Diabetes

Archive for the ‘Diabetes Mellitus’ Category

To donate to Diabetes Hands Foundation, visit www.donate2dhf.org Also, learn how can become a Community Fundraiser for DHF and enjoy special benefits while you help us raise much needed funds to support our mission www.tudiabetes.org Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations to DHF are tax-deductible. You can read the financials of DHF in our Guidestar page: www2.guidestar.org ** Video transcription: ** Hello. This is Manny Hernandez, President of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, founder of TuDiabetes and someone who has had LADA (a form of type 1 diabetes) since 2002. These are words that describe what the Diabetes Hands Foundation and what TuDiabetes mean to some of you. Words like community, people, help and support. Today I come to ask you to help us translate this words into financial support for the Diabetes Hands Foundation. If you can afford it, please make a tax-deductible donation to the Diabetes Hands Foundation. Our goal is to raise $10000 by September 14. This money will be used to continue connecting people touched by diabetes through TuDiabetes and EsTudiabetes and developing diabetes awareness programs such as the Big Blue Test, this coming November 14 (World Diabetes Day). Depending on the amount of your donation, you will be eligible for very special thank you gifts, including one of ten copies of the No-Sugar Added Poetry book autographed by Dr. Bill Polonsky (for those who donate more than $150). But any donation helps! If you …

IDF Epidemiologist and Public Health Specialist Dr David Whiting explains why World Diabetes Day supports the Arise India Foundation’s Mahatma Gandhi Health and Peace Walk in New York City on October 2, 2010. ariseindiafoundation.org

Yoga has been widely studied as a means to help reduce (and sometimes eliminate) many diabetes complications. Some of these side effects include reduced blood flow, kidney failure, urinary failure, and blindness. Many researchers believe that practicing yoga and taking daily aid products regularly can help to stimulate blood circulation and massage internal organs, which can provide long-lasting physical benefits to individuals suffering from diabetes.

Additionally, exercise (including yoga) can have long-term benefits for diabetics. Physical exercise has been proven to reduce stress, decrease body fat, stimulate organ functions and blood circulation, and decrease blood sugar levels.

Yoga and other forms of exercise have been shown to have a positive impact on every type of diabetes, including Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

3 Yoga Postures

Yoga is an ancient practice of bending, stretching, and challenging the body to hold certain postures for a prolonged period of time. There are several different types of yoga, including Bikram (hot yoga), Hatha yoga (body balancing), and Ashtanga (rigorous) yoga. Each type of yoga provides different benefits and postures. However, all yoga styles are similar in that they massage the organs, develop muscles, and increase blood flow and oxygen levels throughout the body.

Yoga has clear physical and mental benefits for Diabetics. Some yogis (yoga teachers) even believe that practicing yoga regularly can reverse many Diabetic symptoms, including increased hunger, weight gain, poor circulation, and stress.

There are some easy-to-practice yoga postures that are especially beneficial to Diabetics. These postures massage the pancreas and glands, which help to regulate blood sugar levels. They also help to stretch the abdomen and spine. If you have just a few minutes a day to dedicate to yoga practice, check out these postures:

• Half-moon – stand with your feet touching at the heels and toes. Reach your arms over your head sideways and link fingers. Extend the index finger of each hand, as if pointing to the ceiling. Slowly bend towards one side of the room from your belly button to the tips of your fingers. As you deepen the bend, push your hips in the opposite direction of the bend. Be sure to keep your arms and legs straight while pushing your fingers and heels in opposite directions.

• Cobra – lay on the floor, belly-down. Place the palms of your hands flat on the floor underneath your shoulders. Make sure your arms are parallel from the shoulder to the elbow and elbow to the wrists. Look to the ceiling, stretching your eyes and head upward. Slowly lift your torso off of the ground so that it meets the ground at your belly button. Remember to breathe deeply in this pose to strengthen and lengthen the spine and torso.

• Bow – with your belly on the floor and eyes stretched towards the ceiling, reach both arms out to your sides. Bend your legs at the knees towards the ceiling and reach down to grab your heals from the outside of your legs. Push your legs towards the ceiling, lifting your torso as well. Rock towards your chest as much as possible. Try to hold this pose as long as you can.

One of the many benefits of yoga is weight loss as you develop your muscle mass and burn fat.typefreediabetes.com recommends using an body fat scale to track you fat-burning progress.

Click Here For : Diabetes Socks

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine”, National Institute of Health. People with diabetes take supplements to manage their diabetes and diabetes complications. We have listed articles that discuss supplements and their believed benefits and harm. We suggest you speak with your health care professionals about whether you should take diabetes nutritional supplements.

Magnesium is a mineral. Foods high in magnesium include green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds, and some whole grains. Glucose supplements and various supplemental forms of magnesium are marketed as tablets, capsules, or liquids.

Magnesium has many important functions in the body, including in the heart, nerves, muscles, bones, handling glucose, and making proteins. Low levels of magnesium are commonly seen in people with diabetes. Scientists have studied the relationship between magnesium and diabetes for a long time, but it is not yet fully understood.

Summary of the Research Findings

There have been a handful of studies on magnesium and type 2 diabetes, many of them very small in size and/or short in length and primarily looking at blood glucose control. The results have been mixed, with most finding that magnesium did not affect blood glucose control. Some studies have suggested that low magnesium levels may make glucose control worse in type 2 diabetes (interrupting insulin secretion in the pancreas and increasing insulin resistance) and contribute to diabetes complications. There is evidence that magnesium supplementation may be helpful for insulin resistance. Additional controlled studies are needed to establish firmly whether magnesium supplements have any role or benefit as a CAM therapy for type 2 diabetes.

Side Effects and Other Risks

Magnesium supplements and supplements for diabetes appear to be safe for most adults at low doses. High doses can be unsafe and cause such problems as nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, extremely low blood pressure, irregular heart rate, and confusion. Magnesium can interact with and affect the action of certain drugs, including some antibiotics, drugs to prevent osteoporosis, certain high blood pressure medicines (calcium channel blockers), muscle relaxants, and diuretics (“water pills”).

Diabetes creates many obstacles and can be tough to keep up with. There are medicines to take at certain times, questions that need to be answered, body parts to take extra special care of, and items to always take with you. There are varieties of gift items that can make your life as a diabetic, or some-one you know, a little more convenient and a lot more fun!

During gifting season, most people are thoroughly confused about what to gifts for diabetics; although, there are hundreds and thousands of gift options, the problem lies in the fact that most gifts are simply not suitable for those afflicted with diabetes.

In this context, while gift baskets are immensely popular as a whole, again the same problem is faced. How to include only those items that are suitable for diabetics. This is especially true since many gift baskets have this rather uncanny tendency to have sweet treats as staple among the included items.

If that is the dilemma you are facing, why not go ahead and make your own gift baskets for diabetics? That way, you will be able to choose only those items which are suitable to diabetics, and also have the added advantage of giving a very personalized gift basket for diabetics – one which the recipient will easily recognize as having a personal touch from you.

The first step is of course to get a suitable gift basket; with options galore, the choice may not be a very easy one. Perhaps, you could go for a color and design which the recipient would appreciate in particular.

Items for the basket – Aah! That will definitely be the key to success, as far as the appeal of your diabetic gift basket is concerned, so make sure that you make the best choice here. Low sugar items or sugar free items should definitely be at the top of your agenda; of course, you do have the option of not including any  sweet items such as the above, at all, but what the heck – does gifting season really seem that, if there is no sweet treat included?

That said, you could also include other food items that are not in the sweet category, and yet are likely to be appreciated by the recipient, perhaps because they are personal favorites. How about some real cheese low fat, which also happens to be absolutely low-carb? Sounds perfect!

Looking beyond food items, how about some personal dress options, suited to diabetics? You could include , socks or stockings that are particularly tailored to the needs of diabetics. Also consider heart rate monitor and measurement devices, which any diabetes afflicted recipient would truly appreciate. For instance, with glucose test monitors getting more and more compact in size, they could be a potentially perfect choice for inclusion in the gift basket.

Finally, with all the choices appropriately made, now it is time to pack the basket nicely so as to maximize its appeal. Remember that, like with a lot of things in life, packaging makes a lot of difference to the appeal of the product in question! In this case, you could consider wrapping the basket up in transparent cellophane so as to showcase its contents. Further, you could tie a ribbon on top, for enhanced appeal.

And, If You Can’t Build One, Then Buy One of Our Diabetic Gift Baskets!