Diabetes and Diet

Carbs are a part of nearly every dieter’s vocabulary. A number of diets are famous for fighting carb consumption. But you should know that not every carbohydrate is created alike. While it is true that you can lose weight by cutting carbs, carbs are also necessary for a good diet.

To begin with, we should define our terms. Carbs are derived from a number of different sources. They are present in bread, pasta, fruits, and vegetables. There are also a number of different types of carbs. For instance, carbs come in the form of sugars, starches, and fiber.

For the most part, the digestive system divides carbs into sugar molecules which can be taken into the bloodstream. The majority of carbs are transformed into glucose or blood sugar. In this way, carbs provide energy for our bodies.Those who lack sufficient carbs in their diet may suffer from fatigue.

Carbs can be filled with nutrients. For instance, fruit contains vitamins A and C, fiber, and folate. Vegetables are also a good vitamin and fiber source; in fact, they usually contain a greater variety of minerals than other foods do. Whole grains can provide you with fiber, protein, and B vitamins. Legumes can provide you with protein, iron, and potassium.

But carbs can also be potentially bad for your health. For instance, cookies, potato chips, and soft drinks also contain carbs in the form of sugar and flour. You should know that refined carbohydrates have been linked with diabetes and heart diseases, making these carbs a dangerous choice.

There are a number of good reasons to ban these carbs from your diet. For instance, they are extremely high in calories and offer little in the way of nutrients. Because they contain no fiber, they will not keep you satiated. In fact, such carbs offer you zero nutrients, but plenty of fat.

Therefore, you should avoid processed grains and sugars. Instead, eat whole grains, fruits, and vegetables to maximize your nutritional intake.Instead of eliminating carbs completely from your diet, simply ban those that increase the size of your waistline.

There is another way to think about carbs. You can generally divide them into two categories: simple and complex. A simple carb, such as sugar, promotes weight gain. As a result, you should select low-sugar foods, especially low-sugar beverages. In contrast, complex carbohydrates promote weight loss.

Health experts recommend that dieters consume between 55 and 65 percent of their calories from these types of carbs. Such carbs include fruits and vegetables and a number of other natural foods.

But it isn’t enough to simply eat fruits and vegetables. You also need to avoid fattening sauces and condiments such as mayonnaise and butter. By adding butter to your broccoli or mayonnaise to your potatoes, you can raise the calorie amount exponentially, sabotaging your diet.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture promotes a food pyramid that recommends as many as eleven servings of bread, pasta, and cereal. However, a number of dieticians are suggesting that Americans should cut the carbs – period. In one poll, 81 percent of the respondents said they were abiding by a low-carb diet.

It is interesting to point out that neither the American Heart Association nor the American Diabetes Association believes that the glycemic index should be considered when following a weight loss plan. While the Diabetes Association concedes that various foods offer different glycemic responses, the Association’s leaders believe the most critical factor is the number of carbs rather than the form of the carbs consumed.

Granted, dietary information about carbs can be confusing. However, a number of dieticians say that, while you might not want to cut carbs out of your diet entirely, you should eat carbs only in moderation.

Health experts also say that you should limit your carb intake to good carbs and pass up the bad ones.By following such a plan, you should have energy – but you shouldn’t pack on the weight. It may be difficult at first to follow such a diet plan, since many of us are conditioned to eat bad carbs in order to elevate our moods. In time, however, you may find that you enjoy the fruits and vegetables you’re eating, and you may not even miss those tortilla chips.

Paul Hata
http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/carbs-the-good-the-bad-and-the-healthy-523043.html

The most popular diet for diabetics has made its way into the weight loss arena and is proving to be quite successful. For years, the Low Glycemic Index Diet has been used as a tool to help diabetics manage their blood glucose levels. Once it was discovered that this diet for diabetics could also aid in weight loss it became popular with a host of individuals.

One of the reasons that this diet for diabetics works so well is the strong correlation between improper weight management and the presence of diabetes. While not everyone who suffers from diabetes developed the disease due to weight problems a large majority have been discovered to have developed diabetes as a

result of obesity. This is because certain foods tend to raise the blood sugar levels in the body higher and faster than other foods. When that happens the body has a built in check system to return the blood glucose levels to their normal state.

In order to do this the pancreas must release insulin which transports excess blood sugar or blood glucose into storage. Everything is find as long as we work off or use of those stores of blood sugar and this is not required too often. Problems arise; however, when we do not burn off the stored blood sugar and we force our pancreas to overwork by consuming too many foods that cause our blood sugar to skyrocket.

When the body is not able to burn off the stores of blood sugar it turns to fat and that results in being overweight. That is not the end of the problem; however. When we frequently maintain a diet that is high in foods that raise our blood sugar, over time, the pancreas becomes overworked and may shut down. This is when diabetes steps into the picture. Often diabetes and obesity go hand in hand.

The low GI diet was developed as a way to aid diabetics in selecting foods which would not raise their blood sugar levels too high after consuming them. It was hoped that this would remove the drain on the pancreas. This diet for diabetics was found to be quite successful in this regard and was also determined to have the added benefit of helping individuals who followed it lose weight.

The basis of the diet is the glycemic index, which ranks carbohydrates according to how quickly the body is able to digest them. Foods which can be easily digested by the body rank higher on the index and tend to raise the body’s blood glucose levels higher than other foods. According to the diet, these foods should be consumed sparingly. Other foods are not broken down the body so easily and therefore do not have as much of an effect on the body’s blood sugar levels. Some foods even have no effect at all and can be eaten without fear of any restrictions.

High processed and refined foods tend to rank high on the glycemic index most frequently. Individuals following the diet for diabetics are encouraged to avoid or minimize their intake of these foods.

It should be understood that unlike many other diets that may sound similar in nature, the diet for diabetics does not require total exclusion of carbohydrates. Some carbs are actually good and can be eaten. Ideally, adults are recommended to stick with a diet that includes at least 130 grams of carbs per day to provide fuel for the body. This, of course, assumes that you are maintaining an otherwise healthy and active lifestyle. If, for some, reason you are unable to be active, you may need a lower daily intake of carbs.

Wesley Atkins
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/the-ultimate-diet-for-diabetics-110105.html

Carbohydrates (carbs, for short) are one of the three macro-nutrients that your body needs for proper functioning. (Micro-nutrients are things like vitamins, minerals, etc.) The other macro-nutrients are proteins and fats.

Proteins are the building blocks for your muscles, organs, tissues, etc. Fats are necessary for long term energy storage, they carry certain forms of vitamins and nutrients (Vitamin E, for example) and your body needs fats for many of its metabolic processes.

Carbohydrates are the fuel that your body uses for energy. Your body prefers to use carbohydrates for energy, though it can also use fats and proteins, which is why “low carb” diets work. They are easier to process for energy than either the fats or the proteins and your body gets more energy “bang for the buck” with carbs.

On the molecular level carboydrates are ring molecules. A “simple” carb, like glucose, is one ring of six carbon atoms. Just like the ring on your finger. Table sugar, sucrose, is made up of two of these simple sugar rings. Starches and “complex carbohydrates” are made up of many of these rings. This is why your body takes longer to digest the complex carbs, it has to break them down into the individual rings first and then use them for energy.

This quick digestion is why your blood sugar will leap sky high when consuming a meal of simple carbs. Your body can use them almost immediately. Eat something with a lot of sugar, such as a soda, and bam! Sugar is immediately pumped into the system and your blood suger levels leap. Insulin is secreted into the blood and the insulin causes the sugar levels to drop, along with your energy.

A meal of complex carbs takes longer to digest and as a result doesn’t slam sugars into your system, rather the complex carbs provide longer term energy. Fats and proteins take even longer to digest and convert into the carbs your body needs.

Extreme low-carb diets, such as they first part of the Atkins Diet, are not recommended for anything other than short term use. Even the Atkins diet brings you back into carbs after than first section, but they are the complex carbs. Simple carbs are almost completely abandoned.

As far as energy goes, though, your body only needs so much at one time and it can only store so much at one time. Someone exercising regularly or working at hard manual labor need more carbs than someone who isn’t, but there are still limits to how much they can use. Those extra carbs are stored in two ways.

One way is conversion into glycogen, a type of starch, which is then stored in the muscles for near term energy reserves. The other way they are stored is fat. The body stores excess carbohydrate as fat after it has used what it needs for energy and glycogen storage. (This is a little over-simplified, but close enough.)

In addition to being converted to fat, excess simple carbs over a long period of time can lead to a variety of health issues, diabetes and heart issues being among them.

So what foods are the simple carbs? Any kind of sugar, rice, white flour, potatoes, Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, etc. These are all “high glycemic index” (GI) foods. The GI compares foods to a glass of glucose and measures how fast those foods will spike your blood sugar.

Fruits tend to be in the medium GI range and most veggies are pretty low. Go to Google.com and look for “high glycemic foods” or “glycemic index” and you’ll find charts with examples of various foods and their ratings.

So while you body does needs carbs for fuel it doesn’t need a ton of them and it works best if they come in slowly and steadily, rather than in a burst. You may have heard of the “eat several small meals” plans? This is one of the reasons they work. Your body has the time to properly process the carbs and so uses them, rather than storing them as fat.

Want to gain weight fast? Eat one big meal a day, preferably in the evening, and sleep afterwards. That’s how the Sumo wrestlers of Japan do it.

Greg Mee
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/carbohydrates-what-do-they-do-for-you-565468.html

Have you been hearing a lot about a glycemic diet? What kind of a diet is this and what does it mean? It is a diet with foods low in glycemic index value. Foods are ranked 1 – 100 based on the effects they have on blood sugar levels. Foods with a low glycemic value will slowly release sugar into the blood. This provides you with a steady supply of energy and a satisfied feeling so that you are not hungry. Thus you should snack less often.

Naturally food with a high glycemic impact value will do the opposite of a low value. The rapid rise in blood sugar can make you feel fatigued and hungry within a short period. Thus eating foods high in GI value can cause you to over eat causing weight gain.

Diets based on the GI value will encourage you to eat foods low in GI and to stay away from foods high in GI value. Most of these GI diets like many other diets will discourage the intake of fatty foods, especially saturated fats. So even if you have a food that is low in GI value but high in fat it should be limited in consumption.

Foods ranked from 0 to 55 on the glycemic index are considered to have a low GI. Some foods that have this rank are broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, mushrooms, onions and red peppers. These vegetables all have a rank around 10. Cherries and grapefruits run in the 20’s. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, whole grains, lean meat, fish and low fat dairy are basically low in GI value. Any foods that rank over 70 are considered to have a high GI rank. Some of these foods you would want to stay away from are red skinned boiled potatoes, corn flakes, dates, bread stuffing, rice cakes and rice crackers. Foods made from white flour are heavily processed and are usually high GI foods. This is only a small sampling of foods that are low and high in GI value.

What are some popular diets that encourage the low GI values? Ann Collins, Nutrisystem and Ediets all have diet plans that are based on the Glycemic Index. There are many books to help guide you on a low glycemic index diet. The GI diet is claiming to be a simple, healthy way for permanent weight loss without going hungry. There is a saying regarding this diet. If you can follow a traffic light you can follow this diet. Categorizing foods as green, yellow and red.

This GI Diet can actually reduce your risk from heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and other high risk diseases. If you are concerned about your weight and health you owe it to yourself to invest the time and to look into this diet and discuss it with your doctor.

Tk Healey
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/glycemic-impact-diet-66880.html

The Atkins diet principles lay the foundation for a healthy, more balanced way of eating than the standard American diet. Its emphasis is on using good carbohydrates in balance with adequate protein. This is in stark contrast to what most Americans eat on a daily basis. The average American eats lots of processed foods that have hidden sugars and highly processed carbohydrates. This has put most Americans on the road to diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions. What is sad is that diabetes has a predictable set of stages and that they can be easily recognized.

The road to diabetes has to do with something called the glycemic index. All carbohydrates are rated on this index with regards to the level of insulin reaction they produce. Foods that have a high glycemic index rating will cause your pancreas to release a lot of insulin to break down the amount of sugars and carbohydrates (which produce high amounts of glucose). The refined carbohydrates and sugars that make up the vast majority of the American diet rank very high on the glycemic index.

We are able to more readily digest these foods as children, because our bodies function more efficiently in our youth. There may have been side effects, like weight gain and mood swings, but they didn’t stand out. As we age, however, these symptoms begin to grow and become more prevalent. The nation-wide obesity epidemic is a result of high-carbohydrate diets and unstable blood sugar levels.

Many people who are overweight are also insulin resistant. Insulin resistance means that the insulin is not doing its job in removing glucose from the blood stream. The pancreas gets over worked and it releases massive amounts of insulin, sometimes 20 times more than the body actually needs. This results in the blood sugar dropping to extremely low levels. This sets off a chain reaction in the body that leads to a release of adrenaline to correct the blood sugar problem.

With age, blood sugar and insulin difficulties become more aggravated. The condition is called “hyperinsulinism” and is a precursor for type II diabetes. It is normally accompanied by high blood pressure and high triglycerides.

After years of using a high-carbohydrate diet, you will finally become fully diabetic. Insulin is the body’s primary fat creator and extra pounds usually accompany late onset diabetes. Pre-diabetic conditions, if not treated effectively, will lead to diabetes indefinitely.

However, there are easily identifiable warning signs to diabetes that appear early. Your family doctor can perform insulin level tests that will let you know if you are at risk for pre-diabetic conditions, and studies show that low-carb diets like Atkins can help. Controlling your blood sugar is one of the most effective methods to controlling pre-diabetic conditions.

The Atkins diet helps effectively control blood sugar. The combination of proteins, fats and good carbohydrates will keep your body satisfied without the roller coaster effect. Controlling carbohydrates in quantity as well as type will help limit the insulin spikes. This will let your pancreas work in the way that it was meant to be, and it will decrease the likelihood of your developing pre-diabetic conditions. It’s a vicious cycle that, if left unchecked, can lead to diabetes later in life. When the Atkins diet is followed effectively it produces stable blood sugar throughout the day and helps you stay off the road to diabetes.

Ginger Malone
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/atkins-and-diabetes-112695.html

There are numerous benefits to eating a diet that is low in the Glycemic Index (GI). The GI is basically a scale that measures the amount of glycemic in a food and how it would affect our blood sugar levels. Foods low in the GI are at 55 or under, meaning these foods have less glucose and a less harsh impact on our bodies.

Eating a diet low in the Glycemic Index can lower your risk for various diseases and illnesses such as diabetes, coronary heart disease and some cancers. Eating foods low in GI can also help you maintain a healthy weight, which has many benefits of its own. A lot of diabetics and low carbohydrate dieters aim to eat a diet with foods that are low in GI. All foods do range in how much GI is there and, therefore, there are many different foods you can eat that have a low GI.

Here are Some Foods and Beverages Low in GI:

Barley,Pasta,Beans,Lentils,Peas,Sweet Potatoes,
Taro, Cherries, Grapefruits, Peaches, Apples, Pears, Plums, Oranges, Grapes, Kiwis, Bananas (not so ripe), Skim Milk, Plain Yogurt, Soy Drinks, Chick Peas

As you can see, there are a variety of foods and drinks to choose from when trying to select foods that are low in GI. This certainly doesnt mean that these are the only foods and drinks you can have. You can still eat some foods that are in the middle or even high in GI, you will just need to do it in moderation.

How to Begin a Diet Low in GI:

Beginning a diet with foods low in GI is a smart choice for anyone, whether or not you already have diabetes or coronary heart disease. It has many benefits for you and your body. Maintain a balance of GI in your foods. There is no need to cut out all foods that are high in GI, you just need to eat more foods low in GI. Try starting by introducing two to three foods that are low in GI every day.

Some tips in starting a low GI diet:

-You can eat any fruits and vegetables
-Cut down or eliminate foods high in sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol and fat
-Add water to your daily intake, the more the better
-Eat more foods that are high in fiber
-Add olive, fish, and some other healthy oils to your diet

The most important factor in eating a diet low in GI is eating a well-balanced, varied diet. Dont limit yourself too much. You want your body to enjoy all of the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants from a variety of foods. This is more about adding good foods to your diet than it is about limiting foods from your daily intake.

Variety is always the key to a healthy life. You might want to consult your nutritionist or medical professional about your new diet plans. They may have some wonderful pieces of advice for you and be able to help you along even more.

Tarja Anchor
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/benefits-of-moving-to-low-glycemic-index-diet-90407.html