World Diabetes Day

Salam,

14th November is the World Diabetes Day. For many years, each country, each hospital, and NGOs in the world did campaign for public on Diabetes. The campaign was done well with intention to provide information and awareness for the public. But, the numbers of people having diabetes grows over the year and a lot of money was spent for diabetes treatment.

Diabetes is a slow and silent killer. The complication of diseases due to diabetes takes long term period of progression. Diabetes cannot be cure and there's no single treatment or medicine to cure diabetes. But, diabetes can be control with a lifestyle therapy.

Complication of Diabetes

Lifestyle therapy for diabetes patient involve in maintain ideal body weight, control and maintain blood pressure, healthy eating and exercise. 

When patient was diagnosed with diabetes, the things that come across their mind are:

• What can i eat after this?
• How much that i can eat?
• Can i take sugar?

For diabetes patient, the food that will trigger their blood sugar comes from Carbohydrate (CHO) foods. There's 2 types of  CHO:

• Simple - will raise the blood sugar rapidly
• Complex - will raise the blood sugar slowly with moderate amount of consumption.

 Simple CHO comes from refined sugar, honey, jem, sweetened foods and drinks, fruit and milk. While Complex CHO comes from Grain, Cereal & Cereal products and also from starchy vegetables.

Diabetic patients need to distribute their CHO foods equally throughout the day because it's help to keep the blood sugar patterns evenly. 

Fiber will help diabetic patient to keep their blood sugar evenly. Fiber can be found in green leafy vegetables, fruit and grains. It is encourage for diabetic patients to consume 1-2 cups of green leafy vegetables or ulam per meal.

Remember that, only 2 servings of fruits per day is allow for diabetic patient (1 serving for Lunch and 1 serving for Dinner) and same goes as milk. It is recommended to take Low Fat Milk or Skimmed Milk for diabetic patient.

For a good control blood sugar diabetic patient, a serving of sugar and products can be consider for them while for the poor control blood sugar diabetic patient, it is not advisable for them to consume sugar and products until they manage to control their blood sugar level.

For the simplest way to remember the concept of eating for diabetic patient, kindly see the picture below

Distribute CHO equally and have regular meal timing

3 major component in managing diabetes: healthy eating, exercise and medicine