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Type 2 Diabetes: How diet and exercise could save your life (PART 1)

Posted November 29th, 2006 at 12:00 PM by Megan Hueter

Section: Nutrition, Healthy Eating, Health & Fitness, Exercise

Type 2 Diabetes.jpg This is the first installment of a four part series. Part 1 is entitled: “Understanding Type 2 Diabetes”.

Do you or someone you know suffer from type 2 diabetes? If you answered yes, you’re not alone. Recent studies show that a nutritional diet combined with physical exercise such as aerobic exercise and resistance training can restore the body’s sugar levels to a non-diabetic level. Understanding how this happens could save your life.

Diabetes mellitus is one of the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. There are currently 20.8 million people in the country suffering from diabetes, which is 7% of the population (1). Approximately 90-95% of these cases are categorized as type 2 diabetes. (3,4) Type 2 diabetes is strongly related to being overweight and obese, which has become a very serious public health problem of the past 25 years.

Type 2 diabetes has formerly been referred to as “adult-onset” diabetes. The name has been changed due the development of type 2 diabetes at an earlier age (because of obesity rates).

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body has become so overwhelmed with sugar that it can no longer properly use insulin to break it down and use it for energy. The sugar then builds up on in the blood, and with time, this buildup can cause very serious complications. Complications can be both short-term and long-term.

Short-term complications can occur at any time, when the body’s blood sugar is either too high (known as “hyperglycemia,” which leaves a person feeling drowsy, hungry, weak and confused) or sugar levels are too low (known as “hypoglycemia,” leaving a person feeling hungry, sweaty, drowsy, and having a headache). (5)

Long-term complications occur when diabetes is not treated properly over time. These complications include cardiovascular disease, decreased circulation to the lower legs and feet (sometimes leading to amputations), kidney disease and loss of eye-sight. (5) Without proper treatment, these complications can worsen and even cause death.

When diagnosed with diabetes, patients are commonly prescribed an immediate change in lifestyle which includes a very strict nutritional diet (to control the amount of sugar in the blood) and a high dose of exercise (to help with insulin levels in the muscles, circulation, and weight loss).

Nutrition and exercise are important for good diabetes control. By eating well-balanced meals in the correct amounts and combining regular exercise (and possibly medication), a type 2 diabetic can actually reverse their condition to a non-diabetic level. (1) By implementing these treatment methods into your daily life, it could possibly save your life.

Tune in next week for: “Part 2: Type 2 Diabetes and Nutrition”

Sources:

American Diabetes Association. In Overview of Diabetes. http://www.diabetes.org/about-diabetes.jsp. Accessed online November 22, 2006.
Albright, A., M. Franz, and G. Hornsby. American College of Sports Medicine position Stand. Exercise and Type 2 diabetes. Medicine and Science in Sports Exercise. 32: 1435-1360, 1993.
Castaneda, F., J.E. Laybe, and C. Castaneda. Skeletal muscle sodium glucose co-transporters in older adults with type 2 diabetes undergoing resistance training. International Journal of Medical Sciences, 3:3, 84-91, 2006. Accessed online October 25, 2006.
Harris, M.I. Classification, diagnostic criteria, and screening for diabetes. In Diabetes in America, sponsored by the National Diabetes Data Group. NIH, NIDDK, Publication No. 95 – 1468, pp. 15 – 36, 1995.
Skinner, J. Exercise Testing and Exercise Prescription for Special Cases. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins, 2005.

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