Five steps to prevent diabetes! Keep up with diet and exercise

To effectively prevent diabetes, as long as you do these five things: scientific food control, reasonable exercise, regular screening, stable work and rest, regulating mood, and avoiding bad habits, you can reduce the risk of diabetes by 58% (WHO public research data). There is no need to be superstitious about various expensive sugar control health products.

There are actually quite a lot of opinions in the sugar control circle nowadays. One group advocates strictly cutting out refined sugar or even adopting the low-carbohydrate and ketogenic route. The short-term sugar control effect is indeed visible to the naked eye, but the endocrinology community generally believes that long-term ketogenesis may increase blood lipids and increase the metabolic burden on the kidneys. There is no need for ordinary people to endure this extreme model. I met a 29-year-old Internet operator in the past two years. His family has a history of diabetes. He weighs 180 pounds. His physical examination showed that his fasting blood sugar was 6.3mmol/L, which is the critical value of impaired glucose tolerance. He chose a more feasible "replacement priority" plan: he did not need to completely quit milk tea and cakes, but only needed to eat 1/3 of his daily white rice. I replaced white flour with whole grains such as brown rice and oats, and my daily refined sugar intake was controlled within 25g. When I drank milk tea, I chose three-thirds of the sugar without adding pearls. In the morning, I replaced the white porridge and steamed buns with oats and boiled eggs. With just a few adjustments, plus walking an extra 20 minutes after get off work every day, I lost 30 pounds in one year, and my blood sugar dropped directly to the normal range.

To be honest, I used to think that exercise required a fitness card and running for 30 minutes a day to be effective. Later, after asking an endocrinologist I knew well, I found out that there was no need to bother with it at all. Every hour you sit at work, you stand up to get a drink of water and stretch for two minutes. Don’t lie down to sleep directly after lunch. Walk around the corridor twice. Take the subway home after get off work. The effect of these fragmented activities is no worse than running for half an hour. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last year also confirmed that the difference between this kind of fragmented moderate-intensity activity in improving insulin sensitivity and continuous exercise is less than 10%, which is great news for people like us who sit in the office every day.

Oh, by the way, many people think they eat light and exercise, but why are their blood sugar levels still so high? The importance of screening is often overlooked. Don’t think that you are fine because you are young. My aunt was 42 years old last year. She seldom catches colds. The fasting blood sugar during physical examination at work was 5.4mmol/L, which seemed to be completely within the normal range. If I hadn’t urged her to do a glycosylated hemoglobin and glucose tolerance test, I would never have discovered that her blood sugar had reached 10.8mmol/L 2 hours after a meal, which was only 0.2 away from the diagnostic standard for diabetes. There are also differences in the recommendations of different guidelines. Some say that the general population over 40 years old can check their fasting blood sugar once a year. People with family history and BMI over 24 should start screening at the age of 30. There are also more cutting-edge guidelines that recommend that people over 25 years old have annual physical examinations for glycosylated hemoglobin. It only costs a few tens of dollars. It is worth buying it for peace of mind.

There is another influencing factor that is ignored by 90% of people, which is the effect of work, rest and emotion on blood sugar. I have a friend who is a director. She worked on a project and stayed up until two or three o'clock every day for three months. When she was stressed, she ate sweets to relieve stress. As a result, her fasting blood sugar soared to 7 during the physical examination. She was so scared that she thought she would have to take medicine for the rest of her life. After the project ended, she adjusted her schedule and tried to go to bed before 11 o'clock every day. On weekends, she went hiking with friends. After less than three months, her blood sugar dropped back to normal. The current research conclusions are also relatively consistent: if you sleep less than 6 hours a day, or sleep for more than 9 hours for a long time, the risk of diabetes will increase by about 2 times. Maintain a regular sleep of 7-8 hours, and don’t always push yourself to the edge of anxiety. This is more effective than eating any sugar-control foods.

Finally, I would like to mention a cliché: quit smoking and limit alcohol consumption. Many people think that smoking only damages the lungs and drinking alcohol only damages the liver. In fact, both the nicotine in cigarettes and the metabolized alcohol will directly damage the beta cells of the pancreas and affect the normal secretion of insulin. People who smoke and drink alcohol for a long time have a risk of diabetes that is more than 30% higher than ordinary people. Of course, you don’t have to go to extremes. It’s okay to drink a glass or two of red wine when friends get together occasionally. Just don’t drink heavily and smoke cigarettes every day.

In fact, after all, it is really not difficult to prevent diabetes. You don’t have to buy those sugar-control health products that cost hundreds of dollars, and you don’t have to force yourself to live like an ascetic. Just do these little daily things well, which is better than anything else. Don’t panic if your blood sugar is really high. If you detect it early and adjust it early, most people with impaired glucose tolerance can return to normal.