These 7 tips will help you in fighting diabetes and lead a healthy life

Many of us are aware of the kind of disease diabetes is. It is lifelong condition and it really takes a toll on your body, BUT, ONLY IF YOU SET YOUR FOOT RIGHT, you can fight diabetes strongly. A few changes to your diet and lifestyle and you are the strongest person ever!

The main task for a diabetic person is to maintain his blood sugar level. Keeping the blood sugar level within the prescribed limit can be challenging as there are many factors contributing to the change in blood sugar level, unexpectedly too.

This post discusses about diabetes management by taking some easy steps. Mentioned below are some tips you should follow to keep you blood sugar levels in control to a great extent:

1. Diet: We are what we eat!

Eating healthy is a solution meant for most of the problems, diabetes being the one. If you’re a diabetic person, know how your food intake affects your blood sugar level. Eat as much as your body needs and don’t over eat. Include vegetables, whole grains and fruits in your diet.

Go for fat-free dairy products and lean meat. Do not munch on foods which are high in sugar and fats. Carbohydrates have a huge impact on your blood sugar levels, so always make a check on their intake.

What you should not have!

Artificially sweetened fruit juices: They are just loaded with carbs and not with the goodness of fruit fibers, thus increasing your blood sugar level and weight.

Processed food and carbonated drinks: While munching chips with a bottle of cola could be the first thing that strikes your mind while binge watching web-series or movies, but it is not the best idea. These chips, burgers, pastries, cold drinks etc. are rich in unhealthy trans fats and high amount of sugar and thus it’s good to avoid them.

Full-fat dairy: Full cream milk, cream, cheese and full-fat yogurts are loaded with saturated fats causing your blood cholesterol levels to rise. Go for fat-free dairy products instead.

Fatty meats: They are a huge source of saturated fats which on consumption can increase your chances of getting a heart disease. So, go for lean meats.

White sugar, white flour & white rice: White is not a friend for people with diabetes. These products will only result in increasing calorie intake and blood sugar levels. Avoiding them is the best you can do.

2. Exercise: Get your body moving!

Living an active lifestyle is good for everyone and when it comes to diabetic people, it helps a lot. There is no need to hit the gym and do all those vigorous workouts, a simple brisk walk in the morning would do wonders for you. You can ride a bike or join aerobics, Zumba or dance classes if you want to have fun along with workout. Take out just 30 minutes from your day to do exercise. Doing any form of workout will help you with:

• Controlling weight
• Maintaining your blood sugar level
• Raising energy levels
• Warding off any complications
• Managing the stress levels

3. Go for checkups:

Visiting your doctor at frequent intervals not only keeps of informed of your state but also gives you confidence. Visit your doctor at least twice a year. Diabetes puts your heart at risk so visiting a doctor and getting checkups done will keep you informed of your cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels and blood pressure. You can also get your eyes checked up once a year. Stay updated on your health.

4. Watch over your stress levels:

Stress is bad for everyone. It leads to various health problems and leading a stressful life will only worsen your condition as it shoots up the blood sugar level. Practice meditation, yoga or take out some time for your hobbies. Find out ways to release your stress. Do things that make you happy.

5. Keep a track of your alcohol consumption:

There might be some party or any other occasion where you just cannot stop yourself from consuming alcohol, but diabetes becomes much easier to control if you say a NO to alcohol. In case you cannot give up on it completely, reduce its consumption. If you’re addicted to it, it’s better to get a rehab and get over it.

As per American Diabetes Association, women if want to consume alcohol, then they should limit themselves to 1 drink per day and men should not have more than 2 drinks a day. Alcohol causes your blood sugar levels to either rise or become too low.

Always make a check on your blood sugar level prior to drinking and take necessary steps to avoid low blood sugar. If you have to intake insulin or medicines for your diabetes, eat something while you’re drinking. Keep in mind the intake of carbs.

6. Bid adieu to smoking:

Smoking is hazardous for your health, no matter you’re diabetic or not. It leads to life-threatening disease like cancer. Diabetic people become more sensitive towards health issues like heart disease, kidney disease, stroke, vessel disease, eyesight problems, nerve damage, etc.

Smoking leads to a risk of developing these problems. If you are addicted to smoking, consult a doctor and quit it.

7. Keep a check on your menstrual cycle and patterns:

In women, the change in hormone levels during or a week prior to their periods can lead to variations in blood sugar level. Also, when close to menopause, changes in hormones might lead to uncertain changes in blood sugar levels. What you can do in these cases is:

• To notice the pattern: Maintain a record of your monthly blood sugar level. This way you might be able to notice the variation during your menstrual cycle.
• Customize your diabetes treatment plan accordingly: You might get recommendations from your doctor for changes in your diet plan, medicines or activity level to cope up with changing blood sugar levels.
• Intermittent checking for blood sugar level: You might be close to or have already reached the stage of menopause, consult your doctor to find if you need to be more frequent with your monitoring of the blood sugar levels. Symptoms of menopause can be confused with those of low blood sugar, so, check accordingly before taking up any action.

So here is quick flashback of all the tips:

• Eat healthy, stay healthy
• Say NO to food with high carbs, saturated fats and added sugar
• EXERCISE, keep rolling, keep moving!
• Eliminate the word “STRESS” from your dictionary
• Visit your doctor for health check-ups
• “SMOKING KILLS”, get that straight to your head
• Be a good monitor and reduce your consumption of alcohol
• Ladies, check out for the patterns and fluctuation levels of blood sugar during your periods or during the stage of menopause

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions, a medical communications company encourages a healthy lifestyle. It's not just about diabetes, one needs to live actively to avoid various health issues in his/her life.

From Turacoz, it’s a message to all the diabetic people, diabetes is more of a condition than a disease. It will behave as you treat it. Follow an active lifestyle and develop healthy eating habits and get regular check-ups. By sticking to your diet plan, exercise routines and medications, you can control this condition.

Turacoz believes in serving their clients the best and work upon the same. It provides medical writing services in numerous domains viz. regulatory, research, clinical trials, publications and medico marketing. To get the assistance you can get in touch with us at hello@turacoz.in

The truth is: Diabetes can be controlled! Read this post to learn more

Diabetes is a condition that has emerged as a major health concern and a major setback to the socio-economic situation of the countries across the globe. It puts on the financial stress on the families of affected family members as well.

A diabetic person suffers a lot on financial and health part. Diabetes is an irreversible disease, but it can be controlled with certain measures. With the rapid advancements in the fields of science and medicine, various drugs have been introduced to treat diabetes. The treatments for the same are getting better day-by-day.

There are 2 main types of diabetes:

Type 1: When there is no insulin formation in the body.

Type 2: When the body is not able to produce enough insulin, or the insulin produced is not used effectively by the body

The Type 1 diabetes can be treated with insulin injections and people affected by it should be careful about their diet and plan activities accordingly to avoid any further complications.

The Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by adapting a healthy lifestyle, oral medications and insulin also, in case other measures fail.

There are a lot of medications available in the market for diabetes that it becomes difficult to determine that which is the best. Here in this post, different medications for diabetes are discussed along with the effect that they cast on the body.

Drugs for Type 1 diabetes:

For the treatment of this diabetes, insulin is the main component and is used for the same. It replaces the missing insulin in the body and maintains the blood sugar level. Insulin is directly injected into the skin by the people suffering from the diabetes or with the help of a doctor.

There are a variety of insulin injections, varying on the account of duration of their effect and the time of their reaction. These different types of insulin are mentioned under:

• Fast-reacting injections: They take 5-10 minutes to react and last for around 3-5 hours.

o   NovoLog (Insulin aspart)

o   Apidra (Insulin glulisine)

o   Humalog (Insulin lispro)

• Brief-term reacting injections: They have their effect in about 30 minutes to 1 hour and last for 6-8 hours.

o   Regular insulin (Humulin R and Novolin R)

• Moderate injections: they take 1-4 hours to have any effect but last for around 10-26 hours.

o   Insulin isophane, also known as NPH insulin (Humulin N and Novolin N)

• Long lasting injections: Taking 1-2 hours to have an effect, these last in between 14-24 hours

o   Insulin detemir e.g. Levemir

o   Insulin glargine, e.g. Toujeo

• Blended injections: These are the mixture of the injections mentioned above. They cast their effect in between 5 minutes to 1 hour and last for 10-24 hours.

o   Insulin aspart protamine and insulin aspart. For e.g. NovoLog Mix 50/50 and NovoLog Mix 70/30

o   Insulin lispro protamine and insulin lispro. For e.g. Humalog Mix50/50 and Humalog Mix75/25)

o   Insulin degludec. For e.g. Tresiba

o   NPH insulin and regular insulin Humulin. For e.g. 70/30 and Novolin 70/30

There is also an inhalable insulin available named Afrezza, which has its effect in 12-15 minutes and lasts for about 3 hours.

More drugs for Type 1 diabetes:

There are some non-insulin drugs as well that can be utilized for Type 1 diabetes treatment. These are:

• Incretin mimetics: These simulate the hormone incretin which incites insulin post meals. These drugs include exenatide (Byetta, Bydureon), liraglutide (Victoza), and dulaglutide (Trulicity).
• Amylin analogs: Pramlintide (Symlin) mimics another hormone, amylin, that helps with glucose regulation.
• Glucagon: It helps in reversing blood sugar levels when they drop down as a result of insulin treatment.

Medicines for Type 2 diabetes:

For people suffering with this form of diabetes, insulin treatment can be used in the case where every other treatment has not shown the desired results. Though Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by living a healthy lifestyle, people prone to high blood glucose levels can be prescribed oral or non-insulin medicines to reduce the level of blood glucose.

Mentioned below are some of such drugs:

• Sulfonylureas: This helps in improving the release of insulin in the blood through the pancreas. The newer drugs available have lesser side effects.

Sulfonylureas comprises of:

o  Glimepiride (Amaryl)

o  Glipizide (Glucotrol)

o  Glyburide (DiaBeta, Micronase, Glynase)

• Meglitinides: These also boost up the secretion of insulin. They enhance the effectiveness of body in secreting insulin at the time of meals. These include:

o   Nateglinide (Starlix)

o  Repaglinide (Prandin)

• Biguanides: They enhance the effectiveness of insulin & minimize the level of glucose the liver dispenses into blood. They also boost the consumption of blood glucose in the cells. Metformin is the sole such drug in the US.

• Thiazolidinediones: They help minimizing the resistance of tissues to the influence of insulin. These are newer drugs, so a check is to be made on them strictly to figure out the potential safety issues. People having the risk of heart failure should avoid using this drug. It includes pioglitazone (Actos) and rosiglitazone (Avandia)·

• Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors: They function in a way helping the carbohydrates to be digested slowly by our body thus maintaining a low blood sugar level post meal.

o   Acarbose (Precose)

o  Miglitol (Glyset)

• Dipeptidyl peptidase inhibitors: These new kinds of medications are responsible for slowing down the glucose absorption.

o   Alogliptin (Nesina)

o  Linagliptin (Tradjenta)

o   Sitagliptin (Januvia)

o  Saxagliptin (Onglyza)

• Sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors: These cause the body to discharge more glucose into the urine from bloodstream. They also help in slight weight loss which is beneficial for people with Type 2 diabetes.

o   Canagliflozin (Invokana)

o  Dapagliflozin (Farxiga)

o   Empagliflozin (Jardiance)

• Oral combination drugs: A combination of the drugs above is also available in form of new medications. Some of them are:

o   Alogliptin and metformin (Kazano)

o  Alogliptin and pioglitazone (Oseni)

o   Glipizide and metformin (Metaglip)

o   Repaglinide and metformin (PrandiMet)

o  Rosiglitazone and metformin (Avandamet)

There are 2 new drugs which have been recently approved for the treatment of diabetes. These drugs have been introduced to the pharmacies to help lower A1C in grown-ups. They are:

• Ozempic (semiglutide): It is a 0.5 mg or 1 mg injectable medicine for adults suffering from Type 2 diabetes. These showcased remarkable effect in A1C reductions during clinical trials. It is a once-weekly glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) receptor agonist that combined with diet and exercise can help in improving glycemic control.
• Fiasp: It is a fast-paced, manual insulin which is invented to improve glycemic control in grown-ups suffering from Type 1 & Type 2 diabetes. Patients are advised to have the medicine before the meal or within 20 minutes of starting a meal. It surfaces in the blood in around 2.5 minutes.

Both these drugs are manufactured by Novo Nordisk and were sanctioned by FDA in 2017.

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions believe that a healthy lifestyle, which is a combination of healthy diet and exercise can help in controlling diabetes. The Diabetes Awareness Month is observed to spread awareness on this disease and also focuses on living a healthy lifestyle.

With the help of the above-mentioned drugs, diabetes can be controlled and monitored to a good extent. With the pace that technological and medical advancements are taking place, very soon more effective medicines shall be available for diabetic people which will help in effective treatment of the ailment.