Can You Prevent Diabetes?

You can prevent Type II and adult onset diabetes by making the same healthy choices you do to prevent heart disease and cancer.

Who's at Risk? Are you or is someone in your family at risk for Type II diabetes? These are the risk factors: being overweight having a parent, brother or sister with diabetes being over 40 years old being of Native American, African-American or Hispanic descent being a woman who has had more than one baby weighing more than 9 pounds at birth

If someone in your family has one or more risk factors for diabetes, it's worth the effort to make the diet and lifestyle changes that can prevent and, in some cases, even reverse the course of Type II diabetes. The number one thing you can do as a potential diabetic is to keep your weight down.

Excess weight interferes with the body's ability to use the insulin it produces to properly control blood sugar. High blood sugar can damage the entire body in many ways, often leading to blindness, impaired circulation and heart disease.

To Prevent Diabetes:

• Maintain your ideal weight or lose weight if needed.
• Get into a regular exercise program. Exercise not only makes it easier for you to lose weight and keep it off, it also lowers blood sugar and improves the body's response to insulin.
• Have your blood tested for diabetes, especially if you have several of the risk factors.
• Follow a proper diet using the nutritional pyramid below from American Diabetes Association.
  

See your doctor for advice about what kinds of exercise are appropriate for you and what special precautions you should take when exercising.

DIABETES FACTS

Diabetes is the number one medical cause of blindness. There are more than 16 million people with diabetes in the United States. Diet and lifestyle changes can prevent up to half of all diabetes cases. About half of those with diabetes have not been diagnosed. Diabetes causes about half of all medical amputations because of impaired circulation.

 

Symptoms of Diabetes	Symptoms of Diabetes
excessive thirst unexplained weight loss blurred vision fatigue tingling or numbness in hands or feet increased appetite skin infections	heart disease stroke high blood pressure blindness kidney disease nerve disease amputations dental disease