Type 2 diabetes: Doctor explains impacts of the condition
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With over five million people living with diabetes in the UK, the condition is chronic and can impact your everyday life. Changing your diet, medication and having regular checkups will become a major part of your life that you may not have expected.
Caused by issues with a hormone in your body named insulin, type 2 diabetes is often linked to being overweight or not exercising enough.
The condition can also be hereditary.
What’s more, many people can develop type 2 diabetes without realising.
According to the NHS, this is because symptoms do not necessarily make you feel unwell.
Some of these may include:
- Peeing more than usual, particularly at night
- Feeling thirsty all the time
- Feeling very tired
- Losing weight without trying to
- Itching around your penis or vagina, or repeatedly getting thrush
- Cuts or wounds taking longer to heal
- Blurred vision.
Whilst last year gave the world a new public health crisis that changed the course of global health, according to the Mayo Clinic, type 2 diabetes killed three times as many people as COVID-19. The condition generally develops in adulthood, as a result of simple choices you make every day.
So, what can you do to reduce your risk?
Whilst there are a myriad of risk factors that contribute to developing type 2 diabetes, the biggest is a diet high in added sugar.
When the body is overloaded with sugar – with many foods containing carbohydrates that break down into glucose – it can become resistant to insulin.
“Diabetes is when your body cannot provide enough insulin to allow glucose (sugar) into the hungry cells of your body,” explains Thomas Horowitz, a family medicine specialist at CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Centre.
”The best way to avoid it is to be on a diet that does not task your insulin supply.”
As Horowitz explained, you should avoid sugar-sweetened drinks like fizzy soft drinks, processed foods and refined grains like white breads, cookies and crisps.
Instead, the specialists recommend that you should choose foods that are low in added sugar and contain complex carbohydrates that break down slowly, like whole grains and vegetables instead of refined grains or sweets.
He went on to advise that it is especially important to limit or avoid drinks with added sugar – as one can of original coca-cola contains 39 grams of added sugar – more than the recommended daily limit.
According to a recent study, to reduce your diabetes risk or manage your diabetes, getting more physical activity is key.
”Together with diet and behaviour modification, exercise is an essential component of all diabetes and obesity prevention and lifestyle intervention programs,” said researchers in a study published in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.
The research revealed that exercise improves insulin sensitivity and builds muscles, which can speed your metabolism, helping you reach and maintain a healthy weight.
According to the NHS, you are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes if you:
- Are over 40 (or 25 for south Asian people)
- Have a close relative with diabetes (such as a parent, brother or sister)
- Are overweight or obese
- Are of Asian, African-Caribbean or black African origin (even if you were born in the UK).
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