Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Diabetes And Weight Loss

One of the most essential conditions of the body is maintaining a proper weight. It affects nearly every aspect of your life when you are overweight, even by just a few pounds. For the diabetic or pre-diabetic patient, being overweight can lead to premature death among other risk factors.
Therefore, one of the key methods to reducing the blood sugar levels you face is to reduce your weight.

A frightening statistic that should be noted here is that almost 9 out of 10 people that are newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are over their ideal body weight or are obese.
Those that manage to lower their weight can better manage their diabetes or even reverse their condition with proper management.

In addition to complicating diabetic conditions, being overweight also increases cholesterol levels and blood pressure rates pushing for an increase in heart conditions and sudden death.
Metabolic syndrome is one of the many conditions that those with diabetes face increasingly. This simply is a term (also called cardio-metabolic risk) that means that you have several key symptoms that can lead to heart disease. Those including being overweight, having high blood pressure and having high cholesterol. This coupled with diabetes is a dangerous recipe for anyone.

Those that have a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25 or more are considered to be overweight. If you have a BMI that is higher than 30, you are considered to be obese. Those that have a BMI at 25 or more are at an increased risk for diabetes.

Another problem with being overweight directly relates to diabetic conditions. When your body is overweight, you have more insulin resistance. Insulin is an important part of regulating blood sugar levels. When it is working correctly, it helps the body to use sugar correctly as the source of energy that it is.

For those that have insulin resistance, the cells no longer will respond to insulin. They will not allow insulin in which means that no energy gets to the cells. The body counters this by producing more insulin to try and lower blood sugar levels. In addition to this, insulin resistance adds to cardio-metabolic risk factors mentioned above.

Losing weight is not something that many people want to face, yet it is an important factor in improving blood sugar factors. Most doctors and researchers believe the best way to do lower weight is to diet by decreasing caloric intake (which we revealed earlier) and by exercise (both aerobic and weight training can do this.)

Reducing your weight slowly, with the help of these methods can help you to step back from high blood sugar numbers and to regain some of your overall health. It will help you to reduce your risk of various health risks.

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