How to prevent diabetes

Diabetes is an insidious disease that's effecting more and more Americans.  Learning how to prevent diabetes is something that can save you and your loved ones not only pain, suffering and money - it can save your life.

The first step in learning how to prevent diabetes is to do some research on the disease itself.  What causes it?  Is it something that you're at high risk for?  Is it something that can be prevented easily, or does it require a special routine and expensive drugs?

For most people figuring out how to prevent diabetes is simple.  Eat a diet heavy on fresh fruits and vegetables and low on sweets.  And exercise regularly.  You'll want to get your heartrate up for a solid 20 minutes three or four times a week - the more, and the longer the duration, the better.



Diabetes, like heart disease and arthritis, is an inflammatory disease.  As such it's important to visit the doctor regularly and monitor your LDL and HDL cholesterol.  LDL is low-density, or "Bad" cholesterol.  HDL is high-density, or "good" cholesterol.  You'll want to keep your LDL count below 130 and your HDL count above 50.  Green leafy vegetables like spinach or broccoli will help lower that LDL count.  You'll also want to avoid high cholesterol, high fat foods like red meat or any dairy products.  Those are sure to raise your LDL, and as that gets higher, you're more and more suceptible to diabetes.

As for raising your HDL, there is only one answer:  Exercise. Some studies have shown that certain mediterranean diets may help as well, but they're largely inconclusive.  The only answer, then, is to get to the gym or go out for a jog.  If you want to learn how to prevent diabetes, that's step one.

Once you've incorporated more fruits and vegetables into your diet and taken some red meat and ice cream out, it's time to look at what else is in your cupboard.  Yes, candy and sweets are generally bad for you, but some sweets are worse than others.  Check the ingredients in your cookies.  If it has high-fructose corn syrup, throw it away.  Then check your soda.  Corn syrup?  Toss it.  Check your catsup.  Check your crackers, your potato chips, your yogurt.  Check everything in your house and if it has corn syrup, throw it out.

After exercise and addition of fruits and vegetables to your diet, eliminating corn syrup is the next most important step on your journey of learning how to prevent diabetes.  It's a sweetener that's used in almost every pre-packaged product in America, and there are boatloads of compelling evidence that it's largely to blame for the explosion in diabetes cases over the past 35 years.  The medical community has caught on, and more folks are becoming aware of this additive, but not enough.  Not yet, anyway, and it's important for your own health that you become one of the enlightened.

Of course, you should also talk to your doctor about how to prevent diabetes.  Folks of certain ethnic backgrounds are more suceptible to diabetes than others, so make sure to talk about that.  Also be aware of your family history.  If a parent, or a grandparent has/had diabetes, that makes it more likely that you will as well.  So be healthy, be active, eat well, and be aware of what can cause this disease, and how to prevent it.