5 Foods Type 2 Diabetics Should Avoid
If you or someone you know is a type 2 diabetic, it’s necessary to follow a strict diet to prevent the condition from worsening. Along with medications, following a balanced and nutritious diet and avoiding some foods that can be harmful can help manage the condition and reduce the risk of other health issues associated with the disease. Here are some foods to avoid for people with type 2 diabetes:
- Foods containing trans-fat
These top the list of foods to avoid with type 2 diabetes. Foods with trans-fat are harmful to overall health, and they also contribute to weight gain, increasing the risk of obesity and further complications for diabetics. Foods like peanut butter, bread spreads, crackers, muffins, cookies, and other baked goods contain trans-fat as it is used as a preservative. - Packaged snacks
Many foods with saturated- or trans-fat increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, and they can also contribute to cardiovascular diseases, despite an individual’s age. Controlling the intake of sugar can reduce your risk of developing heart diseases. This is because it lowers common factors like obesity, high triglyceride and blood pressure levels, and inflammation, which cause heart disease. Packaged snacks like wafers, pretzels, crackers, and cheese puffs are some foods to avoid with type 2 diabetes, and reaching for those to satiate mid-meal hunger pangs can be harmful to diabetics. - Sweeteners
At times, processed carbs and sugar lead to acne and spots on your skin. This happens when the food items you’re consuming are high on the glycemic index as they lead to inflammation, which affects skin health. These food items usually spike blood pressure as well as insulin levels in the body, and avoiding sweeteners like honey, caramel, maple syrup, and fruit jams reduces the risk of developing acne. - Fatty and flavored dairy products
Diabetes is a hereditary disease that might affect you if someone in your family already has it. So, if you follow a balanced diet and do not eat the foods harmful for type 2 diabetics, like fruit-flavored yogurt and flavored dairy products, you can reduce the risk of worsening the condition. Such food items can cause the insulin or blood sugar levels to shoot up, so it’s best to keep them off your plate. - Salty and junk food
Many food items that cause or increase the risk of type-2 diabetes are often labeled as foods that increase the risk of cancer as well. Junk food is the most dangerous food to avoid with type 2 diabetes, and the most harmful among these are French fries and sugary and carbonated beverages like fruit sodas and coke. These have the most number of unnecessary carbs, preservatives, and additives harmful to health.
Following a healthy diet and staying off fast-food, flavored drinks, and food with processed carbs can prevent the condition from worsening and leading to a severe case of type-2 diabetes.