by Happiness Hassan | Apr 27, 2021 | Health & Wellness
The increasing rate of diabetes is alarming, resulting in about 1.6million death yearly, with its major percentage amongst developing countries, Nigeria included. Both young and old can be a victim. Therefore, how to prevent diabetes is the question asked by the majority, because the aftermath of diabetes when not treated gives rise to other detrimental diseases. Such as blindness, kidney failure, stroke, damaged nervous system, heart attack, and amputation of the lower limb.
However, before we look at how to prevent diabetes, it’s best we understand what diabetes is all about, its types, and likewise, what causes it.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a metabolic disease also known as diabetes mellitus. This occurs when the body’s glucose or sugar is high. It all begins with the inability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin. Responsible for transporting glucose from the body to the cell to be used as energy or stored. Likewise, when the body experiences difficulty in using the insulin produced effectively. The two-process leads to the accumulation of sugar in the body resulting in diabetes.
What Causes Diabetes?
Medically, the main cause of diabetes stems from damaged insulin in charge of regulating body sugar. As the body’s immune system fights infection and other diseases bacteria and viruses attack the insulin and when it weakens it becomes difficult to transport sugar.
Obvious symptoms include blurred vision, fatigue, increased thirst, frequent urination, and infections.
Types Of Diabetes
1. Type I diabetes
The inability of the pancreas to produce insulin causing high storage of glucose in the body. Type I diabetes affects more children and young adults.
2. Type II Diabetes
This occurs when the body resists insulin. Whereby, it fails to use produced insulin efficiently, causing glucose to build up in the bloodstream. However, type II diabetes affects adults above 45years.
3. Gestational Diabetes
This type of diabetes is common amongst pregnant women. Experience when insulin blocks hormones during pregnancy, the aftermath is the accumulation of sugar in the body. Affects both the mother and child.
How to Prevent Diabetes
1. Minimize Sugar Intake
A high intake of sugar and sugary products such as; chocolates, candies, yoghurts, sugary soda drinks, and ice cream boosts the likelihood of diabetes. Most especially when the body cell becomes resistant to insulin’s actions.
Glucose broken down from that food is unable to circulate across the cell, hence, is absorbed into your bloodstream.
2. Maximize Fiber Intake
Fibre products do the opposite of surgery products. Instead of increasing the body sugar, it helps keep the blood sugar and insulin low. Also, can be used to keep one’s weight in check. Preferably insoluble fibre which doesn’t absorb water. The more natural and unprocessed a food product is the higher its fibre content.
Foods with high fibre include; pear, strawberries, barley, avocado, carrots, nuts, peas, beans, potatoes, wholegrain, and wheat.
3. Avoid Smoking
How to prevent diabetes also entails abstinence from smoking. It contains carbon monoxide (CO) which replaces oxygen in the blood, making other organs starved of oxygen.
Smoking leads to heart disease, cancer of the breast, lungs, and likewise prostate. However, research has proven that about 60% of smokers have a high risk of diabetes.
4. Engage More in Exercise
Effective work-out increases the function of insulin. The more sensitive your insulin becomes to glucose, it will be able to transport glucose from the blood to the cells. Likewise, those living with abdominal fat can also employ exercise methods to burn out fast. This is essential as abdominal fat increases inflammation and causes the body to resist insulin.
Other methods of losing abdominal fat are; healthy diet, reduced alcohol intake, and aerobics exercise.
5. Natural Herbs Helps Prevent Diabetes
They are categories of natural herbs which are used to increase insulin sensitivity to carry out its function of sugar regulations effectively. Also, decreased fats, support digestion, improves blood glucose level and concentration.
These herbs include aloe vera, bitter melon, ginger, cinnamon, and fenugreek.
6. Take in Lots of Vitamin D
The level of vitamin D in the body determines the amount of sugar absorbed by the body and transported to cells. One of the roles of vitamin D in the body is to strengthen the insulin when damaged by bacteria and viruses.
Sources of vitamin D are fatty fish, cod liver oil, egg yolk, mushrooms, and sunlight.
Final Words
How to prevent diabetes should be preferred above its treatments which are demanding. You shouldn’t wait until you experience its symptoms or when diagnosed with diabetes before applying preventive measures. It’s advisable to include the above methods as part of your routine. These healthy habits in turn will boost your immune system to fight other harmful diseases.
Also, share with us how this post was helpful to you in the comment section below.
6 Natural How to Prevent Diabetes
by Kabir Salisu | Jan 21, 2021 | Health & Wellness
It is typical of the ajebutters among us to take soft drinks of various flavours as dessert after every meal. The averages take it once in a while, whilst the ‘fortunate’ lower-class tastes soft drinks once in a blue moon; credit to festivals and official meetings. Do you wonder why I tagged those that rarely take soft drinks as fortunate? Because soft drinks are bad for you!
Keep reading, e get why…
What Constitutes Soft Drinks?
Soft drinks are non-alcoholic carbonated drinks that taste sweet with distinctive sourness and a flavour of cola, orange, lemon, or whatever. Their colours portray the flavouring across different brand names. Shall we look at the features of a typical soft drink to know what we gulp down as refreshment?
The sweetness is a result of the added sugar during manufacturing. A 330ml can/bottle of soft drink contains about of sugar, which is more than the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) set by the American Heart Association.
Soft drinks taste sour because they contain an acid, mainly phosphoric acid. This acid disguises the high sugar content which otherwise will make the drink intolerable to taste. They are also pleasing owing to their caffeine content. This caffeine is what makes us feel relaxed and happy after taking soft drinks and leaves us craving for more.
What are Harmful Effects of Soft Drinks?
Yes, with the short-lived pleasure that comes with soft drinks, there are priceless elements of healthy life that it flies with. Down here are a few:
1. Obesity
You might be trying your best to lose weight, exercise, reducing carbs, slimming tea and all, but no result is achieved. Do you take soft drinks regularly?
The high sugar adds up belly fat leading to unhealthy weight gain. This weight builds up to obesity, which is a major risk factor for diabetes and hypertension.
2. High Risk of Diabetes
Whenever we take sugary foods, our bodies secrete a hormone called insulin. It facilitates the utilization of sugar by our bodies. When taken in excess, our body system develops resistance to this hormone hence the sugar can’t be properly utilized. This results in the accumulation of sugar, leading to metabolic syndrome and consequently type 2 diabetes.
They say there are sugar-free soft drinks in the market, hell no. Don’t you know they also contain potentially harmful sweeteners?
3. Risk of Hypertension and Heart Diseases
It’s well known that high sugar in the blood causes the deposit of fat on the belly right? Not only that, the belly is the part we talk about more because it’s more obvious, but the fat also builds up in the arteries and the heart causing high blood pressure and heart diseases.
Do you know that heart diseases, diabetes and hypertension are among the major causes of old age morbidity, stroke (resulting in paralysis), and premature death?
4. Tooth Decay
How do you feel after taking sourish thingy, like lemon? Do you feel that shock-like tangy sensation on your teeth? Well, the sourness of the acid in a soft drink does the same to your teeth (but counter-concealed by the sugar). The acidity erodes the enamel of teeth, which allows the action of microbes resulting in toothache and decay.
No wonder many elderly ajebutters have files in dental clinics.
5. Kidney Stones
There is phosphoric acid in soft drinks, right? That acid enables the right condition for the formation of kidney stones, a mass deposit that blocks the fine tubes through which urine passes during formation, this escalates to chronic disease.
6. Loss of Bone Mass
Soft drinks contain caffeine, which acts on kidneys to facilitate the passage of calcium alongside other important electrolytes. Calcium is an essential element in bone formation and density maintenance.
When calcium is lost through urine, there will be low calcium in the blood. The body tends to increase it by reducing the amount in your bones, guess what? Your bones pay for the price; they become brittle; easily breakable.
7. Addiction
In the last three years, how frequently do you take soft drinks? What of now? I am sure your consumption of the drink had, and is increasing with time. It makes you crave for more. The problem associated with the habitual intake of soft drinks is soda addiction.
At each episode of drinking, the caffeine in the drink acts on the brain and makes you feel okay, satisfied, and relaxed.
However, when the brain cells become familiar with this feeling, it craves for more and forces you to increase the amount of the drink you take daily. Whenever you decided not to take, there occur withdrawal symptoms typical to that of drug addicts. This is why some diabetic patients couldn’t resist the urge to take soda despite the life-threatening alarms all around.
Conclusion
Are you now convinced that soft drinks are bad for you? We aren’t saying you should cut soft drinks in your life, but habitual intake is dangerous.
Drink healthy, live healthy!
I hope you find this article resourceful. If you do, kindly leave a comment for me in the comments section. Thank you.
