How to Prevent or Delay Diabetes

Pre-diabetes is a serious medical condition that can be treated. The good news is that the recently completed Diabetes Prevention Program study conclusively showed that people with pre-diabetes can prevent the development of type 2 diabetes by making changes in their diet and increasing their level of physical activity. They may even be able to return their blood glucose levels to the normal range.
While the DPP also showed that some medications may delay the development of diabetes, diet and exercise worked better. Just 30 minutes a day of moderate physical activity, coupled with a 5-10% reduction in body weight, produced a 58% reduction in diabetes.
The American Diabetes Association is developing materials that will help people understand their risks for pre-diabetes and what they can do to halt the progression to diabetes and even to, "turn back the clock." In the meantime, ADA has a wealth of resources for people with diabetes or at risk for diabetes that can be of use to people interested in pre-diabetes.

Nutrition
Knowing what to eat can be confusing. Everywhere you turn, there is news about what is or isn't good for you. Some basic principles have weathered the fad diets, and have stood the test of time. Here are a few tips on making healthful food choices for you and your entire family.
Eat lots of vegetables and fruits. Try picking from the rainbow of colors available to maximize variety. Eat non-starchy vegetables such as spinach, carrots, broccoli or green beans with meals.
Choose whole grain foods over processed grain products. Try brown rice with your stir fry or whole wheat spaghetti with your favorite pasta sauce.
Include dried beans (like kidney or pinto beans) and lentils into your meals.
Include fish in your meals 2-3 times a week.
Choose lean meats like cuts of beef and pork that end in "loin" such as pork loin and sirloin. Remove the skin from chicken and turkey.
Choose non-fat dairy such as skim milk, non-fat yogurt and non-fat cheese.
Choose water and calorie-free "diet" drinks instead of regular soda, fruit punch, sweet tea and other sugar-sweetened drinks.
Choose liquid oils for cooking instead of solid fats that can be high in saturated and trans fats. Remember that fats are high in calories. If you're trying to lose weight, watch your portion sizes of added fats.
Cut back on high calorie snack foods and desserts like chips, cookies, cakes, and full-fat ice cream.
Eating too much of even healthful foods can lead to weight gain. Watch your portion sizes.

Exercise
Exercise is also known as physical activity and includes anything that gets you moving, such as walking, dancing, or working in the yard. You can earn the benefits of being physically active without going to a gym, playing sports, or using fancy equipment. When you're physically fit, you have the strength, flexibility, and endurance needed for your daily activities. Being physically active helps you feel better physically and mentally.
Physical activity can lower your blood glucose (sugar), blood pressure, and cholesterol. It also reduces your risk for heart disease and stroke, relieves stress, and strengthens your heart, muscles, and bones. In addition, regular activity helps insulin work better, improves your blood circulation, and keeps your joints flexible. If you're trying to lose weight, a combination of physical activity and wise food choices can help you reach your target weight and maintain it. All of these benefits can be yours even if you haven't been very active before.

What kinds of physical activity should be part of my routine?
A comprehensive physical activity routine includes three kinds of activities:
Aerobic Exercise
Strength Training
Flexibility Exercises
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise increases your heart rate, works your muscles, and raises your breathing rate. For most people, it's best to aim for a total of about 30 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week. If you haven't been very active recently, you can start out with 5 or 10 minutes a day and work up to more time each week. Or split up your activity for the day -- try a brisk 10-minute walk after each meal. If you're trying to lose weight, you may want to exercise more than 30 minutes a day. Here are some examples of aerobic exercise:
Take a brisk walk (outside or inside on a treadmill)
Go dancing
Take a low-impact aerobics class
Swim or do water aerobic exercises
Try ice-skating or roller-skating
Play tennis
Stationary bicycle indoors
Strength Training
Strength training, done several times a week, helps build strong bones and muscles and makes everyday chores like carrying groceries easier for you. With more muscle, you burn more calories, even at rest. Here are some ways to do it:
Join a class to do strength training with weights, elastic bands, or plastic tubes
Lift light weights at home
Flexibility Exercises
Flexibility exercises, also called stretching, help keep your joints flexible and reduce your chances of injury during other activities. Gentle stretching for 5 to 10 minutes helps your body warm up and get ready for aerobic activities such as walking or swimming. Your health care team can provide information on how to stretch.
Being Active Throughout The Day
In addition to formal exercise, there are many opportunities to be active throughout the day. Being active helps burns calories. The more you move around, the more energy you'll have. These strategies can help you increase your activity level:
Walk instead of drive whenever possible
Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Work in the garden, rake leaves, or do some housecleaning every day
Park at the far end of the shopping center lot and walk to the store

Source-American Diabetes Association

Software to diagnose Diabetes

US-based healthcare firm Medtronic Inc. plans to launch in India, a software for doctors to monitor, track and diagnose diabetes.
Talking to Newspersons in Chennai, Adrian Gut, Business Manager of Diabetes Business of Medtronic said that the software was being developed at Los Angeles, the North American headquarters of the company.
“The software is targeted at doctors, who would be able to analyze the patients blood-sugar level and find the average fluctuations using our pumps, which works on radio-telemetry system,” he said, adding that the software would also suggest how much insulin has to be given at and at what time to the patient.
Adrian said that the software called Carelink, is web-based and a patient can download the information from the device which is a Continuous Glucose Monitaring System (CGMS), to a computer and transmit the data online to their concerned doctor.
“The software would then assimilate the input data and present it a graphical form to the doctor along with the suggestions thus enabling him to monitor and diagnose efficiently,” he added.

Ayurvedic Treatment of Diabetes

According to ayurveda, diabetes is a metabolic kapha type of disorder in which diminished functioning of agni leads to a tendency toward high blood sugar. (Ayurveda recognizes 24 forms of the disease commonly classified under Prameha - 4 are due to Vata dosha, 6 are due to Pitta dosha, and 10 are caused by Kapha dosha. The main causes of these diseases are fat, urine, and Kapha buildups due to foods, liquids, lifestyle and others.)

Ayurvedic practitioners attack diabetes using a multiprong approach. First, they address diet modification, eliminating sugar and simple carbohydrates, and emphasizing complex carbohydrates. Protein is limited, since excessive intake can damage the kidneys. Fat is also limited because there is often a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes, making fat digestion difficult. Since many diabetics have autoantibodies, a cleansing program is instituted. Panchakarma is typically used for this purpose. This begins with herbal massages and an herbal steam sauna, followed by fasting to cleanse the body. This is followed by an herbal purge for the liver, pancreas, and spleen. Colon therapy is next, first to cleanse the digestive tract and then to reconstitute the system.
Ayurvedic practitioners also use several herbal preparations for diabetics. Exercise is another cornerstone of ayurvedic treatment of diabetes. Yoga and breathing exercises are traditionally used.

Herbs
The most important herbs for all doshas are shilajit, gudmar turmeric, neem, amalaki, guggul, and arjuna. Turmeric with aloe vera gel (1 to 3 gms./.035 to .1 oz) is best used during the early stages of diabetes for regulating pancreas and liver functions.
1. Juice of bitter melon or bitter gourd (Momordica dioica, Roxb., Karela), or Rose apple (Eugenia Jambos, Linn., Jambu) or two tender leaves of Bilva (Aegle Marmelos, Corr., Bael fruit) and Neem (Melia azadirachta, Ravipriya, or Indian Lilac) may be taken on empty stomach daily. Juice of Jambu should be taken in an ounce quantity twice daily, and that of Karela in 1-1/2 ounce dose daily. Shilajit (Swertia Decussata Nimmo.) is another useful medicine (250 mg as a single dose) should be taken, twice daily with juice of stone apple.
2. Use turmeric. Fill some 00-size capsules with turmeric, and take 2 capsules 3 times a day, a few minutes before meals. Continue this program for up to a month, and then reevaluate your condition. Clinical observation suggests that a person who is insulin dependent will experience a markedly diminished requirement for insulin; the diabetes can often be brought under control.
3. Take 1/2 teaspoon of ground bay leaf and 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, mixed in 1 tablespoon aloe vera gel. Take the mixture twice a day before lunch and dinner.
4. The ayurveda preparation Vasanta Kusumakar Ras, is very good but is extremely costly. Take two grains daily with a tsp. of cream or honey. In certain cases, the said medicine brings down sugar lever quite quickly, hence sugar-levels should be carefully monitored. When sugar has touched its normal range, the dose should be tapered in a graduated manner, and added with 500 mg pill of Chandraprabhavati which is called a 'Poor man's remedy.'
5. Mix and grind seeds of Fenugreek (Methi) 100 gm, turmeric 50gm, Dakhni Mirch (white pepper). Take one teaspoon of this powder with a glass of milk twice daily. Alternately, immerse and soak one teaspoon of fenugreek seed in water. Take this in the morning, with water or with milk.
6. Take twice daily, with powder of rose apple stones (powder of Jambu or Jamun-ki-Guthali).
7. Include decoctions of triphala, fenugreek, musta, arjuna, sandalwood, lodhra, ajwan, gokshura, vidanga, guduchi, haritaki, and chitrak. These may be taken with a small amount of ghee. Gudmar and shilajit are excellent.
8. Amalaki Churna (500mg), Haldi Powder (Turmeric Powder) 500mg and Naag Bhasma (125mg) should be taken with honey, twice daily ( A 12-hourly dose ).

Diet
Follow the kapha-pacifying diet. Avoid excess intake of sweets, carbohydrates, and dairy products. Take more fresh vegetables and bitter herbs. Other useful foods include: roasted or fried barley, corn flour, light, bitter vegetables, barley porridge, ghee, rice, and herbs like gokshura, gudmar, triphala, musta, cardamom, fenugreek, or coriander, mixed with honey. Triphala with amalaki juice can also be used to heal prameha. Barley is the main food to heal urinary diseases. Other ayurvedic methods to heal prameha (diabetes) include strenuous exercises, oil massage, steam, sitz or waist bath, and sprinkling of water and ointment. Dry ginger, cardamom, and sandalwood may be used in baths or taken orally. Gudmar is the best herb for digesting sugar in the pancreas. A combination of gudmar and shilajit is an excellent remedy for diabetes that is often prescribed by Ayurvedic practitioners.
Eliminate all objects that contain sugar from diet, like wheat, rice, potato, sugar, sugar cane and its juice, jaggery , sweet fruits.
Reduce fats, especially butter and ghee from diet.
Take barley soaked in a triphala decoction overnight, then mixed with honey and eaten several times a day.
Orange, and lemon, may be taken as and when needed.
Take bitter melon, in any form, without any fear, and Jamun and powder of its seed.
Take plenty of green vegetables, black gram, soy, fish etc.

Copper Water
Put one cup of water into a copper vessel at night, and drink the water in the morning.

Exercise
Take morning and evening walk
Do Pranayama
Do yoga asanas

By Holisticonline.com