Diabetes and Fats

How Diabetes and Fats are inter linked. Read This to know how it may harm you

You know what diabetics is, right? Yes, this is a disease where the patient have more sugar in blood. When you take sugar or carbohydrate like rice, milk, yogurt, ice cream, bread, crackers and cereal, these food give sugar in the blood. Now this sugar is needed by your body for giving you energy. But in diabetic, this sugar cannot get transfered to the cells and thus cells get less carbohydrate. One of two causes generally occurs.

One is that the hormone , Insulin which is responsible to make the sugar transport from blood to cells, get less secreted (Insulin is less secreted) from the factory where it is made. This is called Type 1 Diabetes mellitus.

Another cause is that, Insulin is secreted in normal amount or in more amount but the sugar can get linked to the cells. Actually, after the insulin get in work, sugar in blood get attached to kind of receptor that are present in cells. Then, this sugar get inside the cells via these receptors and be used by the cells for making energy. Latter form is Type 2 Diabetes mellitus.

Whatever the type, the sugar get increased in blood and due to the presence of so much sugar, whole body get affected. Now the management of this disease is complex. There are several type of management. But apart from medicines that can be used in diabetes (should be prescribed by doctors after physical examination), what you can immediately do, is modification of your diet. This diet management is very useful and effective in keeping diabetes under control.

In this article, I elaborate the relationship of diabetic and Fat intake. Usually, there is no direct link between fats and diabetes. Fats directly do not affect diabetes. But, there is an increased chance of heart diseases due to which intake of fat has to be measured. But Why diabetes increases cardiovascular diseases? Increased sugar in the blood damages the vessel wall and nerves that control heart. This causes later complication of cardiovascular system leading to different diseases. So, in a nutshell, the diabetics has increased chance of cardiovascular diseases and fats can aggravate that.

Now, fats are of two kinds. In common language, good fats and bad fats. In scientific language, it is called Unsaturated fats and Saturated fats respectively. They can help to maintain the ‘good cholesterol’ (high-density lipoprotein or HDL) in the body. HDL carries cholesterol away from the cells and back to the liver, where it’s either broken down or passed out of the body as a waste product.Thus, fats do not get stored or can damage other structures like vessels.

Polyunsaturated fats are further divided into Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. Most dietary polyunsaturated fat is in the form of Omega 6, found in sunflower, safflower, corn, groundnut and soya oils. Oily fish, flax seeds, walnuts, eggs and canola oil is a good source of omega 3 oils.

And those food that contains Saturated fats or bad fats are

1. Dairy products: Milk, butter, cream, ghee, and cheese.
2. Meat: Beef (including beef fat or tallow), lamb, goat, pork (including pork fat or lard), and poultry (with skin).
3. Oils: Palm and palm kernel oils, coconut oil, hydrogenated oils, partially hydrogenated oils, and stick margarine.

The above three points have to be avoided. 

But remember, in diabetes, the patient should take low carbohydrate high fibre diet.  High fiber diets may includes

• Fruits. Fiber-rich fruits include: bananas, oranges, apples, mangoes, strawberries, raspberries.
• Vegetables. Generally, the darker the color, the higher the fiber content.

There are other fibre containing foods which can keep diabetes under control.

Keep in your mind, along side, taking of medicines is very important. Type 1 diabetes is more riskier than type 2. Taking insulin injection in case of type 1 or taking drugs like metformin in case type 2 in right time is the most important measures. Apart from this, as I have mentioned above the food habits specially that of fatty food, is another important measures. One thing is that, regular check up of Fasting Blood Glucose and Random Blood Glucose. Also keep track on your blood pressure. Regular exercise is very helpful in type 2.

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