Doctors recommend screening for type 2 diabetes among people at risk at age 30. People with a family history of diabetes and especially those who are overweight. By paying attention to specific preventable diabetes complications and adopting some healthy lifestyle habits, type 2 diabetes prevention is possible. Steps for prevention include following an easy and appropriate diet, exercising regularly and taking dietary supplements.
SO WHAT ARE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE HABITS ?
Some risk factors for diabetes, like family history, ethnicity or age, cannot be changed, obviously. However, some other diabetes risk factors can be changed. The basic approach to attain this is by eating a healthier diet — we are not talking about a sophisticated, complicated or super specialized one — and increasing physical activity. These simple steps may help prevent type 2 diabetes.
Moreover, if you are overweight or have high blood pressure, modifying your lifestyle may help in preventing type 2 diabetes. Your health-care provider can make specific recommendations for you, including diet changes and exercises that fit your needs. Some medications to help you lower your cholesterol and your blood pressure and at the same time quit smoking will surely reduce your risk of complications.
Scientists found that being obese or overweight is the single most important risk factor to predict who is going to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a study recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Study results showed, in a 16 year follow-up period, that an improved diet — low in fat and high in fiber — and a daily routine of exercise — at least 30 minutes, five days per week — can significantly help with type 2 diabetes prevention.
Bottom line: type 2 diabetes prevention is just as easy as adopting healthy lifestyle habits.
THE ROLE OF DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS
To state the need for a dietary supplement, as I did above, could sound as an exaggeration or overstatement, but it is not. Our normal diet hardly comply with our needs concerning nutrients for our health. Besides that, herbal supplements, vitamins and minerals, if wisely taken are mostly safe, with no side effects, and very affordable as well. But that is not all … these dietary supplements can not only help you prevent diabetes. They can also reverse onset type 2 diabetes by stimulating your pancreatic function and lowering your insulin resistance.
A scientific team — the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study Group — stated that with weight loss and improved physical activity level, people at high risk of type 2 diabetes could reduce their risk by more than 50%. This study was performed in more than 500 overweight people than also had pre-diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance.
There are some scientific studies that show that several diabetes medications, along with healthy eating and exercising habits, can dramatically reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Pharmaceutical laboratories will not, obviously, accept the fact that the all-natural remedies are much better, safer and cheaper. The herbal, mineral and vitamin supplements can help not only prevent the progression to type 2 diabetes in people with impaired glucose tolerance, but also control and reverse diabetes once you have it.
The Diabetes Prevention Program showed that people with high risk for developing type 2 diabetes (pre-diabetes, or borderline diabetes) could significantly reduce that risk when using some prescription drugs, along with diet and lifestyle changes. This is important, but the above study also showed that the risk of diabetes could be reduced much further through intensive lifestyle changes alone (exercise and nutrition).
So the question is: why take drugs when you can improve your condition by adopting healthy lifestyle habits alone? Or at least when you can take herbal, mineral and vitamin supplements, and attain even diabetes reversal?
