The Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) on the 18th of July 2017 released a report which states that more than 100 million adults in the country are living with diabetes or pre-diabetes. To break this further, nearly 9.4% of the population have diabetes and another about 8% have pre-diabetes and if not treated or attended to, would end up in Type 2 diabetes just within five years. It is also important to note that diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the country.

How does one manage diabetes?
One of the primary reasons for a person to get diabetes in the first place is due to lifestyle changes. Erratic working hours and eating habits (more so consuming junk food and canned food) certainly increase the risk of a person getting diabetes. Here are some basic lifestyle and dietary changes that one can make in order to manage diabetes.

Follow the medications
It is imperative that you do not take this condition lightly. People with diabetes are known to hit extremities in their blood sugar levels. The only way to curtail this situation is to be meticulous with your medication. If the doctor tells you to take a medicine or insulin at a particular time, you have to take it regularly. For example, those who are insulin-dependent should be injecting insulin a minimum of 20-30 minutes before their food intake. However, not many follow this despite understanding that it is important to give time for the insulin to act on their body.

Follow healthy eating
Try not to have large portions of food or perhaps it is best not to stick to the traditional three meals a day but instead opt for 6-7 meals a day. However, the sum total of all the meals you consume should be equal to the traditional three meals or around 2400 calories a day. However, if your doctor has fixed a specific calorie count, ensure to stick to it but break your meals down.

In addition to the above, just by stopping the consumption of direct or indirect sugar, sweetened beverage, and fried foods, one reduces the risk of high sugar levels.

Monitor your blood sugar levels
It is important that you closely monitor your blood sugar levels for the following crucial reasons:

• To ascertain if the medicines that you consume really work for you
• To understand if it’s your fasting sugar level or the post meal blood sugars are high or low
• To understand the volatility of the sugar levels – i.e. high and low blood sugar levels
• To help the doctor and you to plan your medication better in the future. This also helps the doctor to adjust your nutrition intake and make adjustments if any.
• Through such tests, the other parameters like blood pressure levels, cholesterol, urea and creatinine levels can be known and the doctor would be able to figure the course of action

Healthy lifestyle changes
Every diabetic should understand the importance of adopting new lifestyle habits. One must start with regular exercising like walking, cycling, yoga or swimming. Doing so will help your body become healthy.

With all the above dietary and lifestyle changes, one can easily manage diabetes.