Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now involved with how to lose weight online. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on numerous subjects, but is currently involved with researching Emergency for Dogs. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at What To Do If Your Dog Eats Chocolate.

Organ failure, blindness and amputations are the natural result of diabetes unless it is treated. The first step after being warned of the disease is to learn as much about it as possible.

What it can do to you; how you can recognize the symptoms and what you can do to avoid the natural consequences of being diabetic. The consequences that have befallen diabetics for thousands of years.

It takes more thought, preparation and work to live with a disease than it does to live without one. That is understandable, but your life alters when you are given the news and you have to choose whether to tackle it or roll over.

‘Fighting it’ often involves no more than living sensibly, maybe for the first time in your life. It involves taking the time to eat sensibly and not grab a chocolate bar or junk food. It may even mean learning to cook properly, if you never bothered before.

It will mean re-evaluating your life and deciding whether you would like to carry on. However, if you opt to ‘carry on’, your old lifestyle will be closed to you, because  that would mean certain death.

If you choose ‘life’, then it involves a change of lifestyle and that ‘new’ lifestyle is close to what you should have been following all your life, which is quite ironic. 

It will have taken you developing a life-threatening disease to do what you ought to have been doing anyway.
However, you will end up healthier than you were, which sounds ironic as well. In short, your illness, diabetes (mellitus) will force you to live a healthy life or die. This is the body’s ultimate course of action of having its own way.

At the end of the day, people do not die of diabetes. It is comparable to AIDS in that respect – people do not die of AIDS. They die in both cases of complications caused by or as a result of diabetes or AIDS.
Some of these complications are:

Heart disease and stroke: diabetics have more risk of heart disease and a stroke because their blood, if unregulated, is thicker (with the extra sugar/glucose) and does not diffuse into the lesser blood vessels.

Kidney disease is a major hazard, but one which can be avoided, like most other health concerns.
Vision problems, like cataracts are very common in cases of untreated diabetes. Numerous diabetics used to go blind as a matter of course.

Amputations were quite common too, because the thicker blood cannot reach the extremities which tend to have thinner blood vessels, They die, causing gangrene.

All of these complications can be avoided by doing what your physiciantells you, even though lifestyle changes are the most difficult to {implement

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, and is now involved with How to Cook for Diabetics. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

For these people, diabetes means what it has always meant throughout history: numb extremities, poor eyesight or blindness, amputations and an early death.

Therefore, it ought to become a major issue of everyone to learn how to try to avoid diabetes. The first thing is not to panic, because some people believe that we can bring things down upon ourselves by thought alone. 

In other words, we become or get what we think of the most. It could be the case, so do not worry, if you can avoid it. The people the most predisposed to diabetes are those who have a family history of it; those who are obese and some expectant women.

If you fall into any or a few of the ‘at risk’ categories, the first thing that you ought to do is acquaint yourself with the disease and how it can manifest itself, so that you are constantly on the look out for danger signs.

Furthermore, you should also inform your GP that you are worried about diabetes.

It is well-known that diabetics have ‘too much sugar in their blood’, but it is not at all certain that eating sugary or starchy foodstuffs to excess results in diabetes. If you do consume these foodstuffs to excess, the likelihood are that you will become obese and then there is a higher danger of diabetes.

However, if you consume these items and then burn them off through hard physical labour or exercise, in a way, you have not consumed them ‘to excess’. Nevertheless, it is worth contemplating your lifestyle and whether it could be improved. 

Have your doctor run a few tests to see if you are in a pre-diabetic state and then you will have a clearer understanding of what you ought to do to keep clear of ‘definitely’ becoming diabetic. 

Even if you can only afford one visit to the GP, this is the test you need.

One thing is certain, if you eat a healthy diet, you will have less likelihood of becoming ill for whatever reason. Eating healthily will give you a better opportunity of avoiding grave illnesses such as diabetes. 

Starch and sugar are the enemies of diabetics because they increase the blood-sugar level very quickly resulting in spikes that a diabetic’s body cannot deal with well. Avoid these fast burners and stick with slow-burning, fibrous fruits and vegetables. Meat is also slow-burning, as are whole grains, pulses, lentils and beans. Fish is low in calories.

Weight is a big issue and eating sensibly for a period of time will normalize your weight. You will not become fat from breathing air, solely by eating more calories than you burn. You need to eat to give your body enough nutrients to function. 

However, these nutrients come wrapped in calories and frequently with more than you need, therefore you need to exercise to burn them off. You do not have to work out in the gym to burn off a few hundred calories a day. 

Take the dog for a walk or take your partner for a walk or even go alone. Get a bike and cycle a little each evening. Swim a little, but do something.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now concerned with Diabetic Friendly Meals. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

Expectant mothers worry about whether the baby is healthy and whether they are doing all they can to give their baby every chance to do well.

This is normal for normal, healthy women, so how much more worrying and how much more problematic must pregnancy be for diabetic women? Firstly, the diabetic mother-to-be has to make certain that she is ‘normal’ and then worry like any ‘normal’ mother. This could add up to a lot of extra pressure.

Nutrition, so diet, and exercise are the real keys to success here. I do not mean dieting to lose weight either. During pregnancy is not the perfect time to try to lose weight! 

Rather, the pregnant diabetic needs to eat sensibly and follow all the doctor’s advice on what to eat in order to promote the correct development of the baby.

Most people talk of two forms of diabetes: Type I or juvenile diabetes and Type II or on-set diabetes in those who develop it later in life. However, there is a third, which just pregnant women can develop. 

It most often occurs in the last third of the pregnancy and is not at all uncommon. In fact, The USA is the only major country that calls it a disease. 

It is called gestational diabetes and some medical professionals think that it is a quite normal part of pregnancy, although it can become exaggerated in some women. About 3%-10% of pregnant women develop gestational diabetes, depending on the populace being studied.

It can be easily treated in most cases, but must be treated, because it can have an effect on the baby and can have longer term complications for the mother. Usually, the indications of diabetes disappear after giving birth. It can however lead to type II diabetes if not taken care of.

Pregnancy for women who were diabetic before they became pregnant may be more of a problem and ought to be monitored more closely because of the continuous state of flux of hormones that pregnancy causes. Insulin is also a hormone, obviously.

This does not mean that there will be problems, just that it is far less risky to be more careful than normal. If the pregnancy was unexpected, there is nothing to be done, but being careful, but if a pregnancy is planned, then the woman ought to get her body in the best possible shape before trying to conceive.

This means normalizing your weight and blood and being comfortable with the routines that a diabetic has to get used to. If you are comfortable with your situation, you will have that much less to worry about when pregnant.

It may be difficult for a non-professional to know whether a diabetic woman is fit enough to take on a pregnancy, so a visit to a medical doctor is advisable.

There are dangers to diabetic women who become pregnant. The worst of these worries are: diabetic retinopathy, high blood pressure, kidney disease, autonomic neuropathy or nerve damage to the internal organs, and cardiovascular problems.

The risks can be reduced by frequent self-monitoring; medication; exercise and diet.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now involved with Diabetic Friendly Meals. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

Everyone’s blood has sugar in it, the blood carries this energy to the limbs and organs to keep them working, but there is a fine balance between sufficient and too much.

Insulin controls that balance, so if you do not produce enough insulin, as diabetics do not, your blood becomes dense and sugary. That does not sound all that bad on the face of it. 

Perhaps a diabetic should be able to run further and faster than others with all that extra energy being pumped around the body.

However, it does not work like that. The dense, syrupy blood cannot get into the thin veins and capillaries, which means a deficiency of energy in these places, which are frequently at the very ends of your body and in internal and external organs. 

Skin, hair, eyes, teeth and toes are all starved of the sugars they require to keep them alive, not merely to keep them super-fit. The places with the finest blood vessels start to suffer first.

Not just that, but where the blood does get to can be more easily infected, because the bacteria think it is party time with all that additional food/energy in the blood. 

A insignificant infection that the body;s immune system could usually have dealt with in a day or two soon gets out of hand. This is a big problem for diabetics and one of the places that is easily infected is the mouth.

Without the scheduled dental check-ups that affluent people can afford, the mouth would frequently be infected, as it still is in poorer countries and among poorer groups in rich countries. Children and older people are always requiring fillings, extractions and infections sorted out.

For diabetics who do not seek proper dental supervision this can soon be a major difficulty. Smoking exacerbates the problem. The concerns really begin to mount up for smokers more than the age of 45 when dental concerns normally start to resurface after 20 odd years of relatively healthy teeth and gums.

Periodontitis is particularly dangerous for diabetics. Periodontitis is an infection that has an effect on the bones and gums in the mouth. It manifests itself in receding, bleeding gums. This exposes the blood rich in sugars to bacteria. Diabetics should inform their dentist of their condition and go for a check-up every six months.

Diabetics can soon lose all their teeth if they contract periodontitis and it is easily done with high blood sugar levels. The first sign of such dental concerns is bleeding teeth or gums.

It is imperative to control the blood sugar level to as near to normal as you can to avoid these and other complications and the two first keys to try are diet and exercise, otherwise you might have to resort to medication.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a variety of topics, and is now involved with Diabetic Friendly Meals. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

The age groups getting diabetes are becoming younger, but there does not seem to be any national advice from governments or nation’s environmental health departments. If these health authorities have produced recommendations, they are not widely broadcast.

At one time most people who became diabetic came from parents which had a history of diabetes. However, these days practically everybody has a risk of becoming diabetic. 

The obese are at danger, opine the doctors, but they are not so sure why other, thinner people are developing it too.

Why are thin, active, apparently healthy people becoming first unable to control the amount of sugar in their blood and thus entering the pre-diabetic stage? Many of these people will be diabetic sooner or later.

The diagnosis of diabetes used to be a sentence to a slow, drawn out death with amputations and organ failure on the way to an early death. Blindness, cataracts, kidney disease and the amputation of toes and feet were normal.

Luckily, this is no longer the case because of advances in the understanding of the disease and medical break-throughs. Part of the treatment without medication means a change in lifestyle involving increased exercise and attention to diet.

However, for those unable to cure themselves through lifestyle changes, there are drugs, hormones and technology:

One solution, the traditional answer, is to inject insulin, because diabetes is caused by a lack of insulin. First, the diabetic has to work out how much insulin he requires and then supply it.

The insulin can be delivered by injection, but also by insulin pump, which measures the blood-sugar level and delivers the insulin automatically. There are also insulin inhalers which can provide instantaneous relief with fast-acting insulin in the mouth.

Insulin tablets are new, because insulin is digested by the stomach as it is a protein. These new pills are covered in a polymer to get it past the digestive juices of the stomach. There is also a assortment of fat-acting and slow-acting ‘mixtures’ of different insulins for different people and different conditions.

It is, naturally, crucial to know the state of your blood before you take insulin and some other medicines and this has to be done with a monitor or a swab, but the latter is less reliable.

There are pain-free glucose test kits, which are not invasive and you can also buy a wristwatch-type monitor that continuously checks your blood-sugar level and displays the results on the watch face

The drugs firms and the hi-tec companies are  researching methods to create more money from the growing number of diabetics, so there are promises of break-throughs on the technological and the medical fronts all the time.

If you are unhappy with the treatment you are experiencing, change your doctor to one who is interested in diabetes and who follows the latest ideas.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now concerned with Diabetes Cook Books. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

Since attention to detail in diet is even more vital to diabetics, it stands to reason that fibre is even more vital to diabetics too. And, indeed, diabetics are advised to consume plenty of fibre.

Fibre will also defer the on-set of diabetes in those people who are in a pre-diabetic condition. Fibre assists reduce the blood-sugar levels naturally, so it will help everyone in their task to maintain healthy blood.

The manner in which it does this is quite easy to understand. Fibre is harder to digest than the rest of the sugars and starches that surround it, so it has the impact of remaining in your digestive system for longer, thus making you feel ‘full’ longer, and it is burned very slowly thus reducing spikes in your blood sugar level.

Blood-sugar spikes are bad news for anyone who does not need a spike in order to accomplish a quest, like a weight-lifter or a sprinter. Spikes in children can lead to instances of hyperactivity in children.

The best type of fibre is soluble fibre. This type of fibre is found in: 

grain that has not been excessively processed to remove the husk, so brown rice, whole wheat bread, cereals and pasta. 

‘dry’ fresh fruits, not necessarily dried fruits, like bananas, mangoes, pineapple and apples

beans, lentils, legumes and pulses are stuffed almost full of dietary fibre and are easily added to soups and stews.

Another way of feeling ‘full’ so that you can reduce the craving for a substantial meal is drinking water. Substitute plain tap water or bottled water for fizzy drinks. Your body may need the extra water to help it digest the extra soluble fibre that you are eating.

Fibre helps in all dietary situations, but is incorporated into the calculations that some diets use. For example, if you are counting carbohydrates as opposed to calories, you will have a limit or target number of carbs you should eat in a day.

This is 20 carbs a day in the preliminary phase of the Atkins diet. Some diets will permit you to subtract the amount of fibre from the total number of carbs for the purpose of your calculations.

So, for instance, you may consume 25 carbs, and, so long as the food contains at least five grammes of fibre, you have not broken the guidelines of the diet. You will have to look whether your particular diet allows for this variation.

It sounds like another burden to have to count fibre as well as everything else you have to take into account before you may consume anything, but it will be second nature after a couple of weeks or months. 

The best manner in which to get  going is to pick up a small guide that will fit in your pocket or bag so that you can refer to it frequently.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now concerned with Diabetes Cook Books. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

There are a number of suggestions why the number of obese  people is increasing, the most common of which are  raised prosperity, sedentary jobs,   inactive lifestyle (far too much TV); poor diet (far too much   junk food) and food additives.

A sedentary career and lifestyle ultimately often leads to  a lack of exercise and a poor diet is normally the  result of not being able to cook either because of a lack of time  or ability. Junk food fills the gap. 

Therefore, two of the main causes of of diabetes in  later life are poor diet and lack of exercise, which may  often be distilled to one major cause: laziness. Can’t be bothered to cook or learn how to and would prefer  to watch a film than go for a walk.

This is not every diabetic’s reason for being ill,  obviously. There are also genetic dispositions and organ failures,  but Type II diabetes is associated with obesity which is reaching epidemic proportions.

However, in spite of the high numbers of diabetics, there is also a  pre-diabetic condition. This pre-diabetic state is when the blood- sugar levels are higher than standard, but are not  critical. This again is most common in the  overweight.

A person in the pre-diabetic state will not notice anything, because a  GP needs to do tests to  ascertain the condition. People can go for years and  even decades in this condition with no apparent injury.

However, elevated blood-sugar levels do have damaging side  effects. If you are in this condition, it is vital to  correct the condition of your blood in order to reduce your  chances of becoming diabetic. The condition of having too much  sugar or glucose in the blood is known as ‘hyperglycaemia’.

Some of the most common indications of hyperglycaemia are: kidney  damage; intestinal concerns;  poor circulation in the  extremities (so particularly the feet), which can produce  feelings of tingling or coldness and vision  impairment (especially cataracts).

The problem for many people is that you have to work  closely with your doctor to bring your blood- sugar levels back under control. For those who live in remote  areas or have little money this can be a big  difficulty.

There are self-testing kits and medication for those who are able and willing  to use them and they are much more preferable than  having to inject with insulin everyday if you let the situation get too far out of hand. Being pre-diabetic is a loud wake up  call.

Exercise and a decent diet of home-cooked food is the combination that  will go a long way to improving the state of your blood. It is  crucial to consume slow-burning foods  like (meat and) vegetables rather than fast-burning sugary foodstuffs  and it is necessary to remove the excess sugar in  your blood, if your internal organs are not able to regulate it, by  burning it off, which is best achieved by physical activity.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now concerned with Diabetes Cook Books. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics.

That has to be a good thing; it has to mean that we are beginning to cure or at least improve most types of blindness.

My aunty had cataracts for years when I was a child in the Sixties – it was simply one of those facts of life. Some people got them when they were getting on and others did not. 

My brother’s mother-in-law had cataracts in the late Nineties and she was put on a two year waiting list to have them removed, but at least she had hope and they were going to be taken away free of charge.

I do not know of anyone else that has eye trouble except myself. I could not get my spectacles clean one day and then a friend said he saw a white dot in one of my eyes. He drove me to the hospital and the optician said that I had ‘premature senile cataracts’. 

Well, I live in Thailand now and he did not say those precise words. He said that the cataracts were because I was prematurely senile.

I asked him if that was what he actually intended; he looked it up in a book and we both had a good laugh about it, although he never actually corrected himself. 

My condition turned out to be a little bit more problematic than only cataracts, but when I went from the local hospital to a major hospital in Pattaya, the surgeon saw me within 30 minutes and asked me if I wanted the cataracts taken away.

I said that I did and she was willing to do the operation there and then. I had it put off for 24 hours, but she would have sorted my eye out that day in a 30 minute operation, which does not require anaesthetic. I think that that was wonderful. 

We have come a long way from routinely seeing blind people on the street and putting up with cataracts through a two-year waiting list to immediate removal of cataracts by laser surgery in 40-50 years.

At least we have in the Developed World and in the East too, if you have the money. There are still millions of individuals in Asia and particularly in Africa suffering blindness and partial blindness for the sake of an simple 30 minute operation.

Two weeks after my surgical treatment, my other eye began to cloud over. It was as if it had been holding on with its last scrap of strength until I got the other one sorted out. 

I had that one done last year and when I was allowed to take off my patch and look about me with two decent eyes again for the first time in a decade, I could not believe that I had forgotten how bright the world actually is and that I had not noticed how drab my world had become.

If you are concerned about an eye operation, do not be. What you will experience once you are able to see properly again will make all the worry appear ridiculous and if you have the opportunity to give someone their sight back, please do it.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, and is now concerned with 500 Delicious Diabetic Recipes. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Easy Diabetic Meals