Your body uses carbohydrates to create the sugar glucose--its primary energy source. The hormone insulin helps move glucose into the cells. When you have diabetes, you either do not produce enough insulin or your body cannot use it efficiently. This can lead to high levels of sugar in the blood and a host of serious and even deadly complications. While diet might serve as a complement to many conditions, it takes center stage in managing diabetes as the foods you eat exercise the greatest influence on glucose levels.
Importance of Diabetes Diet
Poorly controlled diabetes leads to blood vessel damage. This increases your risk of many serious problems, including slow-healing wounds, kidney failure and heart disease. The foods you eat influence all of these conditions, and reducing your risk of health problems goes way beyond watching your intake of sugary treats and drinks. You must also watch fat, sodium and cholesterol.
Carbohydrate Intake
White flour carbohydrates and sugary foods and drinks break down very quickly in the body, leading to large spikes in blood sugar. If you have diabetes, you must strictly limit the amount of these quickly-digesting carbohydrates. Other problematic carbohydrates include starchy foods like potatoes, yams and corn, and tropical fruits like bananas and mangoes. These types of carbohydrates do offer nutritional value, however, and you do not need to completely avoid them.
Focus on more slowly-digesting carbohydrates that lead to steadier releases of glucose. Whole-grains like whole wheat, brown rice and oatmeal have retained the parts of the grain that account for the bulk of their fiber and fiber helps foods break down more slowly. Other good choices include non-starchy vegetables, beans and non-tropical fruits. High-fiber foods also help block absorption of cholesterol in the intestines.
Fat and Cholesterol
The American Heart Association endorses the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes, or TLC, diet for anyone at risk for heart disease, and if you have diabetes, you fall into this category. This diet, designed by the National Cholesterol Education Program, calls for reduced levels of saturated fat and cholesterol than normally recommended for the general population. The TLC diet calls for total fat intake of no more than 25 to 35 percent of calories; if you have diabetes, you can lean more toward the higher end to compensate for reduced carbohydrate intake, notes the AHA. Saturated fat should not exceed 7 percent of your daily calories while cholesterol intake should fall under 200 mg.
To initiate these changes, you must cut back on the foods richest in saturated fat and cholesterol, including full-fat dairy, red meat and poultry with skin.
You must also limit your intake of trans fats; culprits include fried and fast foods, margarine, shortening and any packaged product that contains hydrogenated oils.
Limiting Sodium
Excess sodium draws more fluid into the blood, which can increase blood pressure. Increased blood pressure raises your risk of heart disease and kidney failure. The Mayo Clinic recommends eating less than 2,000 mg daily. A diet focused on natural, unprocessed foods will facilitate this goal, as these food naturally contain little to no salt. Watch out for processed, packaged and prepared foods; they often contain whopping amounts of sodium
Eating the Right Way
In managing diabetes, how you eat can help you just as much as what you eat. Eating the same amount of carbohydrates around the same time every day can contribute to better blood sugar levels. Combining carbohydrates with fats and proteins can temper their breakdown and help steady glucose release.
