Self Care For Diabetes
- Oct 12, 2015
- 2 min read
Diet and exercise are key factors in determining one's health risks.
Both healthy eating and physical activity are important in the prevention of diabetes, as UNHEALTHY eating and physical INACTIVITY are both risk factors for the disease. In choosing to live a healthy lifestyle it would make sense that one would strive to protect their health from this disease. One would seek to prevent rather than cure.
The best way to seek prevention is through Self Care, self care is health care at home provided by you; Diet and Exercise are the two most important components.
Persons who fail to live a healthy lifestyle through self care may develop diabetes, forcing them to seek medical care. Once diagnosed with diabetes, he/she may be given medication to treat the disease.
After medical intervention the person must take steps to control blood sugar and prevent complications of the disease. It is important that the diabetic person provides this self-care to include them.
A new health study found that diabetics benefit more from diet and exercise than medication.
In the study done over 15 years, researchers found that diet and exercise work better than medication to prevent diabetes. The two drugs that are commonly used are metformin and insulin. The drugs are used alone or in combination to treat type 2 diabetes.
For the study the participants were overweight or obese and had elevated blood sugar. They were assigned at random either:
A lifestyle intervention program
850 milligrams of metformin twice dail
A placebo
Those in the lifestyle intervention program were placed on a low-fat, low-calorie diet plus 15 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise.
Result
Those on the lifestyle intervention program had a 58% lower risk than those on the placebo to develop diabetes. Those who took metformin were 31% less likely to have progressed to diabetes than those who took the placebo.
Healthy eating and physical activity are two important components of self care.
"Health care begins at home before the need to see a health professional, health care will continue at home after seeing one. Self Care is health care at home"
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