Diabetes Treatment & Information

It’s not always a good idea to give in to temptation. Digging into your favorite dessert can do some serious damage to your system, especially if you’re diabetic. Americans tend to have a sweet tooth, and that is perhaps the reason why most of us, succumb to Diabetes. In fact, the amount of sugar we eat and drink every year has soared nearly 30 percent since 1983 and is most likely a major contributor to the soaring rates of obesity in this country.

Although the USDA recommends we get no more than 10 teaspoons of sugar a day, the average American downs about 34 teaspoons–more than three times as much. Uncovering all the sugar in your diet isn’t easy. Sugar often hides under several pseudonyms and turns up in even the most innocuous foods (like bread, crackers, salad dressing, ketchup, and mustard). However, by observing a little caution, you can have the cake, and eat it too- literally!

Switch to Sugar free Recipes. Incorporating less or no sugar in your everyday meals will help you maintain a healthy diet and keep fit. Different assortments of food are available for everything you need for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some select online stores carry candy, chocolates, drink mixes, protein bars, desserts and many other delectable snacks. With such a vast amount of scrumptious Sugar free Foods, you will certainly find everything you need to keep your taste buds satisfied.

Go half and half. A quick No Sugar Recipe is that you mix half a regular soda with half a diet soda. Half a carton of sweetened yogurt with half a carton of plain yogurt. Half a cup of regular juice with half a cup of seltzer. Do this for two weeks, then cut back to one-quarter sweetened to three-quarters unsweetened. Continue until you’re only drinking the unsweetened version. Grant yourself a daily sugar “quota,” and use it on foods where it matters most. For most of us, that means desserts. Don’t waste it on dressings, spreads, breakfast cereals, and soda. Not only will this reduce your sugar intake in a day, but it will help you lose your sweet tooth. Sugar is incredibly addictive. Train your taste buds to become accustomed to less and you’ll be satisfied with less.

Establish rules about dessert. For instance, only have dessert after dinner, never lunch. Only eat dessert on odd days of the month, or only on weekends, or only at restaurants. If you have a long tradition of daily desserts, then make it your rule to have raw fruit at least half the time. Keep trying new Sugar free Dessert Recipes and enjoy a hearty sweet dish without feeling guilty about it. Instead of downing sugary-sweet drinks like lemonade, make your own “sun tea.” This is an interesting Sugar free Recipe where you steep have to decaffeinated tea bags in water and set the pitcher in the sun for a couple of hours. Add lemon, lots of ice and sugar substitute for a carb-free summer quaff.

Today most condiments and other packaged foods for people with diabetes are made without sugar or with sugar substitutes. Here are the common ones: brown sugar, corn syrup, dextrin, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, high-fructose corn syrup, galactose, glucose, honey, hydrogenated starch, invert sugar maltose, lactose, mannitol, maple syrup, molasses, polyols, raw sugar, sorghum, sucrose, sorbitol, turbinado sugar, and xylitol. All No Sugar Recipes and Sugar free Dessert Recipes use these ingredients to get that same taste. source

Many have touted whole grain foods as a way to prevent type 2 diabetes, and a new review finds a reduction in risk for people who consume a diet high in unrefined grains. However, the authors caution that more research is necessary before scientists can confirm a causal relationship. “At the moment, because there is only weak evidence, no definite conclusion can be drawn concerning the protective effect of whole grain foods for the development of type 2 diabetes,” said lead review author Marion Priebe. Refined cereal food products remove the nutrient- and fiber-rich bran and germ of the grain, leaving only the starchy inner parts. A decrease in consumption of whole grain cereals over the last decade, occurring at the same time as an increase in type 2 diabetes, has lead to the theory that there is a connection between the two.

Priebe, a nutritionist and epidemiologist at the Center for Medical Biomics, University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, and colleagues reviewed 12 studies that examined relationships between whole grain intake and type 2 diabetes. These studies consisted of a single randomized controlled clinical trial and 11 prospective studies. The review appears in the latest issue of The /Cochrane Library/, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic. In the prospective studies, researchers followed groups of people without diabetes over long periods to see whether those who consumed more whole grain foods were less likely to get the disease than other participants were. These studies consistently showed a reduction of risk for the disease in those with a high intake of whole grain foods or cereal fiber.

Two of the studies that looked at the effect of whole grain consumption on weight, an important diabetes risk factor, found only a slight improvement.Scientists consider evidence from prospective studies to be weaker than that from randomized controlled trials. Other factors, like an overall healthy lifestyle, can also influence the development of type 2 diabetes and it is not possible to completely correct for known and possibly unknown factors in this study design. In randomized controlled trials, which are more difficult to perform, researchers can exclude or control for other influences on the development of the disease.Priebe said she was surprised that only one randomized trial on this topic exists: “As type 2 diabetes mellitus is reaching epidemic proportions and diet is considered as a modifiable risk factor, it is important to have a sound knowledge of which kinds of food can contribute to the prevention of this disease and to identify gaps in this knowledge.”

Osama Hamdy, M.D., medical director of the Clinical Obesity Program at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, said the kinds of data used within the review are troubling. He said that studies about diabetes prevention should be randomized controlled trials over long durations. Although the concept of a whole grains-rich diet as a possible diabetes preventative is interesting, he said, none of the review studies would enable any kind of cause-and-effect conclusion. “This is an additional piece of information that tells us diets rich in whole grains will probably do some good in the prevention of type 2 diabetes,” Hamdy said. “It is not a shortcut to tell you exactly what you need. It is just more support of a concept that has been around for a long time.” “Whole grain foods are rich in dietary fiber and nutrients and they are recommended to be consumed together with plenty of fruit and vegetables for a healthy diet,” Priebe said. The findings of this review are in line with those recommendations.” The Cochrane Collaboration is an international nonprofit, independent organization that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of health care interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions.