DIABETES

Diabetes is a disease in which your blood glucose, or sugar, levels are too high. Glucose comes from the foods you eat. Insulin is a hormone that helps the glucose get into your cells to give them energy.

Types and Causes
1) This type of diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Your immune system turns on itself and destroys the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas. Although type 1 diabetes usually develops in childhood or teen years, it can appear later.

2) In this type, your pancreas makes some insulin, but not enough. Your cells also can become resistant to insulin's effects, keeping insulin from escorting enough glucose into your body's cells. Type 2 diabetes generally develops after age 40. However, doctors are seeing a rise in childhood type 2 diabetes that parallels the rise in obesity among youth. A form of type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes, develops during 2 percent to 5 percent of pregnancies. In gestational diabetes, your body doesn't effectively use the insulin you produce. The cause may be metabolic changes that occur due to the effects of hormones in pregnancy. Gestational diabetes usually disappears after pregnancy, but more than half of women who experience it eventually develop apermanent type 2 diabetes.

Diet for Diabetes:
Diet plays a significant role in controlling the diabetes. The diabetic diet may be used alone or else in combination with insulin doses or with oral hypoglycemic drugs. Main objective of diabetic diet is to maintain ideal body weight, by providing adequate nutrition along with normal blood sugar levels in blood. The diet plan for a diabetic is based on height, weight, age, sex, physical activity and nature of diabetes. While planning diet, the dietician has to consider complications such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels.
Fiber should be at least 40 gm / day
Instead of 3 heavy meals, we should go for 4-5 small mid intervals
Replace bakery products and fast foods by simple whole cooked cereals, and don't eat carbohydrates 2 hours before bedtime.
Consume fresh fruit and vegetables

Objectives :
To maintain adequate nutrition.
To achieve and maintain desirable body weight.
To maintain normal blood sugar levels.
To prevent, delay or minimize the onset of chronic degenerative complications.

In case of insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, the energy intake is based on needs for normal growth and development, physical activity and maintenance of desirable body weight.
In case of non insulin dependant diabetes mellitus, the majority of patients are overweight or obese. Therefore, calorie restriction is required to achieve a desired weight.
Type of carbohydrate and amount of fibre: More of carbohydrate must be given as complex starches rather than simple sugars as they breakdown more slowly to release glucose in blood. The presence of fibre in complex carbohydrate like grains, vegetables and other starches slows the glucose absorption. One should emphasise more on the high fibre foods instead of high fibre supplements available in the market.
Food groups High fibre foods Low fibre foods Cereals Whole cereals like whole wheat, dalia, whole wheat flour Refined cereals like rice, bread, maida, suji, noodles, macaroni, etc Milk and milk products - Milk and milk products Pulses Whole dals and dals with husk Washed dals Meat, fish and poultry - Eggs, chicken, fish Vegetables Vegetables like peas, beans, lotus stem etc. Vegetables like potato, lauki etc. Fruits Fruits like apple, cherries, pears, peaches, plums, guava etc. Fruit juices and fruits like banana and papaya Fats - Fats

Diet plan (for NIDDM)
Early morning Tea (preferably without sugar)
Breakfast Dalia (salted)/ Paneer on toast Tea without sugar Apple
Lunch 2 chapatti Channa curry / or any other whole dal Beans sabzi /
or any other sabzi (avoid potatoes) Curds / ghia raita Salad
Tea Tea Salty biscuits
Dinner Vegetable soup / tomato soup / chicken soup 2 chapatti / missi roti
(combining wheat flour with channa flour and soya flour)
Palak paneer sabzi / paneer bhurji(non oily) Curds

Diet plan (for IDDM)
Early morning Tea (without sugar)
Breakfast Corn flakesBoiled eggToast
Mid-morning Fruit chat
Lunch 2 chapatti (add extra chapatti if required)Lobia curry / or any
other whole dalCapsicum sabzi / karela / or any other sabziCurds
/raitaSalad
Tea Tea / milkVegetable sandwich
Dinner 2 chapattiDry dalCabbage sabzi / or any other sabziSalad


Foods to be avoided
Glucose, sugar, honey, all sweets, chocolates and candies.
Foods to be restricted
Potatoes, yam, arbi, sweet potatoes, mangoes, grapes, bananas, alcoholic beverages, fried foods, paranthas, poories, pakoras, mathris, deep fried foods, dry fruits,salad oils, cakes and pastries.
Foods to be used freely
Green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, cucumber. radish, soups, buttermilk, tea and coffee without sugar.

Health Tip - Apple Cure

Consuming flavonol-rich foods like apples and onions reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer,a new study conducted by a group of international researchers has revealed.