Discovering how to prevent diabetes with natural remedies is a big challenge, but it is not an impossibility. Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, involves multiple complex mechanisms and processes in the body and in behavior. But for a person who wants to know how to avoid diabetes in the first place, the information on natural remedies and treatments on which you can take action now is already available.
What Causes Diabetes
The causes of diabetes that you can attack using natural approaches include:
· Chronic inflammation
· Oxidative stress and cellular aging
· Loss of essential nutrients
Research has shown that obesity and certain environmental pollutants from traffic can increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and/or experiencing acute serious diabetic complications, including heart attacks.
Why? Partly because obesity and many types of toxic chemicals and pollutants create oxidative stress in the body and cause inflammatory responses in the immune system. The biology of inflammation leads to increased resistance to the normal effects that insulin ought to be able to initiate, so that glucose from digested foods is taken up properly from the bloodstream. Your body sends out insulin to do its job, but it cannot get its message through to the cells. Your blood sugar then rises.
Natural Remedies for Diabetes
Most of the preventive natural strategies for diabetes fall into one of those three categories above. As a result, many of the most helpful nutrients are antioxidants that can block the adverse effects of oxidative stress on cells and reduce inflammation. These include option for which there is scientific evidence, such as:
· Omega-3 fatty acids
· Beta-carotene
· Resveratrol
· Quercetin
· Alpha-lipoic acid
· Curcumin
Both alpha-lipoic acid and curcumin have also been shown to reduce diabetic nerve pain that people with poorly controlled diabetes often develop as a complication. Neuropathic pain is associated with searing pain and numbness in diabetic feet and hands. Enhanced forms of curcumin may also protect against damage to small blood vessels including those in the eye that can lead to the diabetic complication of retinopathy.
Nutrients that diabetics can lose in the urine from effects of high blood sugar levels include zinc and magnesium, minerals that you need to maintain a healthy immune system and heart.
Is it that simple – just take a few pills? No. You still have to look at diet, activity level, and environment to get the best handle on how to prevent diabetes. Look at it this way – you can try to treat a cold once you catch it – or you can stay away from a crowded indoor setting and wash your hands a lot.
Eating a healthier diet, increasing activity levels, and reducing environmental chemical exposures are like avoiding exposures to cold “germs.” Diabetes is not a simple infectious disease. However, prevention requires changes in behavior for most health conditions, infectious or otherwise. Taking natural remedies can sometimes shorten a cold, but wouldn’t you rather not catch it in the first place?
Similarly, in diabetes, your lifestyle activates whatever genetic risks you might have. Change your lifestyle and reduce your risk of getting diabetes. As insurance, think about adding some of the natural remedies listed here to boost your cells’ protection from damage even if your genes try to express their “inner diabetic” side.
