown that aerobic exercise and resistance training combined with weight loss helps your body to process glucose and use insulin effectively. In fact, one study has shown that exercise combined with a good diet can reduce the risk of diabetes by a whopping 58%.
What can you do?
1) Screening. The American Diabetes Association recommends diabetes screening for:
* everyone 45 years of age and older, particularly those with a BMI greater than 25.
* people younger than 45 who are overweight and who also have other risk factors, such as a family history of the disease, high cholesterol or blood pressure, or a history of gestational diabetes.
Testing can be a fasting blood glucose test, an oral glucose tolerance test or a hemoglobin A1C test.
2) Monitor your weight. The Diabetes Prevention Program, a federally-funded study published in 2002, found that people at high risk for diabetes who exercised for 30 minutes five days a week and lowered their intake of fat and calories were able to reduce their weight by 5-7% and lower their risk of type 2 diabetes by 58%.
3) Learn your family medical history. A family history of type 2 diabetes is one of the strongest risk factors for getting the disease in people living a Western lifestyle. In these societies, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is about one in seven if a parent had the disease and was diagnosed before age 50, and about one in 13 if the parent was diagnosed at a later age. The risk is even higher if both parents had the disease.
Clearly, our sedentary lifestyles are doing us no favours. Time to throw away the pizza and get down to the gym. If you don't have a gym membership try using a pay as you go option instead. Either way, by getting to the gym and onto the treadmill and those weight machines, you will be helping your body fight against this disease that is now such a problem, the World Health Organisation considers it to be an epidemic.
By John Wal Smith
Diabetes is a metabolic disease, the most common form of which is called type 2 (about 90% of people with diabetes have type 2). People with type 2 diabetes are insulin resistant, meaning their cells are resistant to the insulin that is produced. Over time they also start to produce insufficient insulin. As insulin is the hormone we use to carry glucose to the cells, if there is insufficient insulin, glucose builds up in the blood and is not used properly by the cells for growth and energy. The result? A greater risk of kidney failure, blindness, cardiovascular disease, heart disease and even amputation.
Chances are you know someone with type 2 diabetes. Currently about 8% of people in the US are affected. Although the risk increases with age (because insulin production is decreased), childhood type 2 diabetes is on the rise, a fact blamed on the increasingly poor diets and sedentary lifestyles of our children. Alarmingly, rates of diabetes have doubled since 1980. So how can we protect ourselves from contracting the disease?
Since about 80% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight, there is no denying the link between being overweight and contracting the disease. A nutritious diet containing low GI foods (such as wholegrains, beans, apples, oranges, sweetcorn) will help. Maintaining a healthy weight and an active lifestyle is key. Research has clearly shown that aerobic exercise and resistance training combined with weight loss helps your body to process glucose and use insulin effectively. In fact, one study has shown that exercise combined with a good diet can reduce the risk of diabetes by a whopping 58%.
What can you do?
1) Screening. The American Diabetes Association recommends diabetes screening for:
* everyone 45 years of age and older, particularly those with a BMI greater than 25.
* people younger than 45 who are overweight and who also have other risk factors, such as a family history of the disease, high cholesterol or blood pressure, or a history of gestational diabetes.
Testing can be a fasting blood glucose test, an oral glucose tolerance test or a hemoglobin A1C test.
2) Monitor your weight. The Diabetes Prevention Program, a federally-funded study published in 2002, found that people at high risk for diabetes who exercised for 30 minutes five days a week and lowered their intake of fat and calories were able to reduce their weight by 5-7% and lower their risk of type 2 diabetes by 58%.
3) Learn your family medical history. A family history of type 2 diabetes is one of the strongest risk factors for getting the disease in people living a Western lifestyle. In these societies, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is about one in seven if a parent had the disease and was diagnosed before age 50, and about one in 13 if the parent was diagnosed at a later age. The risk is even higher if both parents had the disease.
Clearly, our sedentary lifestyles are doing us no favours. Time to throw away the pizza and get down to the gym. If you don't have a gym membership try using a pay as you go option instead. Either way, by getting to the gym and onto the treadmill and those weight machines, you will be helping your body fight against this disease that is now such a problem, the World Health Organisation considers it to be an epidemic.
By John Wal Smith
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