7 Ways prevent deabetes

It is estimated that 70 percent of people with prediabetes will eventually have their condition worsen to the point of becoming type 2 diabetes. For those who don't know, prediabetes refers to a situation in which a person struggles with abnormally high blood sugar. However, it's not yet relatively high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.

In other words, a prediabetic person is at a significantly increased risk of diabetes, seeing as even a slight increase in blood sugar at that point is enough to tip the scales. Fortunately, if you're worried about the onset of diabetes or even prediabetes, there are quite a few minor tweaks you can make to your lifestyle to lessen your risk.

Here are just a few ways you can take an active role in preventing diabetes.

1. Make Adjustments To Your Diet

When it comes to increasing the risk factors associated with diabetes, two of the biggest culprits are foods that contain large amounts of sugar or refined carbs. Suppose you're looking to decrease your risk of developing diabetes or even live a healthier lifestyle in general. In that case, the first step should always be to either reduce or completely cut sugar and refined carbs from your diet.

So what makes these particular food ingredients so harmful, you may ask?

When you eat foods abundant in refined carbs and sugar, your body breaks these foods down quickly into sugar molecules, which are then rapidly absorbed into your body's bloodstream. This can cause your blood sugar to spike dramatically, which in turn lowers your body's sensitivity to the hormone insulin, prompting your body to create more insulin to compensate. These increasing sugar and insulin levels in your body can very easily lead to prediabetes or even to diabetes itself. To reduce the risk, you may want to look into some healthier and more balanced food options.

2. Drink Plenty of Water

Reducing the risk of diabetes isn't only limited to what you eat; what you drink also plays an important role. More specifically, one of the best ways to prevent diabetes is to drink plenty of water as your primary source of hydration. In addition to being the most natural and healthy choice of beverage available to you, water also contains none of the added sugar and calories that you can find in most brand-name soft drinks and sodas.

In addition to increasing your risk for developing prediabetes or diabetes, consuming large amounts of soda may also lead to other diabetes-related conditions, such as latent autoimmune diabetes of adults, otherwise known as LADA. According to some studies, water may even help your body by keeping blood sugar levels under control and assisting with insulin sensitivity.

3. Get Plenty of Exercises

If you've hung around this channel long enough, chances are you already know that eating and drinking clean is only half of what makes up a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

So what's the other half?

Lots and lots of regular exercises and physical activity. When you exercise, it helps your body's cells by assisting them in maintaining their sensitivity to insulin, which means that less insulin will be required to process the sugar in your bloodstream and thus keep your body's blood sugar at manageable levels. Based on the results of one study into the effects that exercise has on the body insulin response, it was discovered that people should be working out enough to burn at least two a thousand calories every week to maximize their diabetes preventing potential. That's a little under three hundred calories per day, so maybe you should consider taking the stairs instead of the elevator for a while?

4. Lose Some Extra Weight

While not everyone who develops type 2 diabetes is overweight or obese, most of those people are. Extra weight around the midsection or the abdomen, otherwise known as visceral fat, is a known warning sign regarding the risk factors for developing prediabetes.

This ties in with the previous point about exercise, but if you want to lessen your risk factor for diabetes or prediabetes, it might not hurt to work yourself down to a more healthy weight. While even the smallest amount of weight loss will help to reduce your risk somewhat, studies have indicated that the more weight you lose, the more your risk of diabetes will go down as well. As long as you're eating right, exercising regularly, and drinking plenty of water, you should begin to see some beneficial results in no time.

5. Eat More Fiber

When it comes to maintaining a healthy diet, what you choose to include in your daily meal plan is just as important as what you exclude. In addition to cutting out refined carbs and sugar from your diet, you may also want to increase your fiber intake as well. Dietary fiber can be sorted into two categories: soluble and insoluble. Out of these two varieties, soluble fiber is beneficial for protecting your body against diabetes due to its effect on your blood sugar. Soluble fiber absorbs water, forming a gel-like substance in your digestive system that gradually slows the ability of sugar to travel into your bloodstream.

6. Get More Vitamin D

In addition to fiber, Vitamin D is another essential nutrient that can positively impact your blood sugar levels. The people who receive the highest amounts of vitamin D in their systems had their risk of developing type 2 diabetes lowered by a whopping 43 percent. If you're interested in working a higher vitamin D intake into your diet, try incorporating fatty fish such as salmon into your diet or even a spoonful of cod liver oil. Additionally, exposure to sunlight can also increase vitamin D levels in your bloodstream, so another healthy option might be to slather on some sunscreen and go for a walk outside. Just remember not to overdo it; sunburns still hurt, after all.

7. Drink Coffee or Tea

While water should remain your primary beverage of choice and the main source of hydration for your body, the occasional cup of coffee or tea might also help protect your body against the risk of diabetes. Drinking coffee or tea regularly was found to significantly reduce the likeliness of diabetes, with regular coffee or tea drinkers having their risk of type 2 diabetes decreased by anywhere between 8 and 54 percent. Among some of the other benefits found within these caffeinated drinks, coffee and tea both contain unique antioxidants known as polyphenols, which can also help to protect your body against the effects of diabetes. For many people, a piping hot cup of coffee or tea is the best part of waking up in the morning; with this in mind, the fact that it can also positively impact your physical health.