Diabetes and Stress: What's the Connection?

Diabetes is a complex disease, with varying risk factors and causes. Stress, especially long-term stress, interferes with the body's ability to manage blood sugar levels. As managing sugar levels becomes more difficult, the risk of long-term problems increases.

In this article, we will examine what stress is, how it is caused, and how it affects people living with diabetes. Since stress is a natural part of life, we will also discuss tips for managing and preventing stress.

Contents of this article:

1. What is stress?
2. How does stress affect people with diabetes?
3. Signs and symptoms of stress in people with diabetes
4. How can stress be managed and prevented?
5. Tips for reducing stress

Read more: Diabetes and Stress: What's the Connection?

Stress can cause blood sugar levels to rise in people with diabetes.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Is Okra Good for Diabetes?

According to a handful of recent studies, okra may reduce symptoms of diabetes - a group of diseases that includes type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes.

Diabetes claimed the lives of 75,578 Americans in 2013, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2014,8.5 percent of adults worldwide had the condition, the World Health Organization (WHO) report. By 2030, diabetes may be the seventh leading cause of death.

A number of factors increase a person's risk of developing diabetes, including a family history of the disease. Lifestyle factors also play a role, so doctors routinely recommend diet changes and increased exercise to reduce blood sugar levels.

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Okra belongs to the same family of plants as cocoa and cotton.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Obesity Linked to Abnormal Reward Response to Sugary Foods

An unhealthy diet is considered a key contributor to obesity. When it comes to cravings for sweet treats, however, impairments in the brain's reward system might be to blame.

In a new study published in the journal Diabetes, researchers found age and receptor levels of the reward-associated chemical dopamine influence preference for sweet foods among people of a healthy weight, but not for people who are obese.

First author M. Yanina Pepino, Ph.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine, and colleagues reached their findings by enrolling 44 adults aged 20-40 years.

Read more: Obesity Linked to Abnormal Reward Response to Sugary Foods

Researchers say the reward system in the brains of obese individuals appears to be impaired in
response to sweet foods.

Source: medicalnewstoday

All You Need to Know About Insulin Sensitivity Factor

Insulin is a hormone that plays and important role in the body's metabolism by controlling blood sugar levels and other processes.

It is produced by beta cells in the pancreas and released it into the bloodstream after we eat to enable some body cells, such as muscle, fat, and heart cells, to absorb the sugar from the food we eat.

Insulin also helps store glucose in the liver as glycogen when it is not needed, so it can be released it when blood sugar levels are low or when more energy is needed.

Read more: All You Need to Know About Insulin Sensitivity Factor

Insulin sensitivity factor reflects how blood sugar levels fall after taking 1 unit of insulin.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Fat vs Carbs: What’s Really Worse for Your Health?

The traditional balanced diet may be way out of whack. To fight obesity and diabetes, doctors and nutritionists are embracing diets that were once called fads.

“PEOPLE have told me what I do is dangerous. They have walked away from me at meetings,” says David Unwin, a doctor practising in Southport, UK. Unwin suggests to his patients with type 2 diabetes or who want to lose weight that they do the opposite of what official health advice recommends. He advises them to stop counting calories, eat high-fat foods – including saturated fats – and avoid carbohydrates, namely sugar and starch. Telling people to avoid sugar is uncontroversial; the rest is medical heresy.

Read more: Fat vs Carbs: What’s Really Worse for Your Health?

Source: NewScientist

Medical Video: How does insulin work in the body

Take a trip inside the body in this fascinating animated video to find out how insulin works in the body.

Source: MedicalVideos

Tips to diabetes for drinking alcohol

Enjoying a glass of wine, fruity margarita, or frosty pint of beer requires a little forethought if you have diabetes. Before you indulge, make sure you have a tasty appetizer or healthy salad to go along with your drink. And talk to your doctor about drinking alcohol. The answer to whether you can or should not will depend on your specific circumstances.

How Does Alcohol Affect Blood Sugar?

The way alcohol affects your blood sugar comes down to whether you’ve eaten, and how much and how often you drink. A standard drink contains 0.6 fluid ounces of alcohol. This means that a 12 ounce beer (about 5% alcohol) is equivalent to a 5 ounce glass of your average table wine (about 12% alcohol) or a shot of hard liquor such as vodka. Here’s the scoop on how much and how often:

• When you have an occasional drink with food, alcohol generally has little effect on your blood sugar. This is the safest way to enjoy alcohol.
• When you have an occasional drink without any food, alcohol can cause your blood sugar to fall to dangerously low levels. You should never drink alcohol on an empty stomach.
• If you are a habitual drinker (3 to 4 drinks a day), alcohol increases your blood sugar no matter what you eat. If this describes you, consider talking to your doctor about ways to cut back or stop your alcohol use.

Read more: Tips to diabetes for drinking alcohol

Source: diabeteszone

Can diabetes be cured?

What Causes Diabetes?

Scientists don’t know exactly what causes diabetes. They think that type 1 diabetes is a disease in which your immune system attacks your own cells as if they were foreign invaders. This is called an autoimmune disease. In type 1 diabetes, your immune system attacks your pancreas cells and destroys their ability to make insulin. Most scientists believe that an environmental factor, such as a virus, triggers this process in your body. Your genes play a role as well. Certain people are more prone to develop diabetes.

Likewise, health experts don’t fully understand what causes type 2 diabetes. They do know that it is closely linked to obesity and it tends to run in families. Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes but you can prevent it in many cases. If you have type 2 diabetes, you may be able to reverse or control high blood sugar through diet and exercise. However, you will always have diabetes and you will always need to manage it to prevent serious health problems.

Is There a Cure for Diabetes?

Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are chronic, lifelong conditions. Currently, there is no permanent cure for either type. However, there is hope in research for a cure and in prevention. While you can’t prevent type 1 diabetes, you may be able to prevent type 2 diabetes. Maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, and exercising regularly are all ways you can help prevent type 2 diabetes.

Read more: Can diabetes be cured?

Source: internetmedicine

Diabetes once a problem of the rich, now belongs to the poor too.

As the global diabetes rate soared over the past quarter-century, the affected population transformed: What was once predominantly a rich-country problem has become one that disproportionately affects poorer countries.

That's one of the many conclusions of the World Health Organization's first global report on the chronic disease. Worldwide, diabetes rates nearly doubled, from 4.7 percent in 1980 to 8.5 percent in 2014. Roughly one in 12 people living in the world today have the disease, which has spread dramatically.

“If we are to make any headway in halting the rise in diabetes, we need to rethink our daily lives: To eat healthily, be physically active, and avoid excessive weight gain,” Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said in a statement. “Even in the poorest settings, governments must ensure that people are able to make these healthy choices and that health systems are able to diagnose and treat people with diabetes.”

Read more: Diabetes once a problem of the rich, now belongs to the poor too.

A woman fills a syringe as she prepares to give herself an injection of insulin.

Source: Reed Saxon/AP

Sugar addiction could be A Form Of Drug Abuse.

Sugar-addicted rats were successfully treated with a smoking cessation drug, according to new research.

A spiral into years or a life of drug abuse can be mentally and physically destructive, but what if sugar addiction reaped the same consequences? Amid the United States obesity epidemic — as well as increasing rates of diabetes and heart disease — researchers are beginning to see sugar addiction in a new light: as something nearly as damaging to health as drug dependence.

In a new study out of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia, researchers suggest that in the future, sugar addiction may be treated the same way as drug addiction. Their research showed that rats addicted to sugar could be treated with nicotine addiction drugs. Like alcohol and drug addiction, consuming high levels of sugar increases dopamine levels and activates the same reward pathways in the brain.

“Excess sugar consumption has been proven to contribute directly to weight gain,” Professor Selena Bartlett of QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, an author of the study, said in the press release. “It has also been shown to repeatedly elevate dopamine levels which control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers in a way that is similar to many drugs of abuse including tobacco, cocaine and morphine.”

Read more: Sugar addiction could be A Form Of Drug Abuse.

In America, nearly every packaged food contains some amount of sugar;
as a result, our tolerance for sweets has gotten higher and contributed to obesity and diabetes.

Source: Pixabay, public domain