Foods to Avoid for Diabetes – Foods That Can Spoil Your Diabetes Medications
If you have diabetes (formally ‘diabetes mellitus’) then your doctor should have helped you to devise and eating plan that will lessen symptoms of diabetes and work with rather than against the medication you are taking. However this diet plan will not likely cover every type of food, and understanding why a certain diet works and how diabetes effects your body can help you to make informed decisions of your own outside of the diet. Furthermore it can help you to feel more involved in the procedure and more invested once you know the whys behind what you are doing.
Diabetes is a condition caused by an excess of glucose in your blood. This occurs due to other problems with the body’s insulin – insulin being the hormone that instructs the body to turn glucose into energy. In a type one diabetic the insulin simply is not being produced enough due to damage to the pancreas (usually caused by the individual’s own immune system) while in a type two it is due to the body becoming insensitive to the insulin it does produce. This then results in extra glucose which can then cause various other problems to the body – damaging the nerves and causing other complications. Meanwhile the lack of insulin itself can also cause difficulties leaving the patient unable to convert their glucose into energy. Doctors will treat this condition with anti-diabetic drugs including insulin to replace the missing insulin in the blood and thereby use the spare glucose.
A good diet for diabetics then should avoid certain foods. Obviously these are anything that contain more glucose as these will simply counter the positive effects of the insulin. This includes all carbs, particularly ‘simple’ carbs involving sugar such as cakes, chocolate and sweets. Some carbs will need to be consumed to maintain basic energy levels but these should be kept to a minimum and should be complex in form such as bread or wheat.
Other foods that a diabetic patient should be careful with are those that mimic the effects of insulin such as garlic, cucumber, raw green vegetables and soybean. These foods obviously can be great for someone with diabetes as they will further lower the body’s glucose. The only danger however is that if the patient is already taking insulin, they could then accidentally overdose by driving out all the spare glucose in their body. This is particularly dangerous as some nerve damage caused by diabetes (diabetic neuropathy) can cause damage to the autonomous nervous system (autonomous neuropathy) which can in turn lead to ‘hypoglycaemia unawareness’ which is a condition characterised by an inability to tell when the body is low on blood sugar. If you suffer from this and eat too many anti-glucose foods along with your insulin you may then cause yourself to become hypoclycaemic without even noticing it. This is particularly the case with the herb gymnema which many diabetic sufferers take as a dietary supplement to lower glucose levels. If you are going to begin any course aimed at lowering blood sugar you should first consult with your doctor.
Similarly you should avoid foods that will raise your cholesterol as diabetics are susceptible to high cholesterol. This means avoiding salts and saturated fats which can build up to cause ‘arterial plaque’ and interrupt blood flow. For this reason you should avoid such foods as egg yolks, fatty meats, cheese and full-fat dairy products.
While avoiding all these foods you can also combat some of the effects of diabetes by eating a diet that is high in minerals and vitamins and includes lots of fibre to continually flush the system improving cholesterol and clearing out excess glucose.
Source: Health Guidance
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