How to Control Diabetes

How to control diabetes depends on each individual case. Your health care team will work out the best plan for you. This page will give you a few guidelines on what you may be able to expect.

While a healthy diet helps a lot in Type 1 diabetes, it can never be controlled by diet alone. Type 2 however, can often be controlled very well, by modifying your diet.

A good diabetic diet is a healthy diet for everyone. If you have a newly diagnosed diabetic in the family, it might be a good idea to modify the entire family's way of eating.

A good balanced diabetic meal plan consists of foods low in sugar, fat and salt – the same kind of diet recommended for non-diabetics.

Nutritional supplements can also be used to help with diabetes management and blood sugar level management.

For more information about nutritional supplements visit the Nutrition in a Shake Website.

Controlling diabetes with insulin

If you are a type 1 diabetic you will always need insulin to control your blood sugar levels. Modifying the way you eat and the amount of exercise you get will help but, because the pancreas produces no insulin at all, injections are the only way to go.

If you are a type 2 diabetic you may also be treated with insulin though it's not always necessary. You could be managed by diet and exercise alone, or you may also need an oral medication such as Metformin or Glimepiride.

Controlling diabetes with exercise

No matter which type of diabetes you have, exercise is always going to be recommended. During exercise your muscles need more energy to perform well and therefore use more glucose, which lowers the level in your blood.

Another great advantage of exercise is that it helps to keep your weight under control. This is very important if you want to avoid complications such as heart attacks and strokes.

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