Friday, November 12, 2010

The High Risk Of Having Diabetic Neuropathy

To maintain a healthy lifestyle is difficult especially when you experiencing pain. Like chocolates and roses, diet and diabetes go together for better or worse. When you have diabetes, you are forced to watch what you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat to keep your blood sugar from shooting up or plunging down.Diabetes is a health condition in which the body fails to produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that is essential in converting sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life.

While the cause of diabetes remains to be a mystery, both genetics and environmental factors such as obesity and lack of exercise may seem to play important roles. Diabetes can put you at high risk of having nerve pain and damage called diabetic neuropathy. It usually starts as a little numbness in your feet which develops into a full blown problem with walking, working, and leading an active lifestyle. Diabetic neuropathy can also cause major problems with your digestion and sexual response, making it difficult to feel normal body sensations such as the signs of high blood sugar or a heart attack. According to Dace L. Trence, MD, an endocrinologist and director of the Diabetes Care Center at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, a balanced diet that helps treat nerve pain is really no different than the standard diet advised by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

ontrolling your blood sugar can protect the health of your nerves and may even help prevent diabetic neuropathy. Since you only visit your doctor every once in a while, and eating is done several times a day, your diabetes diet will obviously have a high impact on your health and well-being.

A balanced diet includes a variety of foods found in the food pyramid, such as carbohydrates (starches), fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy, meat, poultry, fish, and healthy fats. Having a balanced diet keeps your glucose within target levels, controls your weight,and reduces the risk of complications like neuropathy, heart disease, and stroke.

Whether you skip meals or overeat, it will cause the rise and fall of your blood sugar.
Diabetic nerve pain and damage can decrease appetite and make it harder to digest food.
That is why smaller meals spread throughout the day may work better for you. Also, some
diabetes medications are more effective when taken together with regularly scheduled
meals.

Since carbohydrates takes more time to digest, they don't affect your blood sugar the way sugars do. Carbohydrates can also fill you up faster, so you're less likely to overeat, and they give you more vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Do not be surprised by how small the “official” serving sizes are. The habit of reading food labels can help you find out the real portion sizes for the foods you enjoy. If you double up on a special dish one day, be sure to subtract that from your next day's diet planning.

According to ADA, alcohol is toxic to nerves. It is the job of the liver to clear your body of toxins like alcohol and to convert carbohydrates into blood glucose to be used by your body. Since drinking is bad for your liver, it will hamper its work in levelling out blood sugar from your bloodstream until it the alcohol is cleared. For those who have diabetic neuropathy, drinking may trigger pain, tingling, and other symptoms.

Overweight people can lower blood glucose by losing weight. It does not only give you more energy, it also lightens the load on their feet which may already be sore from nerve pain. Losing weight also lowers the risk of heart disease and stroke.

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