Diabetes: Dodge the Dangers

Diabetes is a rising pandemic in the world. Despite being one of the top ten richest countries in the world, with some of the best healthcare, America still holds one of the highest records of diabetes. In fact, of the top ten richest countries in the world, America has the fifth highest number of diabetics. This is, in large part, due to the fact that very few people understand what diabetes is, how you get it, and conversely how you can avoid it. Let us explain.

 

According to the CDC diabetes is “the condition in which the body does not properly process food for use as energy”. Every organ in your body has a job and it’s your pancreas’ job to make insulin. Insulin is a hormone used to help get glucose into cells within our bodies. When you have diabetes your body either cannot use the insulin, that your pancreas creates, properly, or it simply does not make enough insulin to handle the amount of glucose consumption. Glucose is found in most of the foods that we consume and without insulin it builds up in your body and can cause serious health problems.

There are two different types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that is genetic and often cannot be avoided. Type 2 diabetes on the other hand is caused most often by physical inactivity, obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, and family history of the disease. Although type 1 diabetes is less avoidable that type 2 diabetes, it is also far less prevalent accounting for only about 5% to 10% of all diabetes diagnosis. That means that type 2 diabetes which is for all intents and purposed preventable accounts for 90% to 95% of all diabetes diagnosis. That figure could easily be lowered if people understood the disease better.

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Preventing type 2 diabetes is as simple as controlling your glucose intake with a healthy diet, and maintaining a regular workout regimen. The more glucose you put into your system, the harder your pancreas has to work to supply your body with the insulin required to properly process it. The problem with this is that you can overwork your pancreas if you overload it by constantly consuming foods with high glucose content in large quantities. Once your pancreas becomes overworked it can shut down and stop producing insulin, which is when you develop type 2 diabetes. By the time you’ve developed it, there’s nothing you can do about it but manage it with a proper diet, exercise, and often times insulin injections. It will never go away and your body will never “learn” to handle glucose properly again; which is why it’s imperative to manage your diet and exercise before developing the disease.

Part of maintaining a healthy diet includes limiting your carbohydrates intake. While many foods do contain carbohydrates it’s important to know the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates to understand the effects that they have on your body. Simple carbohydrates, like the ones found in most brands of pasta, will quickly spike your blood sugar levels upon consumption and then just as quickly as your blood sugar rose it will fall, causing a legitimate crash that is felt throughout your body. Complex carbohydrates, like the ones found in potatoes and vegetables, work their way through your body at a slower pace and therefore gradually increase and decrease your blood sugar, keeping it fairly stable all day long. Obviously complex carbohydrates are the ones that you want to consume to maintain a healthy diet.

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Carbs are the main source of fuel for our bodies, and without it major organs, like the brain, kidney, and heart, would fail to function. Our muscles would also quickly become fatigued and our central nervous system would begin to shut down. Since they play such an important role in our bodies it is crucial to consume them, but simple carbs can actually be more damaging than rewarding to our systems. In fact, once a person becomes diabetic, complex carbohydrates are the only type that they are able to consume, and even then in very small quantities.

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One of the biggest problems that Americans have when it comes to glucose consumption is their obsession with all things pasta. Grain has always been largely incorporated in the American diet but since the introduction of the food pyramid in 1974 the over consumption has only risen. People read the pyramid and saw that grain was the largest aspect and therefore needed to be eaten the most, what they failed to attain from the visual was that the type of grain being eaten is key to your health. Processed white grain is horrendously unhealthy and while whole grain pasta options increase the nutritional value a bit, the problem of too many carbs has never really been addressed, let alone solved; until now.   

ISOPASTA is the ultimate low carb pasta option. It has only eleven grams of carbohydrates and of those, four of them are fiber based which specifically aids in the digestion process. That equates to just seven net grams of carbohydrates which is great news for diabetics, or anyone trying to minimize their glucose intake. Although carbohydrates do offer energy to the body, the majority of the energy offered in this pasta comes from the high protein content. This is because there are a whopping thirty grams of protein in every serving of ISOPASTA.

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When protein is digested it is broken down into amino acids that perform a variety of tasks within your body including: tissue repair, food digestion, and hormone creation. These amino acids are chemically comparable to glucose, the major difference being that they contain nitrogen. Your body must remove nitrogen from the amino acids in order for them to be used as energy. This process is in-depth, and time consuming, which means that the energy that protein gives you may come on slowly, but will last considerably longer than the energy found in, and produced by, carbohydrates. Since protein takes so long to turn into energy, it also efficiently stabilizes and maintains a healthy glucose level within your body which is ideal for a diabetic.

While both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are treatable, neither of them are curable, at this time. This is why balancing your diet and being active is so important. Taking care of yourself through diet, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle can help to prevent you from getting diabetes in the future. It’s better to maintain a mostly healthy diet with minimal restrictions now and avoid having to maintain a strict diet with extensive restrictions in the future. The health complications that come with diabetes are too great to risk to gamble with for a piece of cake and some pasta. Especially now that there are better options available out there.

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