Type 2 diabetes: treatment methods, diet

Diabetes is a scourge of the modern world, a problem of all ages, countries and peoples. Why diabetes occurs, how to properly control it?

Today, diabetes mellitus is in third place among the causes of mortality (second only to cardiovascular pathology and oncology), and therefore the fight against this problem in many countries is at the state level. Effective blood sugar control can minimize and even prevent many complications of diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes: where?

The causes of diabetes are a complex of factors, some of which can be controlled. Of course, risk factors such as genetic predisposition, age or female gender cannot be influenced. However, you can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by changing modifiable factors, including:

• obesity;
• low physical activity (lack of exercise);
• stress;
• unbalanced diet (with a high content of sweets and foods containing a lot of trans fats);
• bad habits;
• taking certain medications (thiazides, glucocorticosteroids, atypical antipsychotics, statins and beta-blockers);
• some diseases (glucagonoma, hyperthyroidism , acromegaly, pheochromocytoma, Cushing’s syndrome). 

Diabetes mellitus: medication

At the first stage, treatment of diabetes, in addition to recommendations for lifestyle modification (diet, exercise, etc.), as a rule, includes the use of metformin. This is a sugar-lowering drug that is well tolerated by most patients and reduces the risk of vascular complications that diabetes leads to. In addition, sulfonylureas, glitazones, clayides, acarbose, incretin mimetics, dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitors, and combinations thereof can be used. Combination therapy is recommended in cases of insufficient effect of monotherapy (as a rule, a few years after the diagnosis and in severe cases).

With the inefficiency of even the maximum allowable doses of sugar-lowering drugs and diet therapy, if necessary, any surgical interventions are necessary, and with the development of ketoacidosis, a transfer to insulin therapy is indicated. Insulin is prescribed exclusively by the attending physician individually.

Diabetes mellitus: diet therapy

Dietary nutrition for diabetes is no less important than drug therapy. The main principles of diet therapy to control diabetes are the following:

• balanced fractional nutrition (in small portions, 6 times a day);
• low-calorie diet for obesity (not more than 1800 kcal per day);
• limiting the intake of easily digestible (quick, simple) carbohydrates (sugar, honey, sweets, fruit juices and sugary drinks, jams, etc.);
• restriction in the diet of saturated fats at least not more than 10% (fatty meat, fast food, fatty dairy and sour-milk products);
• consumption of 20 to 40 g of fiber daily (cereals, legumes, nuts, apples, pears, blueberries, etc.);
• restriction of salt intake (maximum 3 g per day);
• daily protein intake should be at least 0.8-1 g per kilogram of body weight (patients with kidney pathologies are an exception);
• refusal to drink alcohol;
• a sufficient content of vitamins and minerals in the daily diet (during the spring and winter, the use of multivitamin preparations is recommended).

The effectiveness of diet therapy can be significantly increased with daily dosed physical activity and stress control. Remember, diabetes is not a sentence, it can be controlled!