A healthy and balanced diet can be as effective as medicine in managing and controlling diabetes, doctors said at an awareness meet on Friday.
Reducing stress, having adequate sleep and exercising are the other factors that are important in controlling the “chronic metabolic disease”, doctors said at the event to mark World Diabetes Day, which was observed on Friday.
A healthy diet will include good carbohydrates, fats and protein.
The doctors have said that they should be consumed in the right amount and not in extremes, as excess of anything is not good for health.
“A healthy diet is important in managing diabetes. A healthy diet will include healthy carbohydrates that have a lot of fibre from plants, healthy fats that have mono-unsaturated or polyunsaturated fats and high biological value protein. They should not be too high nor too low,” said Jeffrey Mechanick, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in the US.
Carbohydrates that do not spike blood sugar levels are better than other forms of carbohydrates, said doctors.
“The quality and quantity of carbohydrates consumed are also very important. Consuming low-glycemic carbohydrates like nuts and seeds that do not spike blood sugar levels is a good option,” said Agnes Siew Ling Tey, senior lead, clinical science and nutrition at the pharmaceutical company Abbott.
Mechanick highlighted that the management of diabetes no longer focuses on only managing the glucose levels in the bloodstream, but comprehensively on what can be the health impacts of diabetes.
“Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease. We can look at it in the old way or the new way. In the old way, we would focus mainly on glucose. The new way is to look at it more comprehensively. Not just sugar, but what are the complications of having high blood sugar, and even before you have diabetes, when someone may have insulin resistance,” Mechanick told Metro on the sidelines of the event.
“It can impact the kidneys, eyes and nerves,” said Mechanick.
“It’s only when the pancreas cannot make enough insulin, the sugar starts to go up. When they go up a little bit, we call it diabetes. When they go up a bit more, we call it Type 2 diabetes. In India, people go from pre-diabetes to Type 2 diabetes rather quickly,” he said.
According to the website of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Type 2 diabetes is “often preventable”.
Being overweight, not getting enough exercise, and genetics are among the factors leading to Type 2 diabetes, the WHO website states.
Influencers and several others advising people on a healthy diet on social media are often contrary to what science says, but common people often devour and follow that advice, said Mechanick.
He called for action to fill up this “knowledge gap”.
“The general populace is getting their information from non-scientists and non-doctors who are everywhere on social media. There is a need to plug these knowledge gaps. We have science-based information, but we do not have the awareness,” he said.
Shashank Joshi, an endocrinologist and diabetologist at Lilavati Hospital and Research Centre in Mumbai, said that screening the blood sugar levels from an early age can help.
“A man who is 25 years or older and has a waist circumference of more than 90cm should undergo screening. A woman who is 25 years or older and has a waist circumference of 80cm or more should undergo regular screening,” he said.