All About Diabetes

Smoking is dangerous to your health.” This slogan has been on cigarette packs for years and yet, people who smoke do not seem to realize the slogan has much truth in it. Cigarettes contain nicotine, the addictive substance which makes people want to smoke. Apart from it, cigarettes also contain thousands of chemicals that are harmful to the body.

While smoking is harmful to people in general, it poses more health hazards to people with diabetes. Smoking increases their risk of complications brought about by diabetes such as heart attack and stroke. Here are some tips to help people with diabetes break the smoking habit. (more…)

Quit smoking now and prevent further health risks. Not news for most but a recent study confirms the direct link of smoking cessation to the recovery of damaged arteries due to cigarettes. Although it may take more than a decade for the arteries to heal, Dr. Noor A. Jatoi of the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland pointed out that the adverse effects of smoking to the blood vessels are reversible. The findings supported studies showing that the risk of heart attack and stroke falls among smokers when they quit three to 20 years after, he said.

“Our study reinforces the message that smoking cessation is an important step smokers can take to enhance the quality and length of their lives,” Jatoi said. “The longer one stops smoking the better.” The study showed that smoking a single cigarette or exposure to “second-hand” smoke all lead to stiffer arteries, which eventually lead to high blood pressure. Jatoi’s research team found that the arterial stiffness parameters of ex-smokers showed some improvements after one to 10 years of cigarettes, but reached normal levels only after more than a decade.

Among the 150 current smokers, 136 ex-smokers and 268 nonsmokers in the study, current and ex-smokers of only one year had significantly narrowed arteries compared to nonsmokers, the team reported in the medical journal Hypertension. The ex-smokers were categorized as to how long they were off cigarettes-under 1 year, more than 1 but less than 10 years and more than 10 years, of smoking cessation, Jatoi explained.

Management of diabetes is different for everyone most especially for the elderly. However, being old is not an excuse to not participate actively in taking control of your diabetes. The Joslin Diabetes Center in the United States estimates that one out of every five people over the age of 60 has diabetes. The elderly are also more prone to complications of the disease. To avoid complications and to live your life fully even with diabetes, we offer tips on how to keep track of and control diabetes, even at the prime of your life. (more…)

Part 3 of Aging Gracefully with Diabetes

“Aging starts from the womb and ends in the tomb,” says Dr. delaVega. She relates that most of the time, what they see in the geriatrics clinic are already complicated cases of diabetes.”We need to nurture even healthy mothers, healthy pregnancies so that the child that comes out from the womb is healthy and leads a healthy life all throughout his life, towards adulthood and later as an older person.” Weight control, diet, exercise and positive outlook are factors that appear to be beneficial for both diabetes and aging. As always, making some basic lifestyle changes can help the elderly manage the disease and reduce the risk for further complications. (more…)

Being diabetic makes you at risk for stroke. A stroke occurs when blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted and brain tissues are damaged. Several studies have shown that people with diabetes are at a greater risk for stroke compared ko people without diabetes regardless of the number of risk factors they have. Poor management of blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol make diabetics prone to suffer and eventually die from stroke. Don’t wait for stroke to hit you. Empower yourself by heeding these tips to prevent stroke in diabetes. (more…)

Vanessa is distressed about her father who recently experienced a mini stroke attack, his second in a span of three years.  Her family didn’t make a big fuss at first since it was just a minor stroke.  After seeing a physician a couple times after the attack, his father returned to his old unhealthy lifestyle despite having been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes the year before.  The succeeding mild stroke, however, alarmed Vanessa’s father and the whole family. (more…)