Natural Diet and Diabetes

How Does Diabetes Develop?

Developing diabetes is largely linked to diet and lifestyle. By regulating and maintaining some key areas in your life, you can significantly decrease your risk of becoming diabetic.

• Exercise: Regular activity and exercise helps maintain proper fat levels stored in the body, while building muscle. It also assists in neutralizing glucose and other sugars that can have negative effects on the body in excessively high levels.

• Diet: Simply reducing the amount of refined sugars, saturated fats, and trans fatty acids can greatly reduce your risk of diabetes. Obesity has been found to be a factor in 55% of diabetes cases, so maintaining a proper BMI is crucial.

• Smoking and Alcohol: An article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported a direct association between smoking and type 2 diabetes. Alcohol also causes blood sugar levels to rise in the body, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes

• Toxins: Research is still light in this area, but early studies indicate that some toxins in the environment - such as bisphenol A, commonly found in plastics - may contribute to developing diabetes.



Vegetarian Diet and Diabetes

Clearly, the war on diabetes is a multi-faceted one. Regular exercise and a healthy diet, as well as seriously limiting the amount of tobacco and alcohol consumed, are the best ways to mitigate the risk of diabetes.
When it comes to diet, though, being a vegetarian is one of the easiest way to improve your diet quickly and easily.

A 2010 study published in the Nutrition and Clinical Practice journal found that those who followed a vegetarian diet were less likely to develop diabetes. The American Dietetic Association states that, "It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." It goes on to state that, "Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians."