Do Sugar, Alcohol, and Diabetes Mix?

from Everyday Health

Do Sugar, Alcohol, and Diabetes Mix?

Sugar and alcohol once were forbidden fruits for people on a diabetes diet. Using caution and common sense can allow you some leeway to indulge.

By Dennis Thompson Jr.

Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH

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People with diabetes know they must carefully watch their sugar intake as part of their diabetes diet and limit their alcohol consumption. And for the most part, it is wise to carefully control how much sugar you’re eating and alcohol you’re drinking as part of your diabetes management plan.
But following a diabetes diet does not mean you need to completely eliminate sugar from your daily meals and snacks. You just need to be smart about what you eat and keep close tabs on the sugars in foods.
The same goes for alcohol — if you pay close attention, you should be able to drink a little when you attend a social gathering or are out casually with friends.
Diabetes Management: Sugar and Diabetes
A major part of diabetes management involves keeping your blood sugar levels stable. No matter what type of diabetes you have, this is an ongoing challenge:

• Type 1. People with type 1 diabetes cannot produce insulin, the hormone the body uses to regulate blood glucose levels. The amount of sugar or alcohol consumed has a direct effect on the amount of insulin and other diabetes medication you must take.
• Type 2. With type 2 diabetes, you’ve developed a resistance to insulin, but can still produce the hormone. Controlling blood sugar levels can help you avoid having to take insulin or diabetes medications.
• Gestational. Diabetes during pregnancy means you have high blood glucose levels, which can do damage to both you and your unborn child.

Sugar is a form of carbohydrate that the body quickly converts to glucose, meaning that, when eaten, it has the ability to cause blood glucose levels to quickly rise and create a condition known as hyperglycemia. This is why doctors and diabetes educators warn people to track and limit the amount of sugar they consume.

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SODA NO! NO!

A Glass of Juice or Soda a Day Can Lead to Gout, Study Says

 by Leta Shy

 

Ah, high fructose corn syrup. The highly debated sweetener in many processed foods and drinks, recently the subject of a marketing campaign and name change, is again in the news, and it's not good for its image makeover. An extensive 22-year study released this month that followed almost 80,000 women has found that drinking non-diet sodas regularly, leads to an increase in the risk for gout.

Gout, a painful form of arthritis, is caused by high levels of uric acid in the blood. While some foods can trigger a gout attack, the illness is not the "rich man's disease" (caused by a meat- and alcohol-heavy diet) that it was previously believed to be. But this new study does show that diet does play a part, and regularly drinking beverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup is a major cause — and so are fruit juices like orange juice, since they are high in fructose as well. To find out how much drinking one regular soda or two glasses of orange juice a day increases your risk of developing gout, read more.
Compared with women who drank less than a soda a month, those who had one soda a day had a 74% increased risk of developing gout. Women who had two sodas increased their risk 2.4 times. Drinking two servings of orange juice also increased the women's risk of developing gout by 2.4 times. Those who drank diet sodas didn't have any increased risk of developing gout.
Yet another reason to go easy on the juices and sodas. While moderation is key if you want to drink the sweet stuff, if you find yourself craving something more flavorful than water regularly, try these seven ways to spruce up your H2O.
Source: Flickr User JoeInSouthernCA

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Whole Grains, Whole Health Benefits

Food plays a very special part in our health and wellness, simply having a fat diet predisposes our body to illness, such as heart ailment, stroke etc. But just simply add some grains in your diets can be really much much beneficial and your body is still pack with energy.


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Leaf Long

Make like a rabbit: Eating veggies such as carrots and kailan is associated with a lower risk of dying from heart disease, a study in the Journal of Nutrition reports. Researchers followed 559 men for 15 years and found that those ate more alpha-and beta-carotenes-the compounds in fruits and vegetables that help bring out their orange, red, or yellow color-had about a 20 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease than those who ate less of the compounds. Similar results have been seen in women, says lead author Brian Bujisee, M.Sc., of the German Institute for Human Nutrition. So fork up daily servings of carrots (if served cooked, they're the carotene kings), sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, romaine lettuce, and spinach.